Karaoke Forums

I bumped into this mag article about how birds sing and thought others might be interested. I'm condensing much and using mag words.

A human voice can shatter glass, but no opera star can match the range and complexity of a common songbird. Birds can produce harmonics, multiple tones at diff frequencies. Even produce two different complex songs at the same time. They even sing duets and it sounds like from a single bird. A mynah bird can mimic human speech. A bird can "sound the alarm" and the source of the alarm is not detectable.

A bird has a "voice box" called a syrinx. It is on the other side of the trachea, right at the lungs. They don't have vocal chords, but thin membranes which when air is forced through produce sound. Air is not only stored in their lungs, but in air sacks throughout their body, in their legs and wings even. This provides a continuous air flow. And talk about efficient, we only use 2% of expelled air to work our vocal chords, they use 100%.

Russ

Interesting...

But what about them fricken crows? What the heck sound is that?

The best sound that a crow can make is "THUD!" <right after I shoot them with my pellet gun>  :reddevil:

Hey Phil,

I can't stop laughing, thud, .....hahahahhhahahahahahahaha..........


Russ

Come on Phil; the total sound should be bang /thud. Hey, I study animal vocalization as part of my work.
The mynah you sp. that are very good at mimicing human vox are the Hill mynah; the common mynah are not .

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

The reason we don't understand is because they're singing in Dinosaur.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Dont forgate that some non-primate mamal sing too ie the whale. you can buy thier singing album!

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

My brother had a minah bird. It never said a word, except "caw, caw" all the time.
So I thought the bird waz stupid.
One time some friends were over and gathered around the cage, all trying to make the bird talk. I went out of the room for a bit a came back and everyone is going "caw, caw" like the bird. It waz then I realized that the bird wasn't so stupid after all, for it taught us how to talk like it!

Hey, there are times (especially after a long night of Jack on the rocks for instance) when I can do a pretty darn good imitation of a "fricken crow"........ so if you hear me please don't go pingin' me with a dang pellet gun Phil.







Don't mind me guys....... trying to keep up with my required posts........ thought this thread  looked fun.  :oh yeah:

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

Hey Bad, I have an african grey which is considered to be the best mimic in the parrot family after the Hill mynah.

She has a gorgeous singing voice and you can bet it's nothing she's learned to mimic from me.  She must have heard it on the radio, it sounds nothing like mine.



What's with the required posts Blue...geez,  I haven't posted in ages....

I used to have a pair of hill mynah. Built a very large encloser(25'x15'x12') for them. After 2 years of trying, they still could not sing. I then realized that you need to isolate them, then only will they be teachable.I could not built an other encloser so I gave them away. Sad.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

   I'm pretty certain the Hill Mynah's are considered the "best talking" bird in the world. I believe the clarity of their mimicry outdoes even the female African Grey's.  

  For some reason I haven't seen nearly as many Mynah's in recent years here in the Northeast US being sold as pets, as I did years back. I know they are asian birds, yet most parrots and parrotlets are imported from other continents.  I wonder why I've seen so few Mynah's around in comparison to other species of pet bird. Import laws pertaining to birds from that section of the world ?   I know many years ago importing got tougher from certain locations.  I suppose due to Salmonella, and various parasites.

Russ,

  Sound Physics was never a forte of mine.  I don't know that much about resonance, yet I've seen the "Is it live, or is it Memorex" commercial, and I wonder what the odd's really are of a non-amplified human voice shattering glass. It just seems that the odds of a person doing this are extremely slim to none. Yet I don't know.  I will vouch for the fact that the larger Macaw's, Mulican Too's, and Grey's can shatter the human eardrum however

One of these days I'll have to tell you the story about Stanley.  A week near Stanley (Scarlet Macaw Parrot), outdid years standing in front of a Marshall stack in terms of tinitus.

Hi Steven,

Yeah, I'm not positive on the shattering glass, the article claims its possible by certain opera singers, but I don't know waz just repeating the probable misinformation.

Still workin on the harmony deal and I can say I'm slowly getting it, and I will, cause I'm relentless and patient when I want to do something....I've read over your info many times and thanks so much for all you've said.

Russ

That's what I just said....are you even listening to me Steven?!  *pouting.... 

A grey can shatter the human eardrum?!  Never heard that one before...that's one reason I chose a grey over a cockatoo....mine never screeches....she gets loud sometimes when she's excited, but hey, so do I....  ;)  I'd do some research on it, but I don't wanna...you do it and let me know....    I haven't heard that the female is the better talker either, let me know more about that too will ya?

Though it's not showing up, I've edited this post 4 times....did I turn you on?  ;)

Jeanne, I just posted in detail about this, yet when I returned, for some strange reason, my post disappeared.  I doubt it was pulled, there'd be no reason for that. When I returned to post to Russ, my post regarding birds talking was gone..Yet I also had to reboot to return to KS, so I have no idea what happened.

In brief, I read that the young hens have the potential for being the best talking parrots, however I'm not certain about how accurate this book was. I believe it stated that a person wanting a talking parrot, stands a better chance if they purchase a young hen, and have no other birds.. This way the bird bonds with the owner, and is more easy to train. Dr. Eileen Peppertons Grey used for the famous studies is male (I think), and has an amazing vocabulary, so males can talk as well, I need to reread this however, I wonder if I have it reversed..  LOL    

The three people I knew with African Grey's had EXTREMELY deafening birds, Especially during the two times during the day when a bird tends to be most noisey, morning, and bedtime. As to whether these birds were neurotic or not, I'm not sure..  I do know that some consider the African Grey parrot to be among the most quiet of the parrots as well. Perhaps with this species of bird it's an individual thing, yet with the Mulican Too's, and larger Macaw, as well as some of the Lori's it isn't. If you purchase these birds, you are guaranteed a noisey animal.  I don't understand why there's such a variance in noise levels of African Grey's, yet some people have quiet sweet singing cockatiels too.  Mine drove me crazy. VERY noisey, loved to compete with my guitar and amp volume.  I suppose I'm to blame  LOL


Russ,

I'm glad you're coming along with the harmony.  As to the shattering of glass, personally I don't know... I do know opera singers exert tremendous force, and in a sense they have to be in all around physical conditioning.  I've heard Opera buffs say when Pavarotti let himself go physically, the amazing exertion put on his body physically when he sang, really put him at tremendous physical risk.  The opera singer must be in decent athletic shape. I suppose logically, it would be the opera singer that would shatter glass assuming this happened.  I've seen thunder vibrate glass, and break it.  Yet again, resonance is something I don't know enough about. In the commercial claiming glass breaks, isn't it Ella Fitzgerald they are saying has a range and power that can shatter glass ?  I don't recall.

I go to the park every morning to walk my dog, so I hear lots of great bird songs.  I swear one bird sounds like a car alarm and another one always sounds like he's saying, "we're still here, we're still here"...

Now if only I can get my dog to talk! He doesn't even bark much.  He does know how to whine, though.  He might get that from me

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~Suzanne Lanoue~

Regarding parakeets:




So I probably had it reversed, unless it does vary in accordance with the species of bird.  I don't feel like getting out my cockatiel book, so we'll assume I screwed up

Steven, I do know that with cockateils, one of the sexes do talk better than the other, not sure which...the one i had sure had some high pitched sounds, piercing..

Sabra does too, I just remembered, when she mimics the smoke detector...I don't know how many times I've come running thinking mine is going off.  When I get on to her about it, she just chuckles....  

Jeanne,

  I'm wondering if the confusion here is that the Congo African Grey is extremely loud, and the Timneh grey is among the quietest of the pet birds. All I know is that the African Grey's I was around were larger, and damn loud !  I realize these are very intelligent birds, and prone to emotional issues that affect their compatibility in a persons household, yet based upon lists I've seen claiming the AFrican Grey parrot is less loud than even a tiel, I'm wondering if what they aren't telling you is that they are using the smaller Timneh as the representation for pet greys.  I don't remember much of anything about the difference between the two types of Grey parrot, with the exception of their size.  In fact, I don't know if I've ever even seen a Timneh Grey.  As far as talking and learning to mimic humans...I don't recall if different species tend to differ in terms of which sex mimics better.  Yet I know if a person wants a pet that mimic's the owner, it needs to bond with it's owner, and not another bird of it's species first. These need to usually be single young pet birds that bond with their owner.  My budgie and tiel were too old to learn to curse, lord knows I tried !!

from what i remember steven, there's not much difference in the timneh and congo except the timneh is a tad smaller with a darker red on the tail than the congo.
Sabra is a congo african grey.

i used to raise the timneh and they were really quiet all day.  Sabra is VERY talkative during the early morning and also in the evening....she NEVER shuts up then!  she probably picked that up from me...