Starlings have vanished from many gardens in Central Europe, and with them their whistling and twittering songs enriched with skilful imitations Photo: Hans-Joachim Fünfstück
Starlings have vanished from many gardens in Central Europe, and with them their whistling and twittering songs enriched with skilful imitations Photo: Hans-Joachim Fünfstück Researchers including Göttingen University use citizen science to study birdsong over last 25 years Natural sounds, and birdsong in particular, play a key role in building and maintaining our connection with nature. Birds have been declining due to changing land use and climate change. But how has this affected the dawn chorus around us? Has the loss of species also led to an impoverishment of the background birdsong in our landscapes? An international research team with participation from the University of Göttingen combined world-leading citizen science bird monitoring data with sound recordings of individual species in the wild to construct the soundscapes of more than 200,000 sites over the last 25 years. The study reveals that the sounds of spring are changing, with dawn choruses across North America and Europe becoming quieter and less varied. The research was published. Annual bird count data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme sites were combined with recordings for over 1000 species from Xeno Canto, an online database of birdcalls and songs, to reconstruct historical soundscapes. The acoustic characteristics of these soundscapes were then quantified using four indices designed to measure the distribution of acoustic energy across frequencies and time.
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