Hello and welcome to the podcast.

This is the Science of Birds.

I am your host, Ivan Philipson.

The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted, guided exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners.

This episode, which is number 50, is all about female bird song.

Songs are one of the things we love most about birds.

They define the soundscapes of the things we love most about birds. They define the sound escapes of the natural world.

In tropical regions, there are birds singing at pretty much any time of year.

Further from the equator, in temperate ecosystems, most of the singing occurs only during the warm months of spring and summer.

Even though humans have been surrounded by singing birds for millions of years, we still have some misconceptions about bird song.

Today's episode is about a misconception of sex differences in birds.

Of who sings and who doesn't. If you were born sometime in the last 100 years, and I suspect you were,

there's a good chance you were taught that only male birds sing.

That's certainly what I was taught.

We were told that males sing to attract females.

You might also recall learning that both the songs and colorful plumages of males evolved through

the process of sexual selection. Charles Darwin, good old Chuck E. came up with the idea that sexual selection is the process by which songs and fancy plumage evolved in the first place.

While most of that may be true, the part about only males singing definitely isn't.

Only in recent decades have ornithologists come to realize how common it is for

females to sing.

It's taken over 150 years since Darwin's time for scientists to finally appreciate the

importance of female birdsong.

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