Birds That Make Phonetic Sounds & Phrases

Video Transcript

"Hello. Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I'm the director of the Important Bird Areas Program for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Today, we're here at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield. And, we're going to be talking about birding by ear. Another way of recalling bird songs even though the birds may not say their names the way that some in the last segment did, in fact, are birds that have clearly rememberable phrases, things that sound like words that we can readily remember. For example, the Eastern Towhee often sounds like it says, "Drink your tea," for instance. The Olive Sided Flycatcher, "Hip three beers." And, probably one of the most distinctive of all is yet another of the night birds, the Barred Owl. The Barred Owl has a deep resonant repeated song that sounds very much like the phrase, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" And, this is something that pairs of Barred Owls will often, a call that they'll give back and forth at night along with a variety of other interesting vocalizations. But, probably the "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" of the Barred Owl is one of the more familiar and easily remembered songs based on the fact that you can liken the phrases to the words."