Some birds travel thousands of miles every year in search of resources (Image: Getty)
Birds are known to travel up to 60,000 miles in search of food and warmer climates – and now a study reveals they may enjoy a natter on the journey.
Researchers analysed more than 18,300 hours of recorded flight calls to investigate whether songbirds “talk” to other species as they migrate.
Benjamin Van Doren, lead author and an expert in environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said: “We can’t be sure what they’re saying, but birds might broadcast calls during flight to signal their species, age, and sex.
“And we can certainly speculate that these flight calls could relate to navigation or finding suitable stopover habitat.”
Young birds are thought to learn behaviours from observing other birds and how they navigate, but those visual clues are scarce at night when most songbirds travel.
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Mr Van Doren used artificial intelligence to analyse acoustic recordings of autumn nocturnal bird migrations from 26 sites over three years in eastern North America.
The analysis detected the flight calls of 27 species and identified signs that different species called out at the same time more often than would be expected by chance alone.
Species with similar wing sizes were more likely to call out at a similar time. Mr Van Doren said: “Wing length is directly linked to flight speed.
“If you imagine two species flying at similar speeds because they have similar wings, then it’s much easier for them to stick together.”
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The team now plan to track these possible “conversations” by attaching tiny microphones to individual birds.
Mr Van Doren said: “This study really calls into question the long-held idea that songbirds migrate alone, solely following their own instincts.
“Learning more about the consequences of these social connections — not only for migration, but also for other aspects of their biology — will be important to inform and manage the risks they face in a changing world.”
The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.