Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:48:13 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Bill Ellis Subject: Avian Adaptation to Manmade Habitat In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit While staying in a hotel in a downtown city area, I constantly heard traffic going by, hitting a loose grate in the street. I also noticed that sometimes the jangle of the grate occurred when there was no traffic. Then I noticed - a starling was mimicking the sound very accurately! Adaptation - but for what benefit? Female starlings - street smart mate available! Bill Ellis Eldersburg Carroll County Bird Club -----Original Message----- From: Maryland Birds & Birding - Philip Webre Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 12:52 PM City Birds Hit the High Notes Even birds, it seems, sometimes need to raise their voices to be heard over the din of the city. Hans Slabbekoorn and Margriet Peet of Leiden University in the Netherlands studied the mating songs of a species of bird known as the great titmouse living in different parts of the Dutch city of Leiden. Male birds living in the noisier parts of the city tended to sing higher notes, which other birds can hear more easily above the racket around them, than their counterparts in the quieter parts of the city, the researchers found. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================