The Birdsong That Took Over North America

The birds were singing something strange.

Ken Otter and Scott Ramsay first noticed it in the early 2000s, when they were recording white-throated sparrows in Prince George, a city in western Canada. The birds are so ubiquitous across the country, and the male’s song so distinct, that bird-watchers have put words to it: Oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada. But the white-throated sparrows in Prince George were singing something different. They had lopped a note off Canada, so the song sounded more like Oh sweet Cana, Cana, Cana.

At first, Otter and Ramsay, biologists at the University of Northern British Columbia and Wilfrid Laurier University,, the song they first heard in Prince George had spread east across the country—at remarkable speed. By 2017, all white-throated sparrows in western Canada were singing the new song variant and half were singing it as far east as Ontario. is taking over Canada.