My column on NatGeo: Why small birds have more musical songs

When a reader wrote in to ask why smaller birds sing prettier songs I had to think around the word "prettier."Little birds like warblers (on the left) do sing more musical songs and it could be argued that they're prettier, but I happen to love the mournful sound of peacocks and even the kaw of crows because they sound like Halloween.

I'd never have thought of the crow as a songbird but that is, indeed the category they fall into as I found out when I answered the reader's question on Weird Animal Questions of the Week. Getting to listen to all this birdsong made me hear more of it in my neighborhood (including owls). Birdsong is said to be calming and honestly, I don't know how anyone could listen to mockingbird below sing his heart out and not feel a little better.




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