To the untutored ear, the trills and tweets of songbirds may just be pretty background noise. But some, it seems, have duetting skills similar to Frank and Nancy Sinatra.
Researchers who studied cranebrake wrens in Costa Rica found that a parent and child take it in turn to sing the lines of their songs, learning not to interrupt each other.
The young tropical birds learn from their parents so they can impress potential mates later in life. Singing in perfect harmony may also help to deter interlopers from their territory.
The study, led by researchers from University of Miami with help from St Andrews University, found that the canebrake wrens sing highly complex alternating duets, with juveniles copying the ‘phrases’ of a same-sex parent before trying it out with the opposite-sex parent.
The researchers recorded interactions between adult and young canebrake wrens.
Over a period of about 25 days the juvenile wrens learned to reduce their interruptions by about 20 per cent, according to the study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Esmerelda Quiros-Guerrero, from the British university, said: ‘We showed that juveniles learn how to coordinate and what to sing by singing with their parents. Whenever their parents also sing they follow the duet code much more strictly, versus when they’re singing on their own.’
Among British songbirds, only the males sing.
