All birds do like singing, but it seems some of them enjoy dancing too. A high speed video technology was used by Japanese researchers to capture 16 tropical finches engaging in a speedy 'tap dance' as part of their courtship ritual.

The birds' rhythmical feet-stamping has never been captured on camera before as it is so rapid to be even invisible to the human eye.

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The bird, which is a blue-capped Cordon-bleu, is a socially monogamous type of songbird, famous for being one of the few species in which both males and females take part in some sorts of courtship activities.

At these rituals, the birds hold a thread of nesting material in their beaks, and rhythmically oscillate their heads while singing.

According to Daily Mail, researchers from Hokkaido University in Japan used high-speed enabled video-cameras to capture the mating rituals of around eight females and eight males.

By slowing down the footage, they realized that, besides bobbing and singing, Cordon-bleus tapped their feet as if they were dancing on their perch. The act has never been recorded on camera before.

A paper published in the journal Scientific reports that in one bobbing motion, birds with their heads pointed upwards, hop and stamp their feet several times.

On average, the birds performed 3.17 taps for each head-bobbing movement. As it happens same time as the rest of their mating rituals, both the male and female birds stamped their feet similary.

Masayo Soma from the Hokkaido University in Japan confirmed that such high-speed tap dancing is not seen in any other species.

He first noticed an awkward sound while the cordon-bleus birds were dancing which led to his team to film the birds with equally high-speed camera. The birds grasp a piece of nesting material - for example twig in their beaks and toss their heads up and down while singing, New Scientist reported.

Interestingly, in their tap dances, the finches apply more energy when they were sharing the perch with the partner. The fact that the best dancers did not necessarily get their mates easily led the researchers to think that instead of a proper courtship tactic, the birds could use sort of vibration-based code during the dance.

"Performing rapid step-dance behaviour enabled the male and female cordon-bleus to communicate via multiple modalities."

"Our finding suggest that both sexes produce multimodal (visual, acoustic and tactile) signals for intersexual communication that entails the coordination of several motor systems controlling singing, tossing, beak movements and stepping," concludes the paper.

TagsBiology, evolution, Science, Birds, Animal, Cordon-bleu, Hokkaido University, Tapping birds, Tropical birds, Singing birds, Mating Ritual, Japanese Researchers, Bird Tap Dancing