The superb lyrebird coos the truth
We’re grateful to Robert Krulwich for bringing the superb lyrebird into our lives with his recent blog post. Turns out that lyrebirds, which are native to Australia, are the most exceptional mimics of natural and artificial sounds within their environment. Not only are they beautiful to watch (the males have intricate plumes of tailfeathers), but they're absorbing to listen to. You can hear what they’ve encountered over the course of their lives just by the calls they emit, usually to attract a mate.
What’s particularly disturbing, though, is when their playback reflects the destruction of the bird’s own environment. In this video with the BBC’s David Attenborough, the lyrebird not only chirps the identical sound of various birds it’s encountered as well as the click of the camera it's just heard, but also the buzz of a chainsaw that at some point had been cutting down trees within earshot. How uncanny that each bird's life history can be relayed just by listening to it cluck and coo.
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