Copy Bird

Talking birds are birds that can mimic the speech of humans. There is debate within the . It has been suggested that (general) mimicry of non-bird related sounds is in fact, simply a mistaken attempt to copy species-specific calls.
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But when the male superb lyrebird takes the stage, he gives new definition to the term "siren song. Those flashy inch-long tail feathers don't hurt either. But to lure the females in close enough to admire his pretty plumage, he has to sing his heart out. But this bird is more than just a snazzy solo.

Lyrebird • Ultra-Realistic Voice Cloning and Text-to-Speech

He's a whole glee club. He can imitate more than 20 different bird species in one song. The more complex, the better-like the kookaburra.


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It's so convincing, it even fools the real thing But this male doesn't just stop at bird calls. To really impress a potential mate, he breaks out the sampler.


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The lyrebird's syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the passerines songbirds , giving the lyrebird extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. Lyrebirds render with great fidelity the individual songs of other birds and the chatter of flocks of birds, and also mimic other animals such as koalas and dingoes. However, while the mimicry of human noises is widely reported, the extent to which it happens is exaggerated and the phenomenon is unusual. The superb lyrebird's mimicked calls are learned from the local environment, including from other superb lyrebirds.

An instructive example is the population of superb lyrebirds in Tasmania, which have retained the calls of species not native to Tasmania in their repertoire, with some local Tasmanian endemic bird songs added.

Young birds take about a year to perfect their mimicked repertoire. The female lyrebirds of both species are also mimics capable of complex vocalisations. Superb lyrebird females are often silent during courtship; however, they regularly produce sophisticated vocal displays during foraging and nest defense.

One researcher, Sydney Curtis, has recorded flute-like lyrebird calls in the vicinity of the New England National Park. Similarly, in , a park ranger, Neville Fenton, recorded a lyrebird song which resembled flute sounds in the New England National Park, near Dorrigo in northern coastal New South Wales. After much detective work by Fenton, it was discovered that in the s, a flute player living on a farm adjoining the park used to play tunes near his pet lyrebird.

The lyrebird adopted the tunes into his repertoire, and retained them after release into the park.

Talking bird

Neville Fenton forwarded a tape of his recording to Norman Robinson. Because a lyrebird is able to carry two tunes at the same time, Robinson filtered out one of the tunes and put it on the phonograph for the purposes of analysis. One witness suggested that the song represents a modified version of two popular tunes in the s: Musicologist David Rothenberg has endorsed this information.

Neither were they able to prove that a lyrebird chick had been a pet, although they acknowledged compelling evidence on both sides of the argument. Lyrebirds are not endangered in the short to medium term. Albert's lyrebird has a very restricted habitat and had been listed as vulnerable by the IUCN , but because the species and its habitat were carefully managed, the species was re-assessed to near threatened in Even so, lyrebirds are vulnerable to cats and foxes , and it remains to be seen if habitat protection schemes will stand up to increased human population pressure.

Voice Samples

The lyrebird has been featured as a symbol and emblem many times, especially in New South Wales and Victoria where the superb lyrebird has its natural habitat , and in Queensland where Albert's lyrebird has its natural habitat. The lyrebird is so called because the male bird has a spectacular tail, consisting of 16 highly modified feathers two long slender lyrates at the centre of the plume, two broader medians on the outside edges and twelve filamentaries arrayed between them , which was originally thought to resemble a lyre.

This happened when a superb lyrebird specimen which had been taken from Australia to England during the early 19th century was prepared for display at the British Museum by a taxidermist who had never seen a live lyrebird. The taxidermist mistakenly thought that the tail would resemble a lyre, and that the tail would be held in a similar way to that of a peacock during courtship display, and so he arranged the feathers in this way. Later, John Gould who had also never seen a live lyrebird , painted the lyrebird from the British Museum specimen.

The male lyrebird's tail is not held as in John Gould's painting. Instead, the male lyrebird's tail is fanned over the lyrebird during courtship display, with the tail completely covering his head and back—as can be seen in the image in the 'breeding' section of this page, and also the image of the cent coin, where the superb lyrebird's tail in courtship display is portrayed accurately. The Life of Birds. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Early Miocene to present.

Transactions of the Linnean Society. Volume 9, Cotingas to Pipits and Wagtails , Barcelona: Australian Journal of Zoology.

We create the most realistic artificial voices in the world

Retrieved 3 October Pulse of the Planet. Aboriginal Words of Australia. Amazing Facts about Australian Birds. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Retrieved 18 August New South Wales University Press. Mimicry, Memory, and Narrativity". Retrieved 18 November Retrieved 24 April Retrieved from " https: Julian—Gregorian uncertainty Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from October Use dmy dates from July Use Australian English from July All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English Articles with 'species' microformats Commons category with local link different than on Wikidata.

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