Footage Proves Female Songbirds Can Sing

Name: Footage Proves Female Songbirds Can Sing
Uploaded: 2023-05-03T00:00:00+00:00
Duration: 2 min 33 s
Description: It was once thought that only male songbirds were capable of song. However, in 64 percent of all songbird species, the females sing. Professor Naomi Langmore first made this discovery by recording a female fairy-wren singing to defend her territory.

Before you watch videos on this webpage, please take a moment to review and respond below:

By clicking “Accept,” you agree that WNET and its affiliates (“The WNET Group”) can share your video viewing activity with third parties as set out in our Privacy Policy in order to facilitate use of our sites and enrich your online experience. Your consent to such sharing is valid for two years or until you withdraw your consent by removing the associated browser cookie. To learn more about how we use cookies on our sites and how to revise your cookie settings, please visit the “Cookies” section of our Privacy Policy. If you click “Decline,” we will not share your individual viewing activity, but may still share aggregated and/or anonymized viewing activity in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

It was once thought that only male songbirds were capable of song. However, in 64 percent of all songbird species, the females sing. Professor Naomi Langmore first made this discovery by recording a female fairy-wren singing to defend her territory.

Features

Male Lyrebird Manipulates Female Into Mating

Up to now, scientists had thought that song was an honest signal from the male.

Young David Attenborough Records First Lemur Sounds

In 1960, David Attenborough captured the first-ever audio of Madagascar’s largest lemur.

Attenborough’s Wonder of Song

David Attenborough presents seven of the most remarkable animal songs found in nature.

TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT

- [David] Professor Naomi Langmore was the scientist who made our fairy wren recording.

She was one of the first to realize the significance of female song.

A male fairy wren with glorious iridescent blue and striking black plumage, rather difficult to miss.

(fairy wrens singing) So where is the female?

Well, not at the top of a perch like a male, but instead, here, hiding in the bushes.

She is comparatively rather dull, a drab brown.

- Because females are often less flashy and eye-catching than males, it's very easy to miss female song.

(fairy wren singing) - [David] But sing, she does.

(fairy wren singing) Just as male song is used in competition with other males, female song seems to be in competition with other females.

But why didn't we hear her before now?

Is it really just because she's less noticeable than the male?

- In the history of the study of birdsong, most research was done in the northern hemisphere, in Europe and North America, and in those regions, female song is comparatively rare.

And so researchers working in those regions generalized from what they were observing in their local birds and assumed that male song was the norm throughout the world.

- [David] A male-biased view of birdsong had, to an extent, deafness to female song.

- So when I was doing my research, it was basically assumed that it's the male that sings and the female doesn't.

Maybe that's because most of the scientists were males who were studying birdsong.

- But now there's a new generation of female scientists coming through, studying bird song all around the world, and discovering that actually female song is very common and occurs in more species than not.

- And it's only now that they're properly being heard.

Naomi and her colleagues have discovered that in 64% of all songbird species, females sing, and that in the distant past, the ancestors of all songbirds would have had both male and female singers.

(birds singing)

Features

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Connect on Social