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A male (the bright red bird) and female cardinal go a-courtin'. Male and female cardinals each have their own separate songs. Gary Carter/Getty Images
Many bird-watchers (and bird-listeners) believe that a singing bird must be a male bird. But that's not true. And that misconception can have a lot of serious consequences. Two ornithologists (scientists who study birds) recently put out a call to action for scientists and laypeople alike to pay more attention to the singing habits of female birds. The paper was published online on March 14, 2018, in the journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances.
Traditionally, female songbirds have been overlooked because more males sing, says the paper's co-author Lauryn Benedict, a University of Northern Colorado biology professor. But the ratio isn't overwhelmingly in favor of males, as it turns out. "Worldwide, we think that females sing in about two-thirds of all songbird species," she emails. "That's a pretty rough estimate, though, because for the majority of all bird species we don't have enough information to even determine whether females sing. In species where males and females look alike it can be hard to know which sex is doing the singing."