A study has found Dupont’s lark, a relative of the
skylark, is losing its singing range because numbers are falling.
The poet Shelley, who immortalised the skylark, would have
been saddened to know that threatened songbirds in
A study has found Dupont’s lark, a relative of the
skylark, is losing its singing range because numbers are falling. Biologists
from the
Dupont’s lark, Chersophilus duponti, is found in Europe
only in southern, central and north-east
It is classified as threatened by the International Union
for Conservation of Nature. In the study, published in the journal Public
Library of Science on Wednesday, the Spanish scientists recorded the
singing range and number of notes of 330 male birds, mainly in the Ebro valley
region in north-east
Using hidden microphones in places the birds usually
inhabited, they taped mating calls. Paola Laiolo, who led the research team,
said: “The female birds are attracted by the complexity and range of the male’s
song.
“We found that the lack of variation of notes or scales
corresponded to the areas where the population of larks was smallest. The birds
which lacked tutors — or other male birds to learn from — had the smallest
range.”
Dupont’s lark has a range of 12 singing sequences or
phrases. It is smaller than the skylark and its brown colour makes it hard to
spot, so censuses are carried out by counting birds by their songs.
Dupont’s lark needs flat scrubland but in
Shelley, writing of the Dupont’s lark’s distant cousin in
his poem “To a Skylark,” in 1820, revels in the bird’s song:
“Like a star of Heaven/ In the broad daylight/ Thou art
unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/21/stories/2008032151571100.htm
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
The
Dupont´s Lark
The birds on the brink of extinction
sing worse than those than they are not it.
The males of populations of birds on the brink of extinction have a poorer and
simple song than those species with a great viability, according to a team of
the Superior Council of Scientific Researches (Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas. CSIC).
The investigators analyzed during
four years in steppes of the Valley of the
With this work the scientists of
the CSIC have discovered that the greater or smaller repertoire of the song of
the birds can work like indicator of its survival.
According to the investigator of
the CSIC and director of the study, Paola Laiolo, the reason that explains the
song of the male birds is simpler in threatened species is that “the diversity
of melodies depends on two factors nails in the viability of the populations:
the population size and the number of youthful birds by year “.
“the song of the Dupont’s lark has up to 12 musical sequences with 13 different
notes each one, but in the populations with possibility of being extinguished
the birds they only sing three or four phrases” , detail the specialists.
This must, according to the scientists, to that the young does not have a sufficient
number of adult males to whom to imitate and, for that reason, only three or
four learn melodies that will be, as well, solely those that will be able to
sing if it does not increase the number of birds in his population.
Until now, one had demonstrated to the relation between the song and the
quality of the birds at the time of being selected by the females in a sexual
context.
Nevertheless, “ it is the first time that the song can constitute an indicator
of the quality of population”, assure the scientists the work.
http://northbirdspain.blogspot.com/2008/03/duponts-lark.html