Their first vocalizations help young zebra finch males to memorize the songs of adults. When babies learn to talk or birds learn to sing, the same principle applies: listen and then imitate. This is ...

We all know the adage, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." As we age, our ability to learn new skills, like mastering a foreign language or picking up a musical instrument, seems to fade. The ...

Countless YouTube videos feature pet birds singing and talking to their owners. Although it may seem like simple mimicry, ...

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 ...

A new study on songbirds sheds light on the power of social interaction to facilitate learning, insights that potentially apply to human development. The findings, published in Proceedings of the ...

Many bird species fly together with conspecifics in flocks to safely cover flight distances. To avoid collisions with each other and head in the same direction, flock members have to communicate and ...

Many bird species fly together with conspecifics in flocks to safely cover flight distances. To avoid collisions with each other and head in the same direction, flock members have to communicate and ...

Not all birds sing, but those that do — some several thousand species — do it a lot. All over the world, as soon as light filters over the horizon, songbirds launch their serenades. They sing to ...

Female zebra finches at the University of Wyoming’s Animal Behavior and Cognition Lab were subjects of a new study on bird personality. (Lisa Barrett Photo) Personality is not unique to humans. New ...

In the Australian Outback, we follow Mylene Mariette as she sets up an unusual experiment that reveals something extraordinary about the zebra finches battle to survive. When it gets really hot out ...

When we humans hear birdsong, which many have appreciated more than ever during the pandemic, we can’t help but think about parallels to human music and language. We discern distinct melodies linking ...

The babbling of zebra finches creates connections in the brain that enable them to memorize the song of their tutor. The picture shows a zebra finch chick (2nd from left) between a female (left) and a ...