Re: Rescued/Released Baby Birds Learn Songs?
Ellen Paul (epaul@dclink.com)
Tue, 02 Jun 1998 13:41:05 -0700
Great question - I don't really have much in the way of answers, other
than what I wrote before about song development and recognition. The
females respond selectively to the songs of certain males with wing
strokes - or it may even be that they encourage singing with the wing
strokes. Approximately 94% of the male songs in the experiment by West
and King (1988) produced no response in the females. On average, a
single wing stroke occurs for every 100 songs. So, the male cowbirds
are encouraged to sing the songs females prefer. And, of course, the
females mate preferentially with those males who have the right song.
How was the experiment carried out? Males raised in accoustic isolation
who were later houses with adult female cowbirds of one of two cowbird
subspecies developed songs appropriate to that subspecies, even though
all the males were of only one of the subspecies.
If I find any information about other experiments, I'll post it.
King, A.P. and M.J. West. 1983. Epigenesis of cowbird song - a joint
endeavour of males and females. Nature 305: 704-706.
West, M.J. and A.P. Knox. 1988. Female visual displays affect the
development of male song in the cowbirds. Nature 334:244-246.
West, M.J., A.P. King, and D.H. Eastzer. 1981. The cowbird: Relections
on development from an unlikely source. Am. Sci. 69:56066.
Ellen Paul
Chevy Chase, Md
epaul@dclink.com
mdosprey@ARI.Net wrote:
>
> This brings up a question I have about cowbirds and other singing brood
> parasites. How do they know their own species by sight or sound, and how do
> they learn their song?
>
> Chris Taylor
--
Ellen Paul Chevy Chase, Maryland Mailto:epaul@dclink.com