Some stuff about birds and ring-tones

louis · July 17, 2015, 9:12am

I believe Aran wants to test a totally new way of learning foreign languages, it involves flying kites.

mikeellwood · July 17, 2015, 11:14am

There has been an ongoing correspondence recently in The Guardian letters page about garden birds (especially blackbirds) apparently learning to sing recognisable tunes,

ramblingjohn · July 17, 2015, 11:33am

I wonder if its ring tones (those are brief enough to be the call of another species).

Cheers J.P.

mikeellwood · July 17, 2015, 2:10pm

Good point - that could well account for some of them at least.
People may remember that 1970s “Trimphones” had a sort of warble that supposedly attracted birds or caused them to respond (although this might have been an urban myth).

louis · July 17, 2015, 11:08pm

Here’s some interesting stuff about special brain structures in parrots that may explain their exceptional ability to mimic. The article makes some tentative comparisons with human language (and dancing) ability. http://research.duke.edu/parrot-brain-has-unique-structure-speech