Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Look at these motherfucking ducklings
Inlander:
Anyway, while we're talking about awesome birds and David Attenborough and stuff here's the famous Superb Lyrebird clip from the Life of Birds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
Patrick:
--- Quote from: snalin on 04 Mar 2009, 01:38 ---Due to my lack of animal knowledge, I first thought this clip was pretty much the same as this.
--- End quote ---
What the fuck, how the fuck are they doing what they are doing
Also Harry that thing sounds like R2D2 or something
Inlander:
If you played a lyrebird a clip of R2D2 a few times it would probably start mimicking it perfectly. The males try to impress the females by doing a little dance and mimicking as many different sounds as they possibly can. This includes young males copying the calls of older males, down through generations: there's anecdotal evidence of lyrebirds singing the theme-tune to a radio serial that was canceled decades earlier, while in Tasmania, where the Superb Lyrebird was introduced in the 19th century, people have heard them mimicking the call of the Eastern Whipbird - a bird which is found on the mainland of Australia, but not in Tasmania. (Incidentally, in that clip I posted above you can hear the lyrebird frequently doing the whipbird's call - it's the one with the long sustained note followed by a sudden sharp sound like a whip-crack and then sometimes two or three other quick notes.) I've personally witnessed a Superb Lyrebird mimicking the call of a Lewin's Honeyeater - and being answered by a real Lewin's Honeyeater.
Basically, lyrebirds are fucking amazing.
Patrick:
So some of the lyrebird's calls are even passed down by a sort of avian oral tradition? Holy shit, dude, that is completely mind-blowing. And how it can be passed down for two centuries and still be completely recognizable is even more impressive.
It's like an infinitely more badass version of a parrot, but crossed with a peacock.
Inlander:
--- Quote from: Patrick on 04 Mar 2009, 04:02 ---And how it can be passed down for two centuries and still be completely recognizable is even more impressive.
--- End quote ---
Well as you will have noticed with the chainsaw noises and camera noises and everything, they're absolutely note-perfect mimics. So when you're a perfect mimic and you copy another perfect mimic, any "Chinese whispers" effect will be pretty minimal!
To demonstrate how good the Lyrebird is at mimicking other birds, here's video of an actual whipbird:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z4JM0VFPQg
Now go back to the lyrebird video I posted earlier and check out its rendition - the first one's at 0:43. (Noting of course that there are very minor variations in calls between individual whipbirds and regional whipbird populations, so it's not a 100% match for the whipbird in the video.)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version