Have you ever heard a bird singing a melody that sounds suspiciously like a human tune? Well, that’s not as far-fetched as it seems.
Deep in the forests of southeastern Australia lives one of nature’s greatest vocal impressionists – the superb lyrebird. This pheasant-sized songbird is renowned for its breathtaking ability to mimic sounds from its environment with uncanny accuracy. From the cackling laughter of kookaburras to the strident whip-crack calls of other birds, the lyrebird can recreate these sounds so perfectly that even the original species is fooled.
But the lyrebird’s repertoire extends far beyond just imitating its feathered neighbors. These avian virtuosos can also mimic man-made sounds like cameras clicking, chainsaws revving, fire alarms blaring, and even human voices and music. Up to 80% of a male lyrebird’s rich, complex song consists of meticulously learned mimicry woven together. An individual bird may accurately reproduce the calls of over 20 different species.
What’s even more impressive is the lyrebird’s long-term memory for sounds. They can remember and reproduce intricate calls after hearing them only a few times. This exceptional memory ensures the survival of the learned tunes, even after the bird’s initial exposure.
While mimicking anthropogenic noises is considered an unusual phenomenon, there are captivating historical examples of lyrebirds essentially becoming accidental archivists of human activities and cultural artifacts from decades past. One such story comes from the forests of New South Wales’ New England National Park in the 1930s.
During that era, a flute player living on a farm near the park’s boundaries used to play tunes near his pet lyrebird. Being the world-class mimic that it was, the lyrebird listened intently and precisely imprinted those flute tunes into its vocal repertoire. Even after being released back into the wild, that lyrebird continued performing those musical phrases learned from its former owner.
Decades later in 1969, park ranger Neville Fenton was stunned to hear those unmistakably flute-like patterns still being incorporated into a lyrebird’s song within the park. After much investigation, including input from musicologists, the mysterious flute sounds were determined to be modified renditions of two popular songs from the 1930s – “The Keel Row” and “Mosquito’s Dance.” (Later, however, a “flute lyrebird” research group that included Fenton found no evidence of the “Mosquito Dance” and only traces of “Keel Row” in contemporary and historical lyrebird recordings from the area.)
This remarkable discovery revealed that a lyrebird’s mimicry prowess allows it to preserve audio snapshots of the human-made noises and even musical pieces from its environment across generations. In essence, lyrebirds can act as biological audio recording devices, passing down learned vocalization “tapes” for over half a century after first exposure.
While the flute-playing story remains contested by some researchers unable to definitively prove its validity, it underscores the broader implications of lyrebirds serving as keepers of human cultural heritage. Their abilities to convincingly recreate everything from bushmen’s axe strikes to pioneers’ windmills creaking allows modern listeners to gain rare acoustic glimpses into how environments sounded 50, 60, perhaps over 100 years ago before urbanization dominated the landscape.
Researchers have pondered whether more undiscovered “recordings” of past human activities could be unlocked by studying remote lyrebird populations and their vocal behaviors across Australia. Who knows what other preserved “audio fossils” might be found hidden within a lyrebird’s multilayered, mimicking melodies?