Photo credit: Ashithosh U from Pexels
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
There have been many reports about how urban quiet caused by pandemic lockdowns allowed city dwellers to appreciate birds and their songs.
This report in Salon about a Spanish study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that Spanish city birds, like pigeons and starlings, quickly changed their patters of behavior in response to the pandemic quiet. Using citizen science, with Spaniards reporting their observations of bird behavior, the researchers found that birds were much more detectable, especially during early morning hours. Salon concluded that the pandemic quiet made the birds more musical.
And that’s a good thing for birds and for the people who can hear them, now that the cities are quieter.
