The Incredible Mimicking Lyrebird Imitates Birds and Machinery

This video has not been overdubbed, that bird is really making those sounds. The Lyrebird is an Australian bird that has a knack for imitation. This little guy is from The Adelaide Zoo in south Australia.

In addition to faithfully copying the calls of other birds, including the complex & ostentatious sounds made by its neighbor the Kookaburra, Lyrebirds also replicate other sounds they hear in their environment such as constructions noises and the click of a camera shutter.

British naturalist and television host David Attenborough did this great BBC segment on Lyrebirds back in 2007 which includes some wonderful camera shutter imitations:

This is typical of Lyrebirds, compiling a catalog of sounds into their own lengthy personal courtship song which they can then recite repeatedly. Here’s another example cited in Wikipedia (edited for space below):

During the early 1930s, a male lyrebird, called “James”, formed a close bond with a human being, Mrs. Wilkinson, after she had been offering food to him over a period of time. James would perform his courtship dance for her […] James’s performance lasted for forty-three minutes, [and included] the calls of an Australian Magpie, and a young magpie being fed by a parent-bird, an Eastern Whipbird, a Bellbird, a complete laughing-song of a Kookaburra, two Kookaburras laughing in unison, a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, a Gang-gang Cockatoo, an Eastern Rosella, a Pied Butcherbird, a Wattle-bird, a Grey Shrike-thrush, a Thornbill, a White-browed Scrubwren, a Striated Pardalote, a Starling, a Yellow Robin, a Golden Whistler, a flock of parrots whistling in flight, the Crimson Rosella, several other birds whose notes his audience were not able to identify, and the song of honey-eaters (tiny birds with tiny voices), that gather in numbers and “cheep” and twitter in a multitudinous sweet whispering. [Also] perfect mimicry of the sounds made by a rock-crusher at work, a hydraulic ram, and the tooting of motor-horns.

From Wikipedia I also learned that A group of Lyrebirds is called a musket which is too awesome for words.

Lyrebird

photo by George Sayer

mikl-em
Mikl-em

Actor, nerd, poet, producer, writer mikl-em made his name short so you wouldn't have to. In addition to his blog you can find his writing in "Hi Fructose" magazine and witness him almost life-sized in various plays at The Dark Room Theater in SF's Mission district.

He tends to write about theater, humor, San Francisco culture and history, and stuff that's just plain weird. He thanks Scott for sharing the keys to the Laughing Squid virtual HQ and promises to uphold whatever it is that the mirthful cephalopod would prefer to be uplifted.

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