Like many people, I am intrigued by bird calls. Where we live in the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, just out of Adelaide, South Australia, we are graced by many types of native birds. However in the forty years we have lived here, the number of species found in the area had dropped dramatically. This decline has been well documented and is due to a combination of habitat destruction, mostly for human housing, and climate change. Nevertheless, most of the time, the air is filled with the calls of birds, some regular residents, others infrequent passers-by. But what are they saying to each other? what are they trying to tell us?
Here are a couple of videos I have made, in which I give voices to the birds in different ways. Both these videos have had many screenings in Australia and around the world.
Magpies
Magpies are regulars in and around our garden The Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) has extraordinary vocal ability, trilling and carolling a wide range of calls, often together, and often at night. It not related to the European or North American magpies.
The audio for this piece was developed around a recording I made of a magpie singing at night behind our house. I transcribed two of the melodies and then worked out how to play and arrange them. The chorus includes the actual voice of the magpie. The audio during the credits is an unedited sample of three magpies carolling on a still winter’s night.
The video is animated from footage of magpies around our house, in Belair National Park, and on the Victorian coast during a storm; local trees at night; and the word “magpie”. The abstract nature of the video reflects our incomplete understanding of magpie society.
As the world heats up around them, as we push the environment closer to total devastation, perhaps we should be listening to what the magpies have to say.
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos
‘im an’ ‘im an’ me a’ways in wide-blue out low-a-drift clou’s all windfeath’ry
The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhyncus funereus) has a distinctive, relaxed loping flight and a loud plaintive call: “why-eeela, weee-la”. It feeds on the seeds of diverse trees including eucalypts, banksias and hakeas. Much of this habitat has been destroyed or degraded by human activity. However, the cockatoos are often seen around the outer suburbs of Adelaide, feeding on seeds in the cones of introduced Monterey Pines (Pinus radiata) planted along roadsides and in parks and gardens.
The video gives voice to a yellow-tailed black cockatoo as it searches for food and missing companions in urban deserts. It speaks a dialect of Australian English that I created to reflect the cadences of the cockatoos’ calls.
To read more about bird calls and their role in communication, see Bird Talk: An exploration of avian communication” by Barbara Ballantine and Jeremy Hyman (CSIRO Publishing, 2021).