"It Takes Two To Tutor A Sparrow"

An interesting article from 'ScienceDaily' online news:

"It may take a village to raise a child, and apparently it takes at least two adult birds to teach a young song sparrow how and what to sing.

In the first study conducted in the field to examine how juvenile song birds learn their repertoire, University of Washington researchers have learned that eavesdropping on the singing conversations between two adult sparrows appears to be a key event in song learning. The results are being published Oct. 21 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is the British version of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists study how song birds acquire their songs because the process has parallels with human language learning. In each case eavesdropping seems to play a role." Read the full article here SeEtta