Bengalese

On Saturday, Okpokwasili is joined by the singer and composer Samita Sinha, who uses Bengalese Baul music, a spiritual folk tradition, to explore her cultural heritage through voice and body; Okpokwasili contributes songs from her recently released first album.

Until recently the GRC was known only from two songbirds: the zebra finch and its close relative the Bengalese finch.

If you want a no-fuss, no-muss pet, consider the Bengalese finch.

In his talk at Evolang, ornithologist Kazuo Okanoya of the Riken Center for Brain Science in Wako, Japan, focused on the munia and the Bengalese finch, which people domesticated some 250 years ago.

Dr. Woolley’s lab has been looking into the acoustic systems of zebra, bengalese and long-tailed finches to see how their brains take in and process sounds — learning, performing and analyzing different parts of them to make sense of songs.