One rainy morning a week ago, I hear a beautiful bird song that I cannot quite identify. It’s longish, sweet and melodic. From in the bedroom, I glance over at the feeders and there’s the usual ...

Invasive parasites in the Galápagos Islands may leave some Darwin’s tree finches singing the blues. The nonnative Philornis downsi fly infests the birds’ nests and lays its eggs there. Fly larvae ...

Male zebra finches learn their song by imitating conspecifics. To stand out in the crowd, each male develops its own unique song. Because of this individual-specific song, it was long assumed that ...

The songs of zebra finches, long used as a model for how humans learn to use speech, get a little sloppy after a few drinks, a new study finds.... Scientists Discover That Drunk Birds Sing Like Drunks ...

The songs of 102 male House Finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) were sampled in southern California. Additionally, songs were induced with testosterone in 10 captive females. Females sang only 1 or 2 ...

A familiar bird arrives at the feeder, a little smaller than a sparrow, lighter and more nimble. It is a discrete maternal color, a streaky mix of pale and brownish-gray, well-suited to sit upon an ...

The beaks of Darwin's medium ground finches can evolve to crush the shells of hard seeds. Credit: Andrew Hendry They say that hindsight is 20/20, and though the theory of ecological speciation—which ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The finches that call Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands home are ...

Birds create songs by moving muscles in their vocal organs to vibrate air passing through their tissues, and new research shows that these muscles act in concert to create sound. Scientists describe ...