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“He spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind

“He spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once you have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it.” ― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

perilunar 6y ago
> just inane bird chatter I suspect most bird chatter is about sex, not flying. Like when you're out in the summer evening, and the crickets are chirping and the frogs are croaking, and you realise it's just a whole bunch of males shouting "hey baby, over here!"
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  Service discovery all the way down.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mattigames 6y ago
  In a lot of species the females are the one making noise, sloths and snow leopards as a couple of examples.
- Phrenzy 6y ago
  I got a bird feeder a little while ago. After watching them closer that I had in the past, I realized something. All that chirping going on either means "Have sex with me" or "Go away, this is mine." All the chirping I had ever heard basically means the same thing as most of what my peers were saying in junior high.
KineticLensman 6y ago
> It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. As much as I like Douglas Aadms, this statement is just wrong. A lot of bird chatter is songs to demarcate territory, threat warnings, contact calls to maintain flock awareness, young birds saying 'feed me', and others. I know when a cat has entered my garden by the clucking warning calls that the blackbirds make. They make a different warning noise when I interrupt them on my bird feeder. Sometimes I'm alerted to a buzzard by the calls of rooks who are ganging up on it.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  It might be a mistake to read Adams for scientific accuracy.
  - 411111111111111 6y ago
    Next you'll be telling me that I can't fly even after I forgot about gravity. I'll float around your head for hours just to prove you wrong!
    - Phrenzy 6y ago
      One could write a lovely poem about that.
- abainbridge 6y ago
  Yeah, true. But I've seen three bird calls that don't fit that pattern in my garden. Long tail tits seem to move around in small flocks, probably eating the insects in my trees. Every few seconds one of the flock flies to another tree. If the others don't follow, it flies back. While this is happening there is a constant chorus of little chirps. My guess is that they feel "attracted" to the centroid of the chirps, as a simple, almost mechanical way to keep the flock together (its hard to see each other amongst all the branches). The other case is juvenile magpies. As adults I mostly hear them shouting aggressively at each other. But if the youngsters don't know I'm there, I've sometimes heard them chatting. The sounds they make are complex and quiet. A bit like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4ZVgjslVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4ZVgjslVQ but I've always seen them in pairs or groups when doing this. Third is the Robin (European). They also have a whisper song. Sometimes they do it so quietly that I have to be within a few feet to hear it. And there's no other bird around. I guess it's a male who is just working on new material to impress the ladies with later.

perilunar 6y ago

> just inane bird chatter I suspect most bird chatter is about sex, not flying. Like when you're out in the summer evening, and the crickets are chirping and the frogs are croaking, and you realise it's just a whole bunch of males shouting "hey baby, over here!"

formerly_proven 6y ago
Service discovery all the way down.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mattigames 6y ago
In a lot of species the females are the one making noise, sloths and snow leopards as a couple of examples.
Phrenzy 6y ago
I got a bird feeder a little while ago. After watching them closer that I had in the past, I realized something. All that chirping going on either means "Have sex with me" or "Go away, this is mine." All the chirping I had ever heard basically means the same thing as most of what my peers were saying in junior high.

KineticLensman 6y ago

> It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. As much as I like Douglas Aadms, this statement is just wrong. A lot of bird chatter is songs to demarcate territory, threat warnings, contact calls to maintain flock awareness, young birds saying 'feed me', and others. I know when a cat has entered my garden by the clucking warning calls that the blackbirds make. They make a different warning noise when I interrupt them on my bird feeder. Sometimes I'm alerted to a buzzard by the calls of rooks who are ganging up on it.

ceejayoz 6y ago
It might be a mistake to read Adams for scientific accuracy.
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  Next you'll be telling me that I can't fly even after I forgot about gravity. I'll float around your head for hours just to prove you wrong!
  - Phrenzy 6y ago
    One could write a lovely poem about that.
abainbridge 6y ago
Yeah, true. But I've seen three bird calls that don't fit that pattern in my garden. Long tail tits seem to move around in small flocks, probably eating the insects in my trees. Every few seconds one of the flock flies to another tree. If the others don't follow, it flies back. While this is happening there is a constant chorus of little chirps. My guess is that they feel "attracted" to the centroid of the chirps, as a simple, almost mechanical way to keep the flock together (its hard to see each other amongst all the branches). The other case is juvenile magpies. As adults I mostly hear them shouting aggressively at each other. But if the youngsters don't know I'm there, I've sometimes heard them chatting. The sounds they make are complex and quiet. A bit like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4ZVgjslVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4ZVgjslVQ but I've always seen them in pairs or groups when doing this. Third is the Robin (European). They also have a whisper song. Sometimes they do it so quietly that I have to be within a few feet to hear it. And there's no other bird around. I guess it's a male who is just working on new material to impress the ladies with later.