Credit: G. DABB

Proc. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1110 (2009)

The sound made by feathers may make for a useful warning signal when birds flock together.

Mae Hingee and Robert Magrath at the Australian National University in Canberra studied the crested pigeon, Ocyphaps lophotes (pictured), which makes a fluttering metallic sound when it flaps its wings. From recordings, they found differences between the sounds of this wing 'whistle' during normal take-offs and those of panicked flights made in response to a threat.

They then played back the sounds to groups of pigeons. Calm take-offs had no effect, but recordings of alarmed birds frequently sent flocks scattering.