Recordings made in Barcelona show these social birds have individual ‘voiceprints’, like humans.
When it comes to communal living, monk parakeets – now a problem as a rapidly expanding introduced species in some Spanish cities – have several skills that help them. Building large stick nests used by multiple pairs (unique behaviour for a parrot) is one, as is the protection afforded by large flocks. Distinctive recognition of individual birds within those flocks might now be added to the monk’s social attributes.
Some other birds, as well as bats and dolphins, make ‘signature’ calls that can be used for individual identification, but these are just one call type – the equivalent of ‘it’s me, it’s me.’ Being able to recognise an individual from many different kinds of call is a subtler process, based on tone of voice. That’s what we do as humans, where an individual person’s ‘voiceprint’ is characteristic, no matter what they are saying.
If monk parakeets do actively use voiceprints to identify each other, this would answer the question of how parrots can be both vocally flexible and social at the same time.
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Now Simeon Smeele from the Max Planck Institute and Spanish colleagues have found that monk parakeets may also be able to do the same (Royal Society Open Science). Researchers made thousands of field recordings of hundreds of individually colour-ringed parakeets in Barcelona, then ran the recordings through a machine-learning model widely used to identify humans from the timbre of their voice. The model gave the first evidence for any parrot of individual voiceprints across multiple call types.
This is encouraging, says Smeele, but more recordings are needed to see if the birds themselves can also recognise timbre. If monk parakeets do actively use voiceprints to identify each other, Smeele says, this would answer the question of how parrots can be both vocally flexible and social at the
same time.