Associate Professor of Biology Christine Stracey Richard recently joined Elon University Biology Professor Dave Gammon on an article focused on vocal mimicry in mockingbirds.

Mockingbirds are known for mimicking the sounds of other species, but most research focuses on the songs of males. For the first time, Christine and Dave focused their research on female mockingbirds.

"It always amazes me how much we don’t know about the natural world," Christine says. "Scientists have been studying mockingbird songs since the 1800s, and yet this is the first study to document the fact that female mockingbirds mimic the songs of other species."

Christine, a field biologist, collected 19,000 hours of mockingbird nest videos, which she and her students screened for singing events using a combination of an automated program and manual inspection. She then sent Dave the audio files of singing females that he analyzed for mimicry. Dave noticed that, similar to males, female mockingbirds also mimic sounds. 

Their research shows that females mimic sounds less often and show less variety. And while it's thought that male mockingbirds mimic sounds to attract females, it is still unknown why females mimic sounds or sing at all.

"Dave and I are planning future collaborative work investigating the effects of noise pollution on mockingbird mimicry," Christine says. She also has a paper out for review that's focused on her footage that documents females while sitting on their eggs.

Read more of their research in the Journal of Ornithology and online at the USDA website.