A male pied flycatcher changes his song after mating. Single females know to avoid him

A team of researchers from the University of Oslo recorded the songs of 17 male wild pied flycatchers before and after they had mated, and found that females had a preference.

A team of researchers from the University of Oslo recorded the songs of 17 male wild pied flycatchers before and after they had mated, and found that females had a preference | Representative Image

New Delhi: A male pied flycatcher changes its song after it has found its mate, and other single females in the area detect these subtle changes and make sure they don’t get “deceived into polygyny”.

The findings were published in a recent study titled “Female Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca Can Discriminate Between Songs of Unmated and Mated Males and Avoid Being Deceived Into Polygyny” published in Ethology. The results of the study confirm earlier research that most female pied flycatchers prefer to settle with an unmated male.

Among pied flycatchers some males are polyterritorial. They establish one territory and then fly several hundred metres away to attract another female too. For the males, this guarantees that they are able to reproduce, but for females this means sharing parental duties with an absentee father.

“A classic conflict of interest between the sexes occurs when males benefit from polygynous mating whereas females benefit from monopolising male parental care,” the study read.

To probe how females picked partners, Helene Lampe, an ethologist who studies animal behavior, especially in natural settings, recorded the songs of 17 wild pied flycatchers while they had not mated. Her team from the University of Oslo, recorded them again once they had mated and moved to a second territory. Compared to their bachelor days, the pied flycatcher song shot shorter and seemed more varied.

When these songs were played for females, 21 out of 29 females preferred the song of an unmated male. This suggests that female pied flycatchers pick their mate based on their song.

Is it ‘deception’?

Researchers suggest that the changes in the pied flycatcher’s song might not be a deliberate form of “deception” since the concept of “cheating” is not applicable to the animal world.

“We suggest that an increased syllable switching between songs of mated males can be related to constraints of defending separate territories towards male intruders, including male neighbours and prospecting males. This is important because competition for suitable nest sites may be strong and because polyterritorial males must return frequently to the first territory to keep the nest site and the first female,” the study read.