Bird song is a complex, elaborate trait, like extravagant displays and flashy colors of many animals. Both female and male songbirds sing amazingly complex songs in many bird species, but females do not sing at all in other species. Because of this diversity, bird songs offer an excellent opportunity to study the evolutionary pressures that have shaped life on our planet!
To investigate how males and females evolved their diverse songs, we need many examples of male and female song from many different songbirds. But female songs are under-represented in biological collections because most bird song research has focused on male song. By contributing observations and recordings, you are helping answer interesting and important evolutionary questions!