Turn it up. Some birds don't mind nesting near noisy machinery.
Anyone who has woken to a cacophony of squawks and chirps knows
that birdsong, no matter how melodious, isn't always a welcome
sound. Past research suggests that birds aren't keen on human
din either. But a new study finds that not all birds think
alike: Some species actually appear to seek out noisy
environments. Among birds, noise does more than annoy. It can
hinder their ability to communicate. In fact, some scientists
suspect that noise pollution is at least partly responsible for
the decline of bird populations. Researchers, however, have had
a hard time teasing out the impacts of noise from the impacts of
other noise-associated factors, such as traffic and development.
To sort out whether noise alone can affect bird nesting and
reproduction, community ecologist Clinton Francis of the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues spent three
summers in the pinyon-juniper woodlands of northwestern New
Mexico. They located nests belongin