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Bird Songs Go to Hollywood

October 22, 2016
What are all those sounds?
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Pied-bill Grebe coloring is good camoflauge in wetlands Expand Image
© David Silva, CC

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.

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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.
###
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    

Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Frank Corrado
Narrator
Tags: Hollywood, humor, vocalization

Related Resources

Pied-billed Grebes - More at All About BirdsPied-billed grebe calls at the Macaulay Library

More About These Birds

Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)

Podilymbus podiceps

Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)

Dacelo novaeguineae

Sights & Sounds

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

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