Erik StokstadScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.White-crowned sparrows are tough birds, able to survive the hustle and bustle of many North American cities.
But growing noise pollution has forced males to sing louder, less effective songs in order to be heard by rivals and mates. During the pandemic lockdown this spring, the background din quieted.
A new study shows that, in just a matter of weeks, the sparrows’ songs recovered the acoustic quality of songs sung decades ago, when city life was less noisy.Elizabeth Derryberry, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and her colleagues have studied white-crowned sparrows in and around San Francisco for.