City birds sing the latest tunes faster, louder
Some urban birds’ songs are shorter and faster than those of their forest kin, and often concern atypical song types. (Listen here.) Hans Slabbekoorn and Ardie den Boer-Visser report in Current Biology that bird songs important to mate attraction and territory have significantly diverged in the successful urban bird species of great tits (Parus major). Consistently higher minimum frequencies in ten out of ten city-forest comparisons from London to Prague and from Amsterdam to Paris. Worldwide urbanization and the ongoing rise of urban noise levels is most likely a dominant factor driving these dramatic changes. These data provide the most consistent evidence supporting acoustic-adaptation and reveal a behavioral plasticity that may be key to urban success - the lack of which may explain detrimental effects on bird communities that live in noisy urbanized areas or along highways.
(See also The Guardian: Why birds sing up when they move to the city)
Growing up in the country, we often used to comment on the brashness of “city people” and the rapid tempo of city life in general and often of their speech in particular. Is there a relation?