h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, Willem

I once bought some recordings of bird calls and tried to learn them well enough to have a hope of identifying birds that I heard in my area. Turns out I wasn't as good at learning them as I had hoped, though I did master the different calls of the Chickadee, some of which I already knew.

Hi Paulh! I am fairly good at recognizing the calls of the birds in my area. Some guys are really good, and can pretty much ID everything out there, on just a snatch of song. There was a set of cassette tapes, I think eight tapes in all, that was brought out, with the calls of almost every kind of Southern African bird on them. I listened to that one a lot.

I'm glad to hear that. Wait, I just remembered that I can also recognize the calls of Blue Jays and Mourning Doves and Catbirds. Also cuckoos, though there don't seem to be any in my area.

Our biology teacher in high school could identify birds by their calls. He took us on a 'nature walk' in the neighbourhood around the school and demonstrated.

My dad and I sat on my grandparents' porch one morning while my dad fooled a 'bobwhite' by imitating the mating call. The bird started out way down in the holler, then got closer and closer...when he realised it was just a human playing a practical joke, he fussed, and then flew off.

I think birds get jokes.

Not only can birds get jokes, they can also get revenge. In my neighborhood we used to have a cat that killed at least one bird. The other birds found out about it and dive-bombed the cat's head en masse. This went on for more than two years.

That's a long vendetta.

There was a study done on british birds that were adept at opening milk bottles
http://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V42/V42_N11/V42_N11_P347_357_A059.pdf

Eleven different species of birds were found to be capable of it, and there was evidence that they were teaching other birds to do it.