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Wonder how on earth a pigeon came to understand the word "break"? It was because I used to exercise him regularly, making him fly lengths of my lower room. After 30 lengths, or when he was puffed, I'd say "take a break", after which he'd do another 15 or so. The most amusing incident was with his parents, who I had as guests for some time after they contracted an illness that left them disorientated. Soon after they'd recovered a couple of men came to lay a carpet. The two pigeons, being inquisitive souls, flew in over the surprised men's heads to see what was going on. If that was a surprise, the carpet layers could hardly contain their astonishment when the two birds obediently left the room when I said "out!" No waving of arms, just their names and "out". They simply could not believe that a plain ordinary bird like a pigeon could understand anything like a word. These were birds off the street, by the way. | ||||||||||||
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May 2003 and Owly, our first chick, watches Yoee, my pigeon, intently. It's a pleasure to have birds around the house because of their quick intelligence, generally pleasant temperaments and marked individuality. No two birds, even of the same species, are the same. Yoee saw Owly as a playmate and would jump on his back, making him let out a sharp yikker of protest. A strange reversal of the situation in the wild! Soon after this photo was taken a dopey Czech lodger left the kitchen window open and Yoee flew out. I never saw him again. Having no idea of the dangers of a city he almost certainly fell victim to a car. I'd had him since he was born in my study in February 2000. | ||||||||||||
Pine nest female Late July 2006 (Rode NT1-A mics, 1.5 Mb). | ||||||||||||
Female tawny Same female, September 2004 (Visivox mics, 570 kb). | ||||||||||||
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What fascinates me about this ability in birds to deal with words, and concepts associated with words (ike a pigeon making inferences about hidden meanings), is that unlike the apes we're separated from them by 150 million years or so of evolution. 300 million if you go down the evolutionary tree to the late Jurassic and then back up to modern birds. What this seems to suggest is that some kind of intrinsic ability to use this form of communication arose at a very early stage. If so, the mystery is why it appears to have remained latent in all animals except man. Food for thought.
2 August 2006
Here's a nice recording of what is probably the Pine Nest female Tawny Owl recorded a few nights ago at about 2 a.m. Recorded with the Rode NT1As hanging upside down outside my bedroom window and attached to the Edirol R4. Perfect silent conditions -- no traffic for once! She's calling fairly urgently ... maybe looking for hubby. The mics get the reedy tone of her voice perfectly. It's a 1.6 Mb file mp3'd at 160 kb/s, lasts for 1 min 19 s. The intervals between calls are as they were -- no editing out. All that's cut is a tiny, almost inaudible mew wiith which she announced her arrival right at the beginning. Below that is a recording she made two years ago in the same tree. Sorry about the humans in this -- Corinne didn't know I was recording. For more on this female (owl!) see the Nesting Diary.
