When Birds
Sing at Night

Interesting fact about Melospiza Melodia, and it's that if it is well fed, the bird, and hasn't had to worry too much about finding food, it actually produces offspring that sing less than the offspring it produces if the parent bird had been hungrier.

And the other thing about songbirds I was remembering to tell you is that it's now thought by some experts that they sing in their sleep as well as sing while they're awake. As if their sleeping selves are a kind of being awake, or their wakened selves are a kind of being asleep.

--- From There But for the
Ali Smith
©2011 Pantheon Books