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This bird has been the subject of a tremendous amount of research studying bird songs. Why?

Answer:

This is a White-Crowned Sparrow. Young sparrows learn all of their songs during the first few months of their lives, so their songs are incredibly regional, varying quite a bit from one area to another. Most interesting to researchers are the birds that grow up near the borders of those areas, as they learn the songs from both groups. They are common birds, and apparently easy to work with. I even came across one reference to a study where they put these sparrows on a treadmill and found that they could run at 1/3 of a mile per hour for over an hour without tiring. That may not sound fast, but considering the length of their stride, it is pretty close to a human doing a four minute mile. Not bad for an animal that primarily uses its wings for movement.
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