Birds in San Francisco have been singing more during the shut-down

@dchiasso @Powell_DA @kjavadizadeh @nathanheller @jerichobrown @IGalleymore @ltjournal @Deardarkness @JulianGewirtz @amandathegunn @brendashaughnes @ClintSmithIII @RobGMacfarlane

San Francisco birds have changed the way they sing in the shutdown https://t.co/vLiyMoCqHO

— Jorie graham (@jorie_graham) October 13, 2020

From the linked article:

San Francisco is a noisy place, but during the coronavirus pandemic the soundscape changed dramatically. In May, traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge was reduced to levels not seen since 1954, and the noise pollution on city streets was comparable to the rural parts of Marin County. Normally, San Francisco is around three times louder than Marin, the report says.

This gave songbirds in the city an opportunity to make their voice heard, and they took it, according to the study published in Science magazine.

David Luther, assistant professor of Biology at George Mason University and Elizabeth Derryberry, associate professor at the University of Tennessee, worked with a team of ecologists on the study. They discovered that while the songbirds of San Francisco increased the frequency of song, they did so at a lower volume than usual, as there was less noise to compete with. However, to residents' ears this resulted in a perceived increase in birdsong volume.