A recent study from UNBC reveals black-capped chickadees in urban areas have adapted to noise pollution.
These birds sing their songs in higher pitches so they can be heard over low-frequency traffic noises.
Doctor Steffi LaZerte and her team found that city birds have adapted better than others.
“We played back the experiment’s noise to them in quiet areas and noisy areas and we found that only the birds in noisy areas responded appropriately to this extra noise, so it did show that birds in noisy areas learned to deal with noise.”
Dr. LaZerte says this means one of three things.
“The good station is that the birds are changing the way they sing and it improves communication, the bad that is they have to change but there are consequences, but still, on the whole, it kind of helps. Then there’s the ugly where they’re changing and there are all these consequences for changing the way they sing, and it doesn’t even help.”
LaZerte is now figuring out whether the chickadees can naturally change their pitch or had to learn to do so. She’s also working on another project to see how effective these higher pitched songs are.
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