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

Talking starlings

[interfecta.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I can't find the article, but I recently read in hard copy (I believe it was Audubon) about a study where starlings were kept in researchers' homes for spans of 12 months or more to study their ability to mimic. What the researchers found was that starlings were easily able to learn to mimic phrases, songs played by musical instruments, and other, less "songlike" noises (I think one mimicked a coffee grinder) but that rather than simply repeating what the heard, the starlings would pick and choose what they wanted to use as song. So for example, one bird would repeat a phrase from a piano piece, but cut out before the pause at the end of the phrase. Another example was of one who screamed, "I have a question!" while receiving medical treatment. I wish I could find the article; it raised some interesting questions about the ability to interpret as well as learn. I believe the article title was "Why you can't teach a starling to sing."

Re: Talking starlings

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to the article you mentioned.

http://tinyurl.com/hoc6s

Re: Talking starlings

[interfecta.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and I heart your icon.