BBC Earth
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2020–2025
2:58 · 19M views · May 18, 2009
A short BBC Earth clip from David Attenborough's Life of Birds showing a lyrebird imitating sounds, including a chainsaw and camera shutter, so accurately it is hard to tell from the real thing.
Shared whenever birds mimic sounds come up, as a mind-blowing example of vocal mimicry.
5 comments from Hacker News
Here's the one that blows my mind: this video 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.
You might enjoy the superb lyre bird imitating sounds as mind boggling as a chainsaw--and when I say imitate, I mean I couldn't have distinguished the lyre bird sound from a real chainsaw. It's really mind-boggling to me. this video
The Lyrebird from Australia is probably the best at this. It can imitate just about anything - car alarms, other birdsongs, camera shutters, gunshots, etc. etc. this video [LINK]
The obvious and very Australian bird question is, of course, how can we search for: * A camera shutter, * A camera with a motorised drive, * A car alarm, * A chainsaw, ... etc ? this video
It's spelled Lyre Bird, not Lire (the spelling is correct in the repo, just wrong in the title). Not much else to say. Here's a lyrebird imitating a chainsaw: this video