Young male songbirds usually learn their songs from adult songbirds. But when those young birds do not have older ones to teach them, they have less success attracting mates. For five years, ecologist Ross Crates with Australian National University has studied the singing ability and mating success of birds called regent honeyeaters. These black and yellow birds were once common across Australia. But loss of their living space since the 1950s has decreased their population to only about 300 or 400 wild birds today. Male birds once formed large groups in the winter. Now they are spread out across the country, so many fly alone. That means fewer honeyeater adults are nearby during the young birds’ first year of life. “Song learning in many birds is a process similar to humans learning languages, they learn by listening to other individuals,” said Crates. “If you can’t listen to other individuals, you don’t know what you should be learning.”