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"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, goes the Duke Ellington song. By that logic, some bird songs really do mean something: at least a few bird species can swing in the same way that human musicians do, New Scientist can reveal. This claim has been made based on a mathematical analysis of the songs of one species, the thrush nightingale. Not all of the musicians New Scientist spoke to agree that what the thrush nightingale is doing can be called swing - but several said they have heard other species of birds singing that definitely do swing. "

"Why do birds sing? Could we call what they sing and how they sing music? Of all nonhuman animals, birds teach us to check anthropocentrism in music, or, as David Rothenberg puts it in Why Birds Sing (2005), birds check "the conceit that humanity is needed to find beauty in the natural world." But how do they learn songs? Do they invent and compose them or "parrot" what they hear? Join us for a discussion between animal behavioral psychologist Professor Ofer Tchernichovski (Hunter College) and distinguished professor of philosophy and music, composer and clarinetist, Professor David Rothenberg (NJIT). Visit our site for more event information: "

"The goal of this project is to understand the language of birds -- of course not ALL species of birds, but at least a few, starting with those that have languages that seem complex, and yet manageable.While this has long been a desire, up to now it has not been possible, but with modern advances in computing, in linguistic analysis, and a new-found appreciation of how sophisticated other creatures can be, the grammar (and perhaps meaning) of bird song seems attainable."

"Natural sounds, and bird song in particular, play a key role in building and maintaining our connection with nature, but widespread declines in bird populations mean that the acoustic properties of natural soundscapes may be changing. Using data-driven reconstructions of soundscapes in lieu of historical recordings, here we quantify changes in soundscape characteristics at more than 200,000 sites across North America and Europe. We integrate citizen science bird monitoring data with recordings of individual species to reveal a pervasive loss of acoustic diversity and intensity of soundscapes across both continents over the past 25 years, driven by changes in species richness and abundance. These results suggest that one of the fundamental pathways through which humans engage with nature is in chronic decline, with potentially widespread implications for human health and well-being. "

"Born blind, Juan Pablo Culasso has never seen a bird. But through his gifted sense of hearing, he can identify more than 3,000 different bird sounds and differentiate more than 720 species. The 29-year-old said he realized he had perfect, or absolute pitch, when he was a boy. Tossing stones in a river, he was able to tell his father exactly the note each one made when it hit the water. Absolute pitch, the rare ability to hear a tone and immediately know it's a C-sharp, for example, is so unusual that only one of every 10,000 people has it, Culasso said, adding that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was among them."

"Forgotten Songs commemorates the songs of fifty birds once heard in central Sydney before they were gradually forced out of the city by European settlement. The calls, which filter down from the canopy of birdcages suspended above Angel Place, change as day shifts to night; the daytime birds' songs disappearing with the sun and those of the nocturnal birds which inhabited the area sounding into the evening. "

"BIG revealed the design for a treetop hotel room wrapped in 350 bird houses created for the Treehotel in Lapland, Sweden. Designed in collaboration with ornithologist Ulf Ohman, the 34 square-metre Biosphere room seeks to enhance the surrounding biosphere by providing a habitat for local birds while allowing guests to be immersed in the surrounding forest. The project is the latest addition to the hotel's series of individually designed rooms created by some of Scandinavia's most renowned architects, such as Snøhetta, Rintala Eggerstsson, and Tham & Videgard."

students at Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, did a project where they wrote and narrated an audio guide about the sounds of birds in Boston and the surrounding vicinity. They used bird sound recordings from The Cornell La

"The melodious call of many birds comes from a mysterious organ buried deep within their chests: a one-of-a-kind voice box called a syrinx. Now, scientists have concluded that this voice box evolved only once, and that it represents a rare example of a true evolutionary novelty."

"Birds are a way to connect with nature, which is associated with better body and brain health, research shows "

For centuries, residents of Kuşköy have communicated over rural Turkey's vast distances with kuş dili, which literally means "bird language."

"The mating call of the Brazilian white bellbird (Procnias albus) is now officially the loudest birdsong on record: averaging out at a peak of 125.4 decibels, it beats out rock concerts and chainsaws, and is way beyond the level (85 db) considered safe for human ears."

"From Here to Ear (v. 13) is the thirteenth iteration of an installation by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. Primarily a sensory experience, the exhibit is meant to engage both visually and audibly as 40 finches hop delicately through a dense matrix created from hundreds of metal hangers causing vibrations and clinks that mix with the birds natural songs"

"Early spring resounds with the percussive hammering of woodpeckers. Their rhythmic drumming works like many birds' songs: it broadcasts to other woodpeckers over a long distance a clear assertion of territorial and mating rights. "

"The noise of city life is dulling down the song of our famously musical tui. The colourful, scrappy birds are among the few native species to have adapted to humans disrupting their environment, and one researcher is now trying to understand what changes they've made to survive."

"taracatá trabaja uses the traditional Argentinian folk song, Malambo del Hornerito, as a point of departure. It is an ode to the Argentinian national bird-the serially procreating, monogamous, and hard working hornero who builds his home from spit and dirt. Created through long-distance collaboration, the musical composition of taracatá trabaja is derived from the two onomatopoeias in the folk song: taracatá, characterizing the sound of laborious work (i.e. fields being plowed and nails being hammered) and chapalea, a verb evolving from the sound of squelching in mud. In taracatá trabaja, the hand drawn hornero rests on the porcelain surface along the music score, reminding one of the complexities of making a home, and of labor and its imbued ideas of meritocracy, while reclaiming pleasure, well being and dignity."

"The ocean might seem like a quiet place, but listen carefully and you might just hear the sounds of the fish choir. Most of this underwater music comes from soloist fish, repeating the same calls over and over. But when the calls of different fish overlap, they form a chorus."

Natural Car Alarms is a project consisting of three cars rigged with modified car alarms whose typical six-tone siren has been replaced with a similar one made only of bird calls. Some of the bird sounds are shockingly electronic in character; others are

Echolocation "Experimenting with human boids during the previous sessions sparked the idea to use sound to determine the movement of our human agents. As we were looking at boids as a mean to simulate flocking behaviour of birds, it was proposed to explore also the behaviour of animals that employ echolocation to navigate in their environment, like Bats."

"Bernie Krause has been recording wild soundscapes -- the wind in the trees, the chirping of birds, the subtle sounds of insect larvae -- for 45 years. In that time, he has seen many environments radically altered by humans, sometimes even by practices thought to be environmentally safe. A surprising look at what we can learn through nature's symphonies, from the grunting of a sea anemone to the sad calls of a beaver in mourning. "