Interesting article about birdsong, and mimicking in particular.

[helenclayton@mas.to]

Interesting article about birdsong, and mimicking in particular.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/mar/04/bird-calls-north-yorkshire-moors-walk

#Birds

[helenclayton@mas.to]

À propos this…For the last year we and our neighbours have been trying to id a mystery bird call. We (OH and I) thought it could be a sparrowhawk bc we saw a SH around at the time of hearing, but it didn’t sound like any SH we’d heard. Anyway, I uploaded it to a recording site and someone said ‘100% sure NOT’ a SH ‘likely an aberrant Great Tit (sub)song’…2 days later saw said GT singing said mystery song 🤦‍♀️

Add to the mix, our resident blackbird is now mimicking the GT. But who is mimicking who?

[lionelb@expressional.social]

@helenclayton

Sounds like a very effective mechanism for hogging the bird-table but very ineffective in finding a mate 👀

[helenclayton@mas.to]

@lionelb I remember hearing that GTs have a wide variety of calls so that it seems like there are more of them than there actually are. Maybe the odd call is also to confuse predators. It’s not like any GT I’ve heard before.