Scientists find building blocks of birdsong's 'spectacular diversity'

Scientists find building blocks of birdsong's'spectacular diversity' Scientists in France say they have discovered the building blocks of the incredible diversity of birdsong. A team analysed the songs of more than 100,000 songbirds and revealed that the world's birdsongs are composed of eight fundamental types of sound that the researchers call motifs. Birdsong all around the world, they say, is made up of combinations of these motifs - three types of trill, three types of whistle, chaotic notes and harmonies. Birdsong is one of the natural world's most sophisticated forms of sound-based communication. Its variety and complexity has fascinated biologists, but with so many different songs, it has been difficult to study on a global scale.