If you're wondering, "Why do fools fall in love?" you've come to the wrong Web site. But if you want to know, "Why do birds sing?" then read on!
Birds sing for the same reason that humans talk: to communicate. This doesn't mean that communication is the same across all members of the bird kingdom. In fact, most birds only pay attention and respond to songs from birds of their own kind. As you can probably tell from any walk in the woods, different species have different-sounding songs. Researchers consider the woodpecker's tree-tapping to be yet another form of birdsong, and some birds "sing" by creating vibrations with their wings.
In talking about bird sounds, ornithologists will denote a difference between a song and what are commonly called chirps and tweets. Chirps and tweets are shorter in duration, whereas songs are repetitive, louder, more intricate, and last several seconds.
Scientists are discovering more and more just how intricate birdsongs are. For example, in some species there's a song for "I'm your neighbor" (meaning a nearby bird with its own, distinct property that means no harm) and a different song for "I'm a stranger." According to the Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the red-eyed Vireo may sing more than 20,000 different songs in a day. Others, like the Henslow's Sparrow, sound like a broken record; they have just one song in their repertoire.
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