Talking pet starling

[urbpan]

Not to give anyone any ideas, but in the United States, it's legal to own a European Starling as a pet (or pretty much do anything you want to them, as long as you don't run afoul of animal cruelty lawas). Here's someone in (apparently) South Carolina who has one, and has taught it a few phrases to speak. It's interesting how the quality of its voice is different from other talking birds.

http://myspace.com/talkingstarling

Edited to Add:

Interesting article about starling song choices: http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=104&articleID=1323

Comments

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

Starlings are considered feral pests here Down Under. They're shot and poisoned like nobody's business, unfortunately.

Undisputed champion of avian mimics is the male Aussie Lyre Bird. They have no calls of their own, but "steal" the calls of other birds, and give a perfect, "playback quality" of the song of kookaburras, magpies, crows, roosters- and not just birds either, but also kangaroos, dingoes, chainsaws, typewriters, SUV engines... David Attenborough once filmed one, and it started making the whirring sound that his camera was emitting!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I posted a link to the video of that lyrebird a while back. Maybe in my "videos" tag?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

No, no. My "david attenborough" tag will work, or "lyrebird."

As I recall, there was some discussion about whether the chainsaw sound it made was real or not.