Why do some birds mimic the sounds of other species? | Hacker News Reader

Why do some birds mimic the sounds of other species?

allaboutbirds.org

30 pointsjpoersc22 comments

Here's the one that blows my mind:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ

It's from one of (our honorary Uncle) David Attenborough's nature series, where a Lyre bird is imitating an analog professional camera, a car alarm, and a chainsaw. If I hadn't watched it well over a decade ago, I don't think I'd believe it.

Search YT for 'lyre bird imitating chainsaw' for a choice of vids.

They're fairly common near where I live. Sometimes when I'm on a hike in the mountains enjoying the wonderful variety of bird songs I come to the realisation that nope... there's just one bird there.

Yeah amazing, and his name is Chook.

>“…two of his three lyrebirds were captives, one from Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary and the other from Adelaide Zoo. This latter individual, Chook, was famed for his hammers, drills, and saws, sounds he reputedly acquired when the Zoo’s panda enclosure was built.“ https://theconversation.com/lyrebirds-mimicking-chainsaws-fa...

I’ve seen that video maybe a dozen times since it was first aired and I’m still constantly flabbergasted each time.

As a teen I worked in a pet shop and a Mynah - the shop pet - had learned to imitate a squeaky hamster wheel.

I'm trying to remember the bird that stands guard for another species, and mimics their alarm calls on seeing predators, but when hungry throws in an occasional lie so that they drop their food and run. Something African I think.

Edit: I was thinking of the Fork-tailed Drongo, which does this to meerkats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork-tailed_drongo#Kleptoparas...

A bird sanctuary I went to in the Amazon had a bunch of parrots, macaws, and similar birds that had been seized from various businesses and criminals. Some of them had been taught to recite a bar's drink specials or to swear. I was quite the odd cacophony of calls.

There was (mockingbird?) near my home in the 90s who did a solid imitation of the multi- tone aftermarket car alarm that was common around that time. I recall being annoyed by it at the time since it often happened in the early morning hours. I kind of miss it now (or I’m just a little nostalgic for the sound of the time period).

When I was a teenager in the late 80's, I ran a BBS and a mockingbird outside my window learned the "paging sysop" beeps the computer made. It was very confusing, and like your bird, it was annoying because it was usually in the early morning hours.

The mockingbirds where I lived from 2009-2018 only sang the song of the car alarm. The original species became rarer and rarer, and generational distortion snuck in. It was definitely interesting comparing which parts of the alarm were mocked well and which were outside the range.

Otoh, really annoying on hot nights when everyone had their windows open and the damn things keep chirping all night. A neighbor found if you yell shut up really loud, you'll get about 5 minutes of peace.

Based on the title, I was hoping for an explanation. Instead the article is a collection of "maybe it's this?" points.

It's still great that Cornell Lab provide resources like this. Another project of theirs, BirdNET [0], is fantastic for identifying bird song.

[0] https://birdnet.cornell.edu/

All scientific exploration begins with the humble acknowledgement that there are aspects of our wonderfully mysterious universe that we simply can't explain (yet).

Curiosity then leads us to discover!

> Blue Jays imitate the calls of Red-tailed, Red-shouldered, and Broad-winged hawks, for example.

I've seen this. We've had Red Tailed Hawks nesting in the area and used to hear them calling every morning. (True fact: Most "eagle calls" in media are Red Tailed Hawks because they sound more intimidating than the chittering from Bald Eagles.) One morning I was out and about and heard the "hawk" in the tree directly above me. I stopped and searched through the branches which were just starting to develop leaves. A bird the size of a hawk should have been easy to spot. After searching for a minute or two, I spotted a Blue Jay hopping around the lower branches.

> The function of these imitations is unknown.

I have a couple guesses.

* Blue Jays being jerks. * Blue Jays mob hawks and maybe just wanted to find one in the area. * Blue Jays just wanted to see what - if anything - would react to the potential presence of the hawk in the area.

I heard a blue jay mimic a golf trolley's squeaky wheel. They will mimic any sound, it's a sex thing, it doesn't have to be complicated.

I haven't gone back in a few years to read some of the puzzles and I for sure "capped out" at some point, possibly just out of fatigue, but the book To Mock a Mockingbird kind of themes all of it's problems around how birds have different songs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Mock_a_Mockingbird

The Onion did a spoof about this, the “Montana Merkle,”whose human-like call has resulted in it almost becoming extinct: https://youtu.be/5D2VdaM8OcM?si=52J07cq3W_-RWPp8

A few years into the LLM age and we're still asking questions like this?

Just like language in humans, the birds' brains are ingesting training data and emitting similar output data, when they discover that they have the necessary I/O devices to do so.

So your answer to the question is "because they can?" I don't think we needed the LLM age for us to be able to say that. That is to say, I think the article is giving the birds a bit more agency than next-token prediction engines.

Sometimes it's just fascinating thinking about the evolution of why some birds mimic - for instance one could spend a lifetime every time a flock [1] Sulphur crested cockatoos that have decided to roost and feed nearby listening to them screech for hours and not hear any other variation of trying to mimic other bird species - but infrequently I and others will note a few when perhaps they've noted us, try to imitate phrases of those well meaning folks who set out bird feeding stations for them.

But I consider myself blessed that about 35 years ago when certainly there was a larger amount of birds species as well as general bird population, one year (unsure of season) I witnessed one particular nondescript brown bird about the same size as a magpie that had an amazing range of bird differing bird calls. I could recognise about half I thought at the time, and over a few days wondered what it's own call was. More often it made an incredibly raspy call, that was similar to both the (nocturnal) native possum and (nocturnal) flying fox species that inhabit the region. Since it could mimic so well, and the rasp was quite distinct to me from either possum and flying fox, I eventually assumed that the raspy call was its own. Why blessed - I witnessed something clever on the birds part, being chased out of a tree by another small flock of similar sized birds, it looped up high above, coming down imitating a whistling kite [2] with the flock scattering leaving the shady tree all for its own ... well ____ me, down the rabbit hole and it solves a 35 + personal mystery where when I tried to identify the bird and was made to feel stupid by those I asked for perhaps not being familiar with what either a possum or flying fox sound like and of course told I was mistaken in what I'd observed. Most likely what I'd seen was a spotted bowerbird [3] ... I haven't to my knowledge seen once since in all that time and I used to bush walk around the tropical scrub at least once a month up until a few years ago -- now less frequent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_cockatoo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistling_kite [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_bowerbird

> When approached by humans or other potential threats, males at bowers and females at nests often mimic the calls of predatory birds such as the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax), blue-winged kookaburra (Dacelo leachii), grey-crowned babbler (Pomatostomus temporalis), grey butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus), pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis), Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), Australian raven (Corvus coronoides), apostlebird (Struthidea cinerea) and honeyeaters (Meliphagidae spp.) among others

Edit for clarity

It's so cool for you to have been blessed like this.

You may very well enjoy David Attenborough's series "The Life of Birds". I know my family has. Of course, all of DA's nature series are fantastic.

"The Private Life of Plants" (6 parts) is one of my favs, but they're all great.

Here's the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_Collection

The only one I didn't know about (until now) is "Life in the Freezer". He also has one-offs and the "Planet Earth" series as well.

What a life! One of the very few human beings on Earth who deserves a 'Sir' in front of his name.

Having not seen a live lyrebird, (they're not in Northern Queensland) watching and listening to a bird in person that could mimic equally as well some of the various birds about was something - watching the bird finally succeed in scaring off the flock occupying the tree - I did wonder if it was pure coincidence. I should point out that prior to its success, the bird sat in the tree for a time going through it's great number of different bird calls, and hopping between branches towards the flock from time to time and being chased back out of the tree only to return with another volley of calls. These loop of calls would sometimes include the whistling kite but the flock I think sensed there was no kite sitting in the branches where this bird was sitting and didn't react. At the time I just thought, oh what a strange song bird flitting about advertising its presence and it wasn't until the bird flew way above the tree and down though the top branches with the whistling kite call that I twigged there was more to its behaviour.

David Attenborough's tv series I enjoy if I've got time to watch. I do believe recalling watching the same segment with the lyrebird imitating the camera.

> I did wonder if it was pure coincidence.

"There are no coincidences." --Master Oogway

"There seems no plan because it is all plan." --CS Lewis

> that I twigged there was more to its behaviour.

:-)

Peace be with you, friend.

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