Birdy Accents

[GregH]

A recent study has highlighted how wild Australian birds have developed urban accents in order to be heard above the city noise and that their sounds are similar in urban centres even though the contact between populations is minimal. Read the story for free in the Sydney Morning Herald (while you can).

Given the isolation of the captive birds in Australia I wonder if their calls have drifted away from their wild counterparts?

[Trilobite]

Greg what an interesting question, when I started getting my yellow siskins from various sources I noted that the males all had different songs and to my mind some degree of mimicry. On male raised around canaries has some canary song in his repetoir and one form north qld has pee wee and willy wagtail in his repetoir. So yes wonder how much of the original species song has been lost or moderated. Similarly Grenidiers from different sources have different calls, hissing and buzzing. Gotta love Darwin.

[matcho]

About 6 months ago found a beautiful blue budgie who was just about spent in a park during the big storms in Sydney. He was only found because of the brilliant blue colour, up against the wire fence. So down the track, I swear blind I have noisy miners and rainbow lorikeets in the living room! He is a dead set mimic. Interesting read though about the silvereyes. I dont doubt that the Melbourne ones sound the same as the Brisbane ones because I was led to believe they are highly migratory.. ie... to the southern parts of OZ during the warmer months and then return during autumn/winter up to the far north, if not further. To my way of thinking of course the Melbourne and Brisbane would sound similar as they would meet and would probably all go further north together in the normal migration. I just apply the KISS method in my thoughts on this. Just my thoughts.

[venetta]

I don't know if this is along the same lines, but we've noticed that our painteds sound quite different..

Some pairs we've gotten from say spanna sound completely different to our other boys where we have gotten from bird auctions etc

[MadOzzie]

I got some silver zebs at Brisbane QFS sale January 2011 and they sounded different to my other zebs.
Their call was similar but a different tone.

MadOzzie

[maz]

My understanding was that song was largely learned in birds and that it varies from locality to locality, found this with a quick google but I'm sure there is much more detailed stuff out there is people want to go looking http://www.ornithology.com/Lectures/SongsandCalls.html

[Tintola]

I have a Yellow Throated Scrubwren that sounds like a pee-wee and also a Willy Wag-tail and longtails. I also have a European
Blackbird that neighs like a horse.