4 ms·

Back before the iPhone when Nokia was the defacto phone, there were news stories that birds had started to chime the Nokia ringtone or the Nokia sms chime. Bac

Back before the iPhone when Nokia was the defacto phone, there were news stories that birds had started to chime the Nokia ringtone or the Nokia sms chime. Back then I totally believed it, but I’ve grown skeptic, but it looks like it is not completely outlandish.

ajuc 6y ago
My mother told me when she was a kid they used to whistle melodies at birds and some repeated them after a while. Especially starlings.
- xkyscore 6y ago
  I'm surprised McDonald's haven't tried teaching birds to whistle their melody, free advertising
  - _sillymarketing 6y ago
    Except all the work in training the birds...
    - xwdv 6y ago
      That part might be cheap. Still gotta feed and house them while they learn.
thedonkeycometh 6y ago
I remember hearing nokia ringtones sung by birds while waiting for at bus stops in the late 90s
bayindirh 6y ago
I had an Alcatel One Touch Easy and One Touch Max. Both had high chirpy tones and powerful speakers. My budgerigar have learnt that I always responded to SMS tone of the phones and started to mimic them when she wanted some time with me. She did them with pinpoint accuracy so, it was impossible to tell whether it was the phone or her. She also chirped parts of the ringtones for fun. Also we had a tune between us. I'd whistle a specific tune and she'd respond back with the same tune (or vice versa). It was a kind of pinging each other.
- notRobot 6y ago
  That last bit is so cute :)
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Thanks. She was very intelligent and very loving. :)
nkozyra 6y ago
There's a hardware store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn near where I used to live that had a bird in the store, and it frequently did cell phone ring tones, cash registers, etc. I thought that kind of exact copying was relegated to mockingbirds but this guy just looked like a parrot.
WorldMaker 6y ago
I had a bird fall in love with my phone's alarm ringtone that I was using in the mornings, started singing back to it, and tried dangerously to enter my dryer vent presumably to mate (or "rescue"). When I finally put all that together I realized that I probably was sleeping too far into that ringtone's repetition cycle and that it was definitely time to change ringtones.

ajuc 6y ago

My mother told me when she was a kid they used to whistle melodies at birds and some repeated them after a while. Especially starlings.

xkyscore 6y ago
I'm surprised McDonald's haven't tried teaching birds to whistle their melody, free advertising
- _sillymarketing 6y ago
  Except all the work in training the birds...
  - xwdv 6y ago
    That part might be cheap. Still gotta feed and house them while they learn.

thedonkeycometh 6y ago

I remember hearing nokia ringtones sung by birds while waiting for at bus stops in the late 90s

bayindirh 6y ago

I had an Alcatel One Touch Easy and One Touch Max. Both had high chirpy tones and powerful speakers. My budgerigar have learnt that I always responded to SMS tone of the phones and started to mimic them when she wanted some time with me. She did them with pinpoint accuracy so, it was impossible to tell whether it was the phone or her. She also chirped parts of the ringtones for fun. Also we had a tune between us. I'd whistle a specific tune and she'd respond back with the same tune (or vice versa). It was a kind of pinging each other.

notRobot 6y ago
That last bit is so cute :)
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Thanks. She was very intelligent and very loving. :)

nkozyra 6y ago

There's a hardware store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn near where I used to live that had a bird in the store, and it frequently did cell phone ring tones, cash registers, etc. I thought that kind of exact copying was relegated to mockingbirds but this guy just looked like a parrot.

WorldMaker 6y ago

I had a bird fall in love with my phone's alarm ringtone that I was using in the mornings, started singing back to it, and tried dangerously to enter my dryer vent presumably to mate (or "rescue"). When I finally put all that together I realized that I probably was sleeping too far into that ringtone's repetition cycle and that it was definitely time to change ringtones.