Professor Robert Magrath ‘Alarm calls and eavesdropping in wild bird populations’

Many birds give alarm calls to warn members of their own species about danger, but other species often listen in on these calls.  By eavesdropping on other species' calls, birds join a 'neighbourhood watch', forewarning them of danger.  We have been studying alarm calls and eavesdropping among birds in Canberra, including in the Botanic Gardens.  We record bird alarm calls and use speakers to play the calls back to individuals to test what calls mean and who is listening in. We have even looked at the puzzle of how birds recognise the alarm calls of other species – a remarkable feat, given the great variety of alarm calls. It turns out that birds are good at learning other languages!  Robert will give an overview of our work, focusing on common birds living in the Botanic Gardens

Robert Magrath is a Professor of Behavioural Ecology in the Research School of Biology at the ANU. After my undergraduate degree at Monash University in Melbourne, I did voluntary work on birds of paradise in Papua New Guinea and lesser floricans (a type of bustard) in India, and then did a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the UK. I was then a lecturer at the University of Oxford for a couple of years before coming to the ANU. I work on bird behaviour and ecology, and in last 10 years have focused on acoustic communication, with a lot of the work done in the Botanic Gardens