Mother Birds May Teach Their Chicks to Sing before They Hatch

The young of red-backed fairy wrens emerge from their eggs mimicking mom’s tune

Red-backed fairy wrens, which inhabit northern and eastern Australia, lay three or four eggs at a time.

MARTIN WILLIS *Corbis*

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

In utero, babies can tell the difference between loud sounds and voices. They can even distinguish their mother's voice from that of a female stranger. But when it comes to embryonic learning, birds could rule the roost. As recently reported in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, some mother birds may teach their young to sing even before they hatch. Newborn chicks can then mimic their mom's call within a few days of entering the world.

This pedagogy was first observed in 2012 by Sonia Kleindorfer, a biologist at Flinders University in South Australia, and her colleagues. Female Australian superb fairy wrens were found to repeat one vocalization over and over again while incubating their eggs. When broods hatched, the baby birds made the identical chirp to their mothers—a vocalization that served as their regular “feed me!” call.

To find out if the trait was more widespread in birds, the researchers sought the red-backed fairy wren, another species of Australian songbird. First they collected sound data from 67 nests in four sites in Queensland from incubation through posthatching. Then they identified begging calls by analyzing the order and number of notes. A computer analysis blindly compared calls produced by mothers and chicks, ranking them by similarity.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

It turns out that baby red-backed fairy wrens also emerge chirping like their moms. And the more frequently that mothers had called to their eggs, the more similar were the babies' begging calls. In addition, the team set up a separate experiment that suggested that the nestlings that most closely mimicked their mom's voice were rewarded with the most food.

This observation hints that effective embryonic learning could signal neurological prowess of progeny to parents. An evolutionary inference can then be drawn. “As a parent, do you invest in quality offspring, or do you invest in offspring that are in need?” Kleindorfer asks. “Our results suggest that they might be going for quality.”

It’s Time to Stand Up for Science

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.

If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.

In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Thank you,

David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American