• Question: why and how to birds sing

    Asked by yoshy to Rupert on 6 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by claralores14, adpdp2004, Enrique2004, Katya, ben.
    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      Mainly birds sing for two reasons:
      1) to defend a territory (somewhere to feed and bring up their young)
      2) to attract a mate
      some birds sing for both reasons, some for just one. Mainly it’s just the males that sing. Generally speaking the more colourful a bird is the less complicated its song – and the more complicated the song, the less colourful/amazing it looks.
      Here’s a short video I took of a corn bunting singing – sorry it’s a bit out of focus!

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