“Studying mimicry was a natural fit,” he said. He’s always enjoyed imitating other people’s voices and mannerisms. As a biologist, he was drawn to bird song because he had a good ear (he minored in music in college) and liked being outdoors. Gammon began studying mockingbirds in 2006 after joining the biology department at Elon University in central North Carolina. However, Gammon’s research has cast doubt on this long-held assumption about mockingbirds, surprising even himself. Parrots and European Starlings are examples of open-ended learners. A typical song is about equally divided between mimicked phrases and mockingbird-specific vocalizations.Īlthough most bird species only learn songs during a critical period in their youth, mockingbirds have long been considered open-ended learners-meaning that they learn new songs throughout their adulthood. A male may have several hundred phrases in his repertoire, although some will be in much heavier rotation than others. Mockingbirds string together series of repeated phrases, some of which are imitations of other bird species. Their singing is not only voluminous but also diverse. Both females and males sing, and they can be heard any month of the year and any time of the day-and even at night.
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