What wild birds make of human speech

This webinar examines human speech as a potential source of information for urban birds, using corvids as a model system. Drawing on experiments with captive, wild-caught crows in Japan and field experiments with wild crows in the UK, we will explore how crows respond to familiar and unfamiliar human languages, and the mechanisms that might explain these responses.

We will consider what this can tell us about learning, behavioural plasticity and adaptation to anthropogenic environments, including how location and previous experience with humans may shape corvids’ responses to human speech.

This webinar is free and open to all. 

Our speaker 

Dr Sabrina Schalz is a behavioural ecologist whose academic research examined how birds respond to human speech. She completed her PhD on eavesdropping on speech in wild carrion crows, building on earlier experimental research in Tokyo into whether captive large-billed crows could discriminate between languages. Originally from Germany, where she completed her undergraduate degree working with zebra finches, Sabrina later moved to the UK to continue her academic career. She now works as an Ecologist at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, bringing ecological science and evidence into policy.

Header image credit: © anastasiya_dal via Unsplash