The sweet song of the White-throated Sparrow drifts through forests and meadows all summer long across Canada, the northeastern U.S., and the northern Midwest. Field guides tell us that the song they sing sounds like Oh-sweet-canada-canada-canada or Old-Sam-Peabody-Peabody-Peabody.
But, Dr. Ken Otter, from the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, and colleagues recently discovered that some White-throated Sparrows are changing their tune. Now the sparrows are singing Oh-sweet-cana-cana-cana, a new dialect, dropping that extra syllable.