Movie-makers love to add bird sounds to a film, to evoke a mood or set a scene. For all the attention to some details though, nature's details often get a little mixed up... like an Australian Laughing Kookaburra guffawing in the depths of the Florida Everglades? For a jungle sound, it's hard to beat the territorial call of this Pied-billed Grebe, a bird that is widespread and common across the US. Learn more about this small bird with a big voice at Cornell's AllAbout Birds.
BirdNote®
Bird Songs Go to Hollywood
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote!
[Call of the Laughing Kookaburra]
An Australian Laughing Kookaburra guffaws in the depths of the Florida Everglades, startling a lost pair of escaped convicts.
[California Quail crows “Chicago, Chicago, Chicago”]
A desert-loving California Quail crows in the forested mountains of West Virginia, as frontiersmen watch warily for Indians.
[Call of the Eastern US Whip-poor-will]
A wholly nocturnal Whip-poor-will calls on a hot, dusty Montana afternoon, as cowboys ride herd on unruly longhorns.
Where are we? In Hollywood, of course! Movie-makers love to add bird sounds to a film, to evoke a mood or set a scene. But for all the attention to detail—for example, in stitching faultless period costumes—nature’s details often get a little mixed up.
[Continue call of the Eastern US Whip-poor-will]
For an eerie scene set deep in the African jungle, Hollywood knows it’s hard to beat the resounding call of a Pied-billed Grebe. [Hooting call of the Pied-billed Grebe]
Small matter that the grebes are found only on the other side of the world.
Take a meeting with the birds starring in this episode by coming to birdnote.org. I’m Frank Corrado.
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Call of the birds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Laughing Kookaburra recorded by F.N. Robinson, California Quail by D.G. Allen, eastern Whip-poor-will by A.A. Allen; and Pied-billed Grebe by G.A. Keller.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2013 Tune In to Nature.org October 2016 Narrator: Frank Corrado
ID#100705moviesKPLU revised 052407