The White-throated sparrow has developed a new song, which has spread eastward from British Columbia to Quebec. Coming soon to woodland habitat near you! (Pookie Fugglestein photo) — **The White-throated sparrow has developed a new song, which has spread eastward from British Columbia to Quebec. Coming soon to woodland habitat near you! (Pookie Fugglestein photo)**

Changing our tune

There’s a catchy new song that’s sweeping the nation, though it hasn’t been heard in the Maritimes yet. Like every other trend, it will arrive here in the fullness of time. We may have to be patient, because this hot number is being tweeted and liked and shared and copied by non-electronic means. Its increasing popularity is entirely dependent upon White-throated sparrows learning it from other White-throated sparrows, and then passing it on to still more White-throated sparrows during their migratory stopovers.

A team of researchers – human ones – has been studying this phenomenon for the past 20 years. Their findings, published recently in the journal Current Biology (volume 30, issue 16), support our growing understanding that animal behaviour cannot always be explained in terms of genetics and instinct. In fact, some of the things animals do are not merely behavioural, but cultural – in terms of how and why they are learned.

The trad version of the White-throated sparrow’s song is familiar to most of us. It’s the one we crudely but patriotically translate as “Oh, sweet Canada, Canada, Canada.” In the late 1990s, some birders in British Columbia noticed that this species was singing a new song. It had a similar descending tune, but those bouncy concluding notes were replaced by a repeated doublet – kind of like “nada, nada, nada.”

Local variations in animal calls are not unknown; they are essentially regional dialects. But for a long time it was assumed that they remain reasonably stable and geographically contained – which is why ornithologists were surprised when this one began to catch on among distant populations of White-throated sparrows.

Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, worked with Scott Ramsay, from Wilfrid Laurier University, to trace the tune’s spread, using archival recordings and more recent audio files uploaded by hundreds of keen citizen-scientists. They found that the new song was only beginning to make inroads in Alberta in 2004, but by 2014 it had entirely replaced the old song. By 2019, the new song was being sung by male White-throated sparrows in western Quebec.

It is hypothesized that the birds learned the doublet variation when they gathered on their winter feeding grounds, and then took it back to their home turf, carrying it eastward. Across the country, in multiple distinct populations, it started out as an edgy new release, and soon became dominant, receiving constant airplay.

It bears mentioning that although the new song has fewer notes, it is not really simpler. (Naturally, you can listen to it online.) There’s some syncopation going on there. It’s not mid-career Stevie Wonder, but it’s pretty funky.

You can imagine there being some resistance, initially, among older generations of White-throated sparrows who believe that changing one’s tune is unnatural. No doubt, some complain that the new song is melodically unappealing. They may even claim that birdsong peaked in 1965, and that the genre has continued to go downhill ever since. Socially conservative birds may wring their four-toed feet, for a while, and say that this new song is precisely the sort of thing that leads to unwholesome mating rituals and nesting habits.

“Whatever,” chirp the young sparrows, as they chalk up another clutch of reproductive successes.

It is well established that birds’ songs are not just instinctive; juveniles have to learn them, by imitation and practice. But scientists are unsure why this new song spread so extensively. In a CBC interview this May, Dr. Otter suggested that the sparrows may simply be “latching onto something that’s a little bit more novel and more unique” – which is not the way we usually think about bird behaviour.

“There must be something about this doublet that was nice enough sounding that it picked up the attention of the birds and caused them to differentially learn that song instead of the more common variant,” he said. “The fact that this is a learned vocalization means that it shares many things in common with human culture.”

He even speculated that once the old triplet version of the song has languished in obscurity for a generation or two, it could resurface as a retro hit. (Inevitably, hipster sparrows will claim it as their own.)

In many ways, we can relate to birds – which is what conservationists mean when they refer to “charismatic” wildlife. We find birds amazing and beautiful. The palate of their plumage has inspired painters throughout history, and their songs inspired famous melodies by classical composers (your Beethovens, your Mozarts, your Vivaldi). But cultural practices also exist among lots of other animals.

Whales, which belong to a realm that is less familiar to us, exhibit learned behaviours that are passed from generation to generation. We have barely begun to comprehend what the whales are up to, but it clearly involves sophisticated social structures and systems of communication. Within the same species, and even in adjacent territories, different groups of whales have distinct habits that cannot be attributed to environmental factors. These variations apply to practical matters such as rearing and feeding, and also to activities that would have to be categorized as ritual or play, or even art. Several species are known to sing – not simple birdlike phrases, but symphonies that may go on for half an hour, comprising repeated themes and variations. Male humpbacks, in particular, are known to learn new songs and then adapt them – occasionally coming up with a chart-topper that spreads thousands of kilometres through the world’s oceans.

This spring, a group of scientists published a paper (in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences) arguing that our approach to conservation should recognize animal culture. They discuss the importance of coherent social groups, the role of matriarchs as “repositories of knowledge,” and the imperative of allowing animals to express their creativity – especially given the likelihood that they will need to adapt to environmental change. The authors’ stated intention is “to help guide practitioners towards ‘future-proofing’ populations by conserving both cultural variation and the capacity for innovation and social learning to maximize the resilience of vulnerable populations.”

This is a major rethink. We may be forced to admit that our conception of biodiversity – informing policies that merely aimed to prevent species from being extirpated from a given geographic area – was quite primitive.

For a long time, humanity clung to the conceit that culture is what makes us human, but perhaps culture is actually just another aspect of what it means to be an animal. We used to believe that science would allow us to fully understand the natural world, and then be done with it, as if this kind of knowledge were static. But the fact is, that’s not the nature of science – which is, after all, an aspect of culture. DL