........If our birds could talk / communicate with us, what would they say. My birds were very vocal with me this morning waiting in the trees whilst i cleared the snow, put food & water out. They seemed very excited.
I'd like to know what my nice robin is thinking & saying when he comes up to meet me.
"Got worms?" probably!
Birds definitely can communicate if you know what to listen for. I live with a magpie who uses vocalisations to mean particular, definable things. He uses human *sniff*, *kiss* and *cough* noises as well as his own magpie sounds. His lexicon includes: *sniff*: Used when disapproving of a command to do something / not do something is given, and also demanding a share of interesting-looking food. Also used in response to a human sneeze (or sometimes pre-emptively after an indrawing of breath). *cough*: Used in response to a human cough. *kiss*: Used to indicate excitement, especially when interacting with favourite humans or interesting new male humans in the house. "Rakk": Conversational noise. *Squeak*: "It's MINE!" / "Caught red-handed!" "squeueueueueue": Used when playing with toys. Accompanied by fuzzed head and refusal to give up toy.
I'm sure your garden birds are well aware that you coming out means that food is on its way, and are probably telling each other to come and share the feast (if it's a social species like a starling) or to stay well away (if it's more like a stroppy blackbird).
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Karen F said: "Got worms?" probably!
LOL. I had a budgie who could tsk with the best of them. However, I think my garden birds probably mostly complain that I am too slow going out to feed them of a morning because, odd though it might seem, I like to wait until it is at least bordering on daylight!
The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.
The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!
"Food, glorious food!
Sunflower hearts and mealworms..."
Millie & Fly the Border Collies
Funny you should ask that. The spring edition of Birds magazine is on its way out to members this weekend and includes a feature on bird 'language' including a mention of Alex the Grey Parrot, whose vocabluary included dozens of discrete words.
As for your robin, well your presence probably is flashing one really big message in his brain - "FOOD!!!"
Might I commend to you the book "Corvus"?
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!
The sparrows in my garden are always nattering away, they're like my mum when she meets her friends in Tesco's lol! "Ooh come over here dear, and look at this lovely special offer on mealworms! Ooh and it's two breadcrumbs for the price of one today!"
And when it gets to the spring... if you could understand what they're saying it would probably be like being in a bar, with the male birds doing dodgy chat-up lines!
Harry x
OH I will look for that Ab.Quine, do u know the author?
Yes Colin I am very aware of parrot vocabulary, I have 2 conures (pic in my profile). I came home today to "been good birds" & I said "no you haven't Jake has told me you've been naughty" to which there was an unmentionable reply "---- you Jakey". They are extremely clever parrots & use words & sounds in context. Kiwi my male now says "Hello Robin" to the Robin. He can identify it as being different.
Lol Spikey I thought that, I bet the males use my garden to pull the ladies, "Do you wana check my garden out, mealworms, nuts, variety of seed, suet everything" .
I'm sure my young male blackbird was having a protest late this afternoon, I had filled up the nyger seeds but not put any fruit or suet pellets out.
Probably along the lines of:
"Oh yeh, go on fill up the nyger seed why don't you, it's all about the goldfinches isn't it, never the blackbirds!" "Come on bring em out & all's forgiven, where's my suet pellets love?"
He seemed quite annoyed with me.
It was written by Esther Woolfson and is wonderful