Episode
Why birdsong is the pop music of the natural world
- Podcast
- Instant Genius
- Published
- May 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1494
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR4456264549.mp3
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/instant-genius-226559/episodes/why-birdsong-is-the-pop-music-of-the-natural-world/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/instant-genius-226559/why-birdsong-is-the-pop-music-of-the-natural-world.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
When it comes to the sounds we encounter in the natural world, few have the beauty, elegance and variety of birdsong. But these distinctive vocalisations are not simply static calls that are common to all birds of a certain species that are passed on from one generation to the next. They vary from region to region and even evolve in single populations over time in much the same way that the style of music in the pop charts changes over time. As part of our Science of Sound miniseries, we’re joined by Dr Nilo Merino Recalde, a senior conservation scientist at the RSPB, to talk about the fascinating science behind the evolution of birdsong. He tells us about his work on tracking the evolution of birdsong as it passes from place to place and from generation to generation, how advances in AI technology are enabling birdsong researchers to learn more about this process than ever before, and what this research can tell us about the evolution of culture in the animal kingdom as a whole. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices