It seems that a variety of birds, mostly tropical and with these particular ones being pretty much on the equator, in the north east of Ecuador, can sing duets, duets which involve a male bird and its female mate.
Both males and females do solos (about one syllable a second) as well as duets (about two syllables a second), with duets being not quite the sum of the two parts, with the implication being that the duets are truly interactive, not just a question of the two solos being sung accurately enough so that they fit together nicely.
The authors of reference 1 make the analogy of dancing the tango, but I associated to the business of playing chamber music, where the various parts need to be interleaved or interlaced in a more or less intricate way, an interlacing which must be interactive in the same sort of way as the duets of these birds, certainly when there is no conductor involved.
Yet another skill which we share with obscure fellow animals, previously only thought of as very distant relatives. In our case, perhaps, involving what the authors of reference 4 call type 1 cognition; that is to say, conscious end points or wrappers, unconscious fillings. Not sure about the birds.
Reference 1: Neural mechanisms for the coordination of duet singing in wrens – Fortune ES, RodrÃguez C, Li D, Ball GF, Coleman MJ – 2011. From which I have taken the illustration.
Reference 2: Migration and the evolution of duetting in songbirds - David M. Logue, Michelle L. Hall – 2014.
Reference 3: http://www.neuwritewest.org/.
Reference 4: Dual-process theories and consciousness: the case for ‘Type Zero’ cognition - Nicholas Shea and Chris D. Frith – 2016.
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