University of Montana Researcher Dr. Erick Greene Finds That When Birds Squawk, Other Species Seem to Listen

In the backyard of a woodsy home outside Missoula, Montana, small birds — black-capped chickadees, mountain chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches — flitted to and from the yard’s feeder. They were oblivious to a curious stand nearby, topped by a curtain that was painted to resemble bark.

Erick Greene http://www.cas.umt.edu/casweb/faculty/facultydetails.cfm?id=883 , a professor of biology at the University of Montana, stepped away from the stand and stood by the home’s backdoor. He pressed the fob of a modified garage-door opener. The curtain dropped, unveiling a taxidermied northern pygmy owl. Its robotic head moved from side to side, as if scanning for its next meal.

Dr. Greene has a hunch that birds are saying much more than we ever suspected, and that species have evolved to decode and understand the signals. He acknowledged the obvious Dr. Dolittle comparison: "We’re trying to understand this sort of ‘language’ of the forest."

By CHRISTOPHER SOLOMON

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/science/decoding-the-cacophony-of-birds-warning-calls.html?_r=0

Many thanks to Pat Little for sharing