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Because I've hit a bit of a wall in my research proposal and need a diversion, how about I summarize another study? According to this one, birds are singing louder today than they did 30 years ago in order to be heard above the din of modern life. "The research found sparrows in San Francisco’s Presidio district changed their tune to soar above the increasing cacophony of car horns and engine rumbles."

So they are not only getting louder, but they are actually changing their songs. Out in nature, if you will, sparrows sing in low, medium and high frequencies -- but, in the city, it's been discovered that they've all but abandoned the low to medium ranges and only use the highest ones, something now officially called the "San Francisco dialect." This is because:

Songs need to be heard, not just because they sound pretty — birds use them to talk to each other, warn away rivals and attract mates. If you go into a bird’s territory and play a song from the same species, they think a rival competitor has invaded its territory. If the rival bird can’t hear the song and vamoose, then it may come to bird fisticuffs. That can lead to injury or death.

Turns out that it's not only humans that are affected by all the noise that has come to dominate our lives in urban centers, and it provides yet another reason to safeguard the areas of our cities which shelter us from all the cacophony. Fortunately sparrows are a resilient bunch, but I fear that humans aren't quite as adaptable.