The songs of birds are not only pleasant to hear for all but can also help the neurologists to understand the science of the development and mechanism in the human body especially in human speech after brain surgery. To listen to a bird song, now, one does not have to go to the forest. At the click of a mouse, one may listen to one’s favourite birdsong. In the oldest sound archive library of the world, the name of Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya of Haridwar has been attached. Now, the songs of Indian birds shall also be included in this library.

Notably, there are 200 million books in British Library of London which was established in the year 1753. The British library is considered to be the biggest library of the world. Wildlife and sound archive section of this library has 10 lakh discs and thousands of cassettes on which songs of birds are compiled.

Dinesh Bhatt, registrar of Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, after presiding at International Bioacoustics Conference at London said, “We shall be recording and compiling the songs of more Indian birds. The already recorded songs will be sent to the sound archives of British Library soon. The scope of future collaboration in this direction was discussed between the library curator Cheryl Tipp and myself.”

Bhatt added that while it is not possible in human beings to understand the speech mechanism, birdsong is a complex motor sequence and the effects of behavioural and neural manipulations can be studied effectively through this. “This is very useful to the neurologists to help human beings after brain injury. We need to understand more the science of development of neurons from birds.

Song depends on dedicated and accessible brain nuclei. Songbirds learn their complex vocal behaviour in a manner that exemplifies general processes of learning and resembles human speech learning,” he said.

For instance, the South African bird Boubou often vocalises in pairs, thereby creating a duet song.

Male sings one phrase and female completes the second phrase of the birdsong.

Such interesting patterns help the scientists discover the functioning of nerve cells in brains drawing comparison with our human brains.