I was unexpectedly on-call Monday night and the pages I got made me sleep very lightly the rest of the night. When 3:30 AM rolled around, I was a little surprised to be serenaded by the birds outside. As I dozed, I began to wonder what it is about 3:30 AM that prompts the birds to sing? There can be no sign of dawn at that early time, even on May 10th. Is there some sort of environmental variable that tips birds off that it’s time to sing?
Later that day, naturally I then did some Googling on the research about birds. A query on “what makes birds sing in the morning” brought up a few interesting articles but also left me exasperated.
Here’s why. So much of the research into this is incomplete. For instance, around 2003, two researchers attempted to see what made the early morning special to birds, but the way they tested it was by playing recordings of bird songs at various times of day and comparing how their human ears perceived those sounds. The theory they were testing (and ultimately claimed to confirm) was that sound traveled better in the morning (allegedly when the wind isn’t blowing). Though their sound theory was later disproved, it bothered me that this was the test they tried since it was based on a flawed assumption. They tested how sound is perceived by humans at various times of day but didn’t actually test the damn birds.
It got me thinking that what we know about the animal kingdom is laughably incomplete. Other bird studies theorize that birds are announcing their territory. How does anyone know this? How can we humans really know the motivation behind animal behavior? Is it all about territory, or have we been grossly simplifying things?
It may make me a bad science nerd, but I’ve never been fully convinced that the motivations we have attributed to animals in the Theory of Evolution and other theories are accurate. Since the time of Darwin we’ve learned so much more about the beings we share the planet with. What these studies show is that we have long greatly underestimated the abilities of animals. Animal behavior is far more sophisticated than we’ve recognized. The old thought that other animals couldn’t be possibly intelligent due to their smaller brains is beginning to change.
Just because other Earth creatures cannot build a nuclear weapon does not mean they don’t possess intelligence (and frankly, as far as nukes are concerned, they show more intelligence). Just because animals don’t possess our sophisticated spoken language doesn’t mean they don’t have their own rich means of communication.
So, what cranks birds up before the crack of dawn? I don’t know. Then again, it seems that no one else really knows, either, from what I can gather and I find this really astounding.