Share it in the NewsWatch forum . Using computer analysis of recorded bird songs, ornithologists at the University of Massachusetts and elsewhere are finding that most birds, from chestnut-sided warblers to indigo buntings, have subtle or even pronounced differences in the way they deliver their songs based on where they live. Sometimes, as they've found in Massachusetts, the songs can differ over just a few miles. And in most places in the United States where chickadees are found, the first note of the song is higher than the second.
Songs are the language of birds.
Some may have only one song, but others may have hundreds or even thousands. However, songs usually have only one of two meanings, said UMass ornithologist Donald E. Kroodsma, who focuses on wren songs. A brown thrasher can have 2,000 songs, but they all seem to mean the same thing. Of the 9,000 or so known species of birds in the world, about 4,000 are species of songbirds that learn their songs from adults of their own kind. Most songbirds have regional dialects for the same reasons that humans have dialects.