A SMALL mountain bird has struck a blow for sexual equality. Singing to attract mates has always been thought to be the preserve of male birds. But zoologists have now found that in one species, the alpine accentor, females are getting in on the act.
Alpine accentors are about the size of sparrows and live above the tree line on the mountains of Europe and Asia. They feed on insects, which are very thin on the ground at these altitudes, so each bird must cover a range of about 30 hectares to get enough food. These home ranges overlap, and each summer the birds form breeding groups of up to four males and four females.
Until Naomi Langmore of the University of Cambridge studied the birds in the French Pyrenees, the only mention of female alpine accentor song in the scientific literature was a throwaway line in The Birds of ...
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