Birds' Sense of Hearing
 Birds' ability to perceive sound is approximately ten times keener than ours. Birds can discern ten different sounds in what humans perceive as one note. Moreover, while humans process sounds in 1/20th of a second, birds can distinguish the same sounds in 1/200th of a second. |
For birds to display their talents in communicating by sound, song and in the case of some birds, words, they require excellent hearing. At critical times in their lives, their sense of hearing becomes particularly important. Experiments have shown that in order for birds to learn their species' song, they need an auditory feedback system. Thanks to this system, young birds learn to compare the sounds they produce themselves with the patterns of a song they have memorized. If they were deaf, it wouldn't normally be possible for them to sing recognizable songs.
Birds' ears are well equipped for hearing, but they hear in a different way from us. For them to recognize a tune, they have to hear it in always the same octave (a series of seven notes), whereas we can recognize a tune even if we hear it in a different octave. Birds cannot, but can instead recognize timbre-a fundamental note combined with harmonies. The ability to recognize timbre and harmonic variations lets birds hear and reply to many diverse sounds, and sometimes even reproduce them.
Birds can also hear shorter notes than we can. Humans process sounds in bytes in about 1/20th of a second, whereas birds can distinguish these sounds in 1/200th of a second, which means that birds are superior at separating sounds that arrive in very rapid succession.10 In other words, a bird's capacity to perceive sound is approximately ten times greater, and in every note heard by a human, it can hear ten.11 Moreover, some birds are also able to hear lower sounds than we are. Their hearing sensitivity is so finely tuned that they can even tell the difference between pieces by such famous composers as Bach and Stravinsky.
Birds' extremely sensitive hearing functions perfectly. Clearly, each of this sense's components is created by special design, for if any one failed to work properly, the bird would not be able to hear anything. This point also disproves the theory that hearing evolved or emerged gradually, as a result of coincidental influences.
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