♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: I've recorded
many songs of the natural world
over the years.
Just listen to this.
And I've learned that there is,
perhaps surprisingly,
no scientific definition
of song.
[ Bird singing ]
And there are some songs
that it's impossible for me
to imagine life without.
But this avian choir
does not sing for us.
What we hear is not
what the bird hears.
Birds live on
a different timescale,
and they can hear details
in their song
that are impossible
for us to hear.
It was the ability
to take recorded sound
and then turn it
into a visual picture
that enabled us
to analyze that sound
and reveal its full complexity.
DALZIELL:
It's extremely exciting.
And it really forces us
to reconsider
what we think of as song.
KREBS: Our understanding of song
is continually developing.
ATTENBOROUGH: How exciting it is
to think of the discoveries
that are about to be made.
[ Bird singing ]
♪♪
[ Birds singing ]
[ Singing continues ]
ATTENBOROUGH: On a clear
spring morning like this,
the dawn chorus is at its peak.
[ Singing continues ]
There are surely few more
enchanting natural soundscapes
than this.
[ Singing continues ]
But this avian choir
does not sing for us.
[ Singing continues ]
These are songs of seduction...
and weapons of w*r.
Males are defending territories
and attracting mates.
[ Birds singing ]
Singing is dangerous.
[ Singing continues ]
It reveals the bird's location
to predators.
But it also offers
a huge reward --
the chance to attract a female
and pass on genes
to the next generation.
That, Charles Darwin said,
is why song evolved.
[ Singing continues ]
It was an example of what
he called sexual selection.
[ Singing continues ]
But today, new discoveries
are transforming
those long-held ideas.
For this program, I have chosen
some of my favorite recordings
from the natural world
that have revolutionized
our understanding of song.
♪♪
There are seven recordings of it
that have particular
interest for me.
Some are lovely,
some are surprising,
and one almost broke my heart.
But all of them
broke new ground.
[ Birds singing ]
I've recorded many sounds of the
natural world over the years,
and I've learnt that there is,
perhaps surprisingly,
no scientific
definition of song.
♪♪
We tend to use the word
to describe sounds that seem,
to our ears, beautiful.
[ Birds singing ]
It is, in truth,
a somewhat whimsical label.
But it has been attached to some
of nature's greatest marvels.
Just listen to this.
[ Whales singing ]
♪♪
[ Singing continues ]
♪♪
Each of my seven chosen songs
was recorded in my lifetime.
[ Bird singing ]
The oldest was made
when I was 5,
the most recent,
just a few years ago.
[ Birds singing ]
None is closer to my heart
than the first one,
which I made back in 1960.
[ Laughs ]
[ Indris singing ]
♪♪
Recording audio in the field
in remote parts of the world
was almost unheard of.
There was certainly no money
in the BBC budget
for a sound recordist.
But I did manage to get hold
of a very rare thing indeed,
a battery-driven portable
tape recorder,
so that
I could record sounds myself.
♪♪
It was a cumbersome
piece of kit,
but cutting-edge at the time,
and I was determined to use it
to record a singer
that no one
had ever recorded before --
Madagascar's largest lemur,
the indri.
[ Birds chirping ]
[ Indris singing ]
This noise was no bird call.
I had never heard
anything like it before.
It must be the voice
of the indris.
[ Singing continues ]
Using my new equipment,
I made the first-ever audio
recording of the indri.
[ Singing continues ]
But could we also capture them
on camera, as well?
The song was so loud
that it seemed impossible
that the animals could be more
than 20 or 30 yards away.
But where were they?
[ Singing continues ]
Until now,
no one had even managed
to photograph a living one.
let alone film it.
Infuriatingly,
the bush was so thick
that I could see no sign
of them whatever.
[ Singing continues ]
So, the question was,
how could we get close enough
to get a clear view of them
without frightening them?
Well, I thought, "What about
doing it the other way around
and trying to persuade them
to get closer to us
by playing their calls?"
[ Birds chirping ]
[ Indris singing ]
And they did exactly
what I hoped they would do.
[ Indris singing ]
They called in return,
came down close to us,
stared at us, still calling.
[ Singing continues ]
I was thrilled.
We had recorded their song
and
filmed them singing.
[ Singing continues ]
But why had this trick worked?
[ Singing continues ]
Well, because they thought
that the song I was playing
meant a competitor was close by.
And their response was to sing.
[ Indris singing ]
And this suggested one thing --
there are such things
as battle songs...
[ Singing continues ]
...songs that say, "Get out,
this is my territory."
[ Singing continues ]
♪♪
It seemed to be a clear example
of Darwin's theory
of sexual selection --
a male singing to defend
his breeding patch.
But this was still
just guesswork.
We suspected that songs
could be weapons of w*r.
But it was the next recording
that proved it.
♪♪
[ Great tit singing ]
[ Great tit singing ]
This is the song
of a male great tit,
a call, a very simple song.
[ Singing continues ]
It was recorded by a scientist
who's been a pioneer
in understanding animal song --
Professor John Krebs.
He was the one who proved
for the first time
exactly why my playback trick
in Madagascar had worked.
♪♪
[ Birds chirping ]
Spring 1975.
[ Chirping continues ]
Back then,
John was a young lecturer
at the University of Oxford,
researching the birds
in woodland
just outside the city.
First he plotted the territories
of all the pairs
of great t*ts.
Next, he recorded
the songs of the males.
[ Great tit singing ]
Female great t*ts do not sing.
KREBS: Then, on a particular
morning in February,
I came out with mist nets
to catch the birds,
and I caught all the pairs
of birds that were in the wood.
ATTENBOROUGH:
Now there were no great t*ts,
just empty great tit
territories.
In some, John replaced the
great t*ts with loud speakers
that played the sounds
of the birds
that he'd temporarily removed.
[ Great tit singing ]
If the song
was a "keep out" signal,
then new great t*ts
would avoid these patches.
[ Singing continues ]
Other territories
were left silent.
No speakers,
no great tit song.
New great t*ts should realize
these spaces were empty
and available
and settle there quickly.
[ Great tit singing ]
But how would John know that
it was due to a great tit song
that newcomers
had been deterred?
Perhaps any sound would
have had the same effect.
So in some territories he played
a recording of a tin whistle.
[ Tin whistle playing ]
He could have chosen anything,
as long as it sounded nothing
like a great tit.
KREBS: And then I watched
to see what happened.
And new birds came into the wood
because this is
a prime breeding area,
so birds love
to come here to breed.
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: John discovered
that the first territories
that were taken
were the silent territories
and the ones
with the tin whistle.
Crucially, the territories
in which the great tit song
was played remained empty
of new great t*ts.
KREBS: By looking at the detail
of that pattern of settling,
I was able to show,
experimentally,
that song
isan effective
"keep out" signal.
[ Great tit singing ]
ATTENBOROUGH: Professor Krebs'
predictions were exactly right.
The song was a "keep out" signal
to other great t*ts.
[ Great tit singing ]
For the very first time,
there was scientific evidence
that song was being used
to intimidate rivals,
just as I had seen
with the indris
in Madagascar in the '60s.
How astonishing that
it was only in 1975
that this was proved
for the first time.
The song of the great tit
had made history.
♪♪
[ Great tit singing ]
[ Birds singing ]
Open a window in spring,
and these are the singers
that serenade us...
[ Singing continues ]
...songbirds.
They make up about half
of the 10,000 species of birds
in the world.
Five of my seven songs
are sung by them.
[ Singing continues ]
Birds have the most advanced
vocal organs
in the entire natural world.
We have our voice box
at the top of our windpipe.
But their equivalent
is at the base of theirs.
It's an organ called a syrinx.
They're the only creatures
on Earth to have one of these.
And the syrinx of the songbird
is the most complex of them all.
As breath passes through it,
muscles contract and vibrate,
creating
the sounds we call song.
It can produce different notes
from the left and the right
sides simultaneously.
[ Bird singing ]
It's like having two voice boxes
that can operate
at the same time.
[ Birds singing ]
So this is how songbirds
can perform such unparalleled
feats of vocal gymnastics.
But working out why they do,
is far more complex.
[ Singing continues ]
Each note lasts just a tiny
moment and then disappears.
[ Singing continues ]
That presents anyone who wants
to study it with a problem.
[ Birds singing ]
But there are two relatively
recent inventions
that have helped us
to capture songs.
It was with a g*n mic
like this --
inside its windshield --
that John Krebs
caught the fleeting sound
of the great tit.
But it was the ability to take
that recorded sound
and then turn it into
a visual picture
that enabled us
to analyze that sound
and reveal its full complexity.
[ Great tit singing ]
This is an animation of the male
great tit's song,
generated by a machine
called a spectrograph.
[ Great tit singing ]
It changes the song
into an image
that's possible to read.
Slowed down, we can see
that the great tit's song
is relatively simple.
[ Great tit singing ]
It's composed of two notes,
one high and one low, repeated.
[ Great tit singing ]
What we hear is very similar
to what we can see
on the spectrograph.
But compare that to the song
of the male wren.
[ Wren singing ]
What we hear is not
what the bird hears.
Birds live on a different
timescale,
at a different pace from us.
And they can hear details
in their song
that are impossible
for us to hear.
It's only when we use
a spectrogram
that these details are revealed.
A trill...
[ Trill plays ]
...a connecting note...
[ Note plays ]
...another trill...
[ Trill plays ]
...and then a rapid burst
of trills at the end.
[ Trills playing ]
Now we can see that there are,
perhaps, a hundred notes or more
in a song that may last
only a few seconds.
[ Wren singing ]
[ Bird singing ]
[ Singing continues ]
What the spectrograms show
are these songs
are far more complicated
and complex
than we could possibly
have imagined.
But why complicate things so?
The calls of the indri
and the great tit
work perfectly well.
The answer, of course, is sex.
♪♪
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
That is the reason
why so many birds
have such complex mating songs.
[ Singing continues ]
Females seem to prefer them.
The more intricate and detailed
the song is,
the better the male's chances.
[ Singing continues ]
And my third song
helps to explain why.
♪♪
[ Nightingale singing ]
It's a recording
of a nightingale
that is my next chosen song.
[ Nightingale singing ]
This is a male singing
for a mate.
[ Singing continues ]
Just as with the great tit,
the females do not sing.
But they are the ones
the males are singing for.
So, why do they prefer
more complex songs?
[ Nightingale singing ]
♪♪
It's a question that has puzzled
scientists for centuries.
♪♪
Charles Darwin's answer
was that the females
have an aesthetic sense.
After all, human beings
appreciate beauty.
Why shouldn't other animals
do so, too?
♪♪
But the question Darwin
didn't answer was,
why
should the females
have an aesthetic sense?
Here on the streets of Berlin,
we might just find the answer.
[ Birds singing ]
Spring attracts over
to this city each year.
They flock to Berlin because
it's filled with green space,
much of which
has been left untamed.
And it's these wild places
that they love.
[ Nightingales singing ]
In one of its most popular
parks -- a male nightingale.
[ Nightingale singing ]
He, like the other males,
arrived from Africa
a few weeks ago
and has spent his time singing
to defend a breeding patch.
[ Nightingale singing ]
But tonight, when the lights go
out, he will change his tune...
because the females
have arrived.
[ Nightingale singing ]
Nightingales migrate at night.
And when the females fly in
under cover of dark,
they are met
with songs of seduction.
[ Nightingales singing ]
Dr. Conny Landgraf
made our recording
of the nightingale's song.
[ Nightingale singing ]
LANDGRAF:
So, right now there's one male.
No. There is a second male
So, it's already two males
in a vocal contest.
[ Singing continues ]
What the females do is that they
do not take the first male
that comes their way,
but they prospect and inspect
different male territories.
And this is like a speed-dating
that is actually going on
in the middle of the night.
[ Singing continues ]
ATTENBOROUGH:
Each male sings his heart out.
And the females listen.
[ Ding! ]
Time's up.
What does the next
potential mate sound like?
[ Ding! ]
Time's up again.
Does the next one
have a better song?
[ Nightingale singing ]
[ Ding! ]
[ Nightingale singing ]
[ Ding! ]
Nightingales have extremely
large song repertoires,
up to 250 songs.
LANDGRAF: And also
they are able to produce
really challenging syllables
and phrases,
thinking of trill
or buzz elements.
So, these are very fast,
repeated single notes.
So, this is remarkable.
ATTENBOROUGH:
The more complex his song,
the more beautiful
it seems to the female.
But why?
Does the female have
an aesthetic sense,
as Darwin suggested?
Conny and her team set up
an experiment to find out.
First, they recorded
males singing
at the beginning of spring.
Then they set up cameras
to record nightingale nests
later in the season.
♪♪
Male nightingales play a crucial
role in feeding chicks.
♪♪
[ Nightingale singing ]
LANDGRAF:
What we found in the end
was that there was indeed
a very strong correlation
between the song
and feeding rates at the nest.
So, it's like a promise that
the males give to the females
to be good fathers.
So, for example,
a male could be saying,
"Hey, there.
I'm a healthy, strong man.
"I know this area and all the
best feeding places very well,
so come settle down
and mate with me."
[ Nightingale singing ]
ATTENBOROUGH:
Females, Darwin said,
chose the males
with the most beautiful songs.
And my third recording
has demonstrated why --
better singers
are better fathers.
[ Nightingale singing ]
Song can be a promise
of devoted parenthood.
[ Nightingales singing ]
♪♪
There are some songs
that it's impossible for me
to imagine life without...
[ Bird singing ]
...songs that accompany
our daily lives.
It's one of the most
characteristic sounds
and, to my ears,
one of the most delightful
of the English winter --
the song of the robin.
[ Robins singing ]
These are the songs
that Charles Darwin
would have listened to as a boy.
And much of our research
into song
has centered on British species.
Indeed, for much
of the last century,
we thought birdsong originated
here, in northern latitudes.
[ Birds singing ]
But what if Darwin
had been raised
on the other side of the world?
Would his theories about song
have been different?
[ Birds singing ]
The forests of Australia.
[ Singing continues ]
♪♪
Here, scientists are
in the process
of changing many
of our old ideas about song.
[ Singing continues ]
They've found fossil and DNA
evidence of early songbirds
which show that
this,
in fact,
is where song began.
[ Birds singing ]
It was here in Australia
that the ancestors
of all songbirds first evolved.
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
Song number four is from
one of the original songbird's
most remarkable descendants.
And it's one that amazes me
every time I hear it.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
It was recorded in the forests
just outside Melbourne.
And was the first time
that wild birdsong
had ever been broadcast
in Australia.
[ Superb lyrebirds singing ]
The song of the lyrebird,
in my view,
is one of the most complex
and beautiful
in the whole
of the natural world.
And what gives it
its complexity,
is the talent that the lyrebird
has for mimicry.
Crimson parrot.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
The kookaburra.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
The descendants of that
lyrebird, I'm happy to say,
are still singing
in those forests.
And I have been lucky enough
to listen to one of them myself.
It was the 1990s when
the BBC series "Life of Birds"
took me to Australia.
♪♪
I wanted to film a lyrebird
who was
the most astounding mimic.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
To persuade females to come
close and admire his plumes,
he sings the most complex song
he can manage,
and he does that by copying
the songs of all the other birds
he hears around him,
such as the kookaburra.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
He can imitate the calls of
at least 20 different species.
[ Singing continues ]
He also, in his attempt
to out-sing his rivals,
incorporates other sounds
that he hears in the forest.
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking clicking ]
That was a camera shutter.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking clicking ]
And again.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking clicking ]
And now a camera
with a motor drive.
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking clicking, whirring ]
[ Superb lyrebird singing
rhythmically ]
And that's a car alarm.
[ Singing continues ]
And now the sounds of foresters
and their chainsaws
working nearby.
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking buzzing, clacking ]
Since this remarkable clip
was broadcast,
millions of people
have watched it online.
But scientists have discovered
a lot more about lyrebird song
since that recording was made.
That particular bird
was accustomed
to the presence
of human beings nearby.
But much wilder birds produce
something even more fascinating.
♪♪
Sunrise,
Sherbrooke Forest today.
[ Birds singing ]
One voice in the dawn chorus
is louder than any other --
the male lyrebird.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
♪♪
It's the breeding season,
and they're busy
trying to attract mates.
♪♪
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
Clearing undergrowth
from the forest floor
creates an arena
for his mating display.
[ Singing continues ]
Once the stage is set,
the show can begin.
[ Singing continues ]
It's unlike any other
in the natural world.
[ Singing continues ]
Since I heard this song,
scientists have analyzed it
and broken it down into parts.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
Song A comes first.
[ Singing continues ]
Now, Song B,
a loud, low shriek
which alternates with Song C,
a quiet, very soft
clicking sound.
[ Singing continues ]
A female arrives.
♪♪
But, no, she loses interest.
♪♪
What he does next will need
to be even more impressive.
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
Few have analyzed the grand
finale of the male lyrebird song
more intensively
than Dr. Anastasia Dalziell.
She and her team were the
first ones to film it properly.
DALZIELL: We thought,
"No one's gonna believe us
until we've actually filmed it."
It's really not like anything
else that has been described
previously in birds
or any other animals.
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: It was
by studying the recordings
from their remote camera
that the team
were able to understand
the real secret
of the male lyrebird song.
And it is this footage,
together with our own,
that enables us to show
this remarkable behavior
on television
for the first time.
Having sung Song A, B and C --
and been rejected --
the male now begins Song D.
DALZIELL:
So, this final song --
it's a sound of a flock
of small birds...
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
...mobbing reacting to a
stationary or a hidden predator
like a snake.
And this was totally bizarre.
ATTENBOROUGH: So, why is he
imitating a flock of birds?
[ Singing continues ]
Well, a predator means danger,
so at the sound of an
alarm call, the female freezes.
[ Singing continues ]
The forest is no longer
a safe place.
[ Singing continues ]
Now the male takes advantage
of her panic.
He jumps on top of her to mate.
♪♪
It's hard for us to see her
under his feathers.
And it's hard for her to see out
from under them.
He is doing everything he can
to disorientate and confuse her.
♪♪
DALZIELL: The male is actually
telling her a big fib --
"Don't leave me because out
there there's a hidden predator
that you haven't seen."
To put it another way,
it's like saying,
"Baby, it's dangerous outside.
Come back here with me,
where it's nice and safe."
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: The lyrebird is,
in fact, a bird that tells lies.
His song is
an acoustic illusion.
Up to now,
scientists had thought that song
was an honest signal
from the male.
But it seems song can also be
manipulative and false.
♪♪
[ Birds singing ]
Not far away, in the
Blue Mountains near Sydney,
scientist Victoria Austin
is studying the female lyrebird.
♪♪
What she's listening for
is something very few
people have heard.
AUSTIN: So, what I'm doing now
is just preparing my recorder
because we're about
to head to a nest
and we're hoping to be able
to record the female lyrebird
that resides in that area.
ATTENBOROUGH:
The female lyrebird
is the opposite
of her flashy mate.
She's secretive.
When she
isseen, she's often
mistaken for a juvenile male.
To most people, she's invisible.
But Victoria knows
how to find her.
This old nest suggests
that she may be nearby.
And there she is.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
This rarely heard sound
is her whistle song.
[ Singing continues ]
In Darwin's theory
of sexual selection,
males sing to attract females
and females drive
the evolution of song
by preferring
ever more complex songs.
The females themselves
do not sing.
Yet here we are listening
to a female lyrebird singing.
[ Singing continues ]
So, what is the function
of her song?
[ Singing continues ]
Well, the female raises
her chicks alone.
The male plays no part.
So it's extremely important for
her to maintain her territory
and the food within it.
She uses song to let everyone
know that it's her patch.
[ Singing continues ]
And Victoria is also researching
whether song helps her
in other ways.
In the last few years,
she's been recording their songs
across the Blue Mountains.
♪♪
This is one of them --
a female mimicking a goshawk.
[ Superb lyrebird
mimicking goshawk ]
AUSTIN: It's very accurate.
If you were play this call
alongside an actual goshawk,
it would be very difficult
to tell the difference,
if you were able
to tell the difference at all.
ATTENBOROUGH:
So, what is the purpose
of this perfect impersonation?
She is using it to deceive
predators into thinking
she's more dangerous
than she actually is.
♪♪
She is just as talented
as the more famous male.
[ Superb lyrebird singing ]
AUSTIN: So, the biggest purpose
of what we're doing
working with
these female lyrebirds
is to dispel this long-held myth
that only recently was shown
not to be true,
and that is the idea
that female birds don't sing
or that it's very rare.
And that's just simply
not the case.
[ Birds singing ]
ATTENBOROUGH: This surely
challenges Darwin's theory...
as does my next,
revolutionary song.
♪♪
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
My fifth song was also recorded
in Australia.
It, too, like the song
of the female lyrebird,
has rarely been heard.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
It's important because
its existence
changes our idea
of what song actually is.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
This is a fairly common
Australian bird
called a fairy-wren.
[ Singing continues ]
We filmed these birds for a BBC
series back in the 1990s.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
♪♪
We went there to film it because
it's extremely promiscuous.
Both the male and female
will mate
with many different partners.
But what few people realized
at the time --
and I certainly didn't --
was that it's not just
the male that sings.
♪♪
The female does, too.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
♪♪
This is Canberra
Botanical Gardens.
♪♪
Professor Naomi Langmore
was the scientist
who made
our fairy-wren recording.
She was one of the first
to realize
the significance of female song.
[ Birds singing ]
A male fairy-wren
with glorious iridescent blue
and striking black plumage.
Rather difficult to miss.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
So, where is the female?
Well, not at the top of a perch
like the male,
but instead here,
hiding in the bushes.
♪♪
She is, comparatively,
rather dull -- a drab brown.
LANGMORE: Because females
are often less flashy
and eye-catching than males,
it's very easy
to miss female song.
[ Superb fairy-wren singing ]
ATTENBOROUGH:
But sing she does.
[ Singing continues ]
Just as male song is used
in competition with other males,
female song seems to be in
competition with other females.
But why didn't we hear her
before now?
Is it really just because she is
less noticeable than the male?
LANGMORE: In the history
of the study of birdsong,
most research was done
in the northern hemisphere,
in Europe and North America,
and in those regions, female
song is comparatively rare.
And so researchers working
in those regions generalized
from what they were observing
in their local birds
and assumed that male song was
the norm throughout the world.
ATTENBOROUGH:
A male-biased view of birdsong
had, to an extent,
deafened us to female song.
KREBS: So, when I was doing
my research,
it was basically assumed
that it's the male that sings
and the female that doesn't.
Maybe that's because most
of the scientists were males
who were studying birdsong.
LANGMORE: But now
there's a new generation
of female scientists
coming through,
studying birdsong
all around the world,
and discovering that actually
female song is very common
and occurs
in more species than not.
ATTENBOROUGH:
And it's only now
that they're properly
being heard.
Naomi and her colleagues
have discovered
that in 64% of all songbird
species, females sing.
and that, in the distant past,
the ancestors of all songbirds
would have had both male
and
female singers.
♪♪
When birdsong began,
perhaps all female birds sang.
[ Birds singing ]
So, why don't all female birds
sing today?
The answer is migration.
Male migrants,
like the nightingale,
arrive in their breeding grounds
before the female.
They set up and defend
the breeding territories,
so the females
don't need to sing.
♪♪
In species that don't migrate,
like the lyrebird
and the fairy-wren,
then often the females
will have their own territory
[ Bird singing ]
And they will sing to defend it.
[ Birds singing ]
This female song
challenges the way scientists
have thought about
sexual selection
for the last hundred years.
DALZIELL: This recent discovery
is a paradigm shift.
It's extremely exciting.
And it really forces us
again to reconsider
what we think of as birdsong.
[ Birds singing ]
LANGMORE: Birdsong was
fundamental to the formulation
of Darwin's theory
of sexual selection.
And the discovery
that females sing as well
makes us challenge that theory.
ATTENBOROUGH: Because
our perception of birdsong
has been biased
towards the northern hemisphere,
we have been unaware
of some of the most thrilling
birdsongs on the planet.
But that view is changing.
♪♪
KREBS: Our understanding of song
is continually developing,
and all the time
we're learning new things.
It's a mystery that needs
real research to unravel it.
And we're still learning.
♪♪
ATTENBOROUGH: How exciting it is
to think of the discoveries
that are about
to be made about birdsong.
♪♪
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
This next groundbreaking
recording reminds us
just how thrilling those
new discoveries could be...
♪♪
...because it revealed to us
an entirely
different world of song.
♪♪
Few animal songs
are more beautiful
than the ones
that are recorded on this disc.
And yet, had it not been for
recent technological advances,
we would never have known
that such songs existed.
♪♪
The waters off the coast
of Bermuda.
U.S. Navy engineers are using
underwater microphones,
called hydrophones,
to listen for enemy submarines.
This is what they pick up.
[ Low humming ]
It's not a submarine
or, indeed, any kind
of man-made noise.
[ Humming continues ]
I'll always remember the first
time I heard those songs.
It brought back to my mind
the stories of sailors
in the old sailing ship days,
out at sea in their bunks,
hearing these wonderful,
eerie sounds resonating
through the ship.
It didn't come, of course,
from a mermaid,
but something perhaps
even more extraordinary --
a gigantic creature,
weighing many tons --
a whale.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
Almost unbelievably,
this was the first time
that anyone had ever identified
the sound of the whale.
When biologist Dr. Roger Payne
heard it, he was thrilled.
PAYNE:
It was back in 1967, about,
that I met a fellow
named Frank Watlington,
who became a great friend.
And he played a sound
to me of humpback whales.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
It was the most beautiful thing
I had ever heard from nature.
[ Singing continues ]
The first time
I ever went swimming
with a whale that was singing,
it was an incredible experience.
It's completely shattering.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
It feels like,
when you get close to one,
that something has put
its hands on your chest
and is shaking you
until your teeth rattle.
My first thought was,
"I wonder if I can stand this.
I wonder if this is actually
gonna k*ll me somehow."
[ Humpback whales singing ]
ATTENBOROUGH:
The question was,
would we call these sounds
"songs"?
Some were short,
like bird calls,
but others were longer,
some up to half an hour.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
Speeded up, this is
what they sounded like.
[ Rapid, high-pitched singing ]
They sounded like birdsong.
[ Singing continues ]
Roger called them songs.
In the late 1970s,
I, too, went swimming
with humpback whales.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
I remember seeing this creature
below me
and then hearing its song.
[ Singing continues ]
It was thought they sing
for the same reason as birds --
males singing to rivals
and potential mates.
But no one has ever seen
a female listening.
[ Singing continues ]
In truth, no one really knows
why whales sing.
[ Singing continues ]
But one thing is certain --
the sound of their song
saved them from us.
[ Singing continues ]
In 1970, Roger released
an album called
"Songs of the Humpback Whale."
At the time,
we had been k*lling whales,
mainly for their oil,
for centuries.
[ Harpoon g*n fires ]
We were very close
to exterminating them
out of sheer greed.
Then we heard their song.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
PAYNE: Whole bunches of people
in several countries
began making organizations
to save the whales,
and the Save the Whales
movement was born.
And in many ways, that was
sort of the beginning
of the conservation movement.
[ Singing continues ]
ATTENBOROUGH: The conscience
of the world was awoken
by this song of the whale.
We heard it just in time
to save them.
[ Singing continues ]
But for my next
and final singer,
there was no such reprieve.
[ Kaua'i 'o'o singing ]
There are few songs
more haunting than this.
[ Kaua'i 'o'o singing ]
It's a male Hawaiian 'o'o bird
calling for a mate.
[ Singing continues ]
But is he singing into silence?
[ Singing continues ]
Habitat destruction and the
introduction of invasive species
have decimated
many Hawaiian songbirds,
including the 'o'o.
It may well be that by the time
this recording was made
there were
no females left alive.
It's the sound of a male
singing for a mate
who no longer exists.
The 'o'o has since
been declared extinct.
[ Kaua'i 'o'o singing ]
He was the last
of an entire bird family
found nowhere else on Earth,
now gone.
[ Singing continues ]
There is no more dramatic
reminder of this loss
than this sound.
[ Singing continues ]
♪♪
And how many more songs
have we lost
in other parts of the planet?
Here in Britain, it's estimated
that 38 million birds
have disappeared from our skies
in the last 60 years,
one in five, gone.
♪♪
Climate change,
habitat deterioration,
and the resulting decrease
in food and other resources
are thought to be
the main factors
behind this
catastrophic decline.
It's now up to us to decide
how many more songs
we will allow
to fade into silence.
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
These songs enrich
our lives, too.
They are surely amongst
the loveliest in the universe,
and without them our lives
would truly be impoverished.
[ Singing continues ]
And what is lost
when the songs fall silent
is more than just
an enchanting operatic backdrop
to our own lives --
because, for the creatures
that sing them,
songs are far more than that.
They are a weapon of w*r,
a serenade,
a promise of parenthood,
a daring deceit,
or perhaps something even
more astonishing
that we are yet to discover...
[ Animals singing ]
...each one a marvelous example
of the spectacular
survival strategies
that animals have developed
in order to stay alive.
[ Humpback whale singing ]
That is why I'll never cease
to wonder
at the beautiful sounds
we call song.
♪♪
[ Bird singing ]
♪♪
To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,
visit PBS.org.
♪♪
♪♪
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