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Sparkie Williams & Other Talking Birds

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WhistlingJack

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Oct 29, 2003
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Ever heard a bird neigh like a horse?

Well this, and much more, is on our new Bird Mimicry CD

Bird Mimicry features 26 of the rarest recordings of avian imitation ever captured. Highlights include a jay that neighs like a horse; bullfinches that whistle traditional German folk tunes; and a starling that can imitate an owl, jackdaw and a chicken. All of the sounds have been drawn from the British Library Sound Archive: the world’s largest collection of nature sounds.

Acoustic mimicry or vocal copying is a common behaviour pattern amongst birds. Captive birds such as parrots, mynahs and budgerigars often learn to mimic the voices of their owners in order to be rewarded with increased attention and social contact. Henry VIII famously owned an African grey parrot that would summon boatmen from across the water at Hampton Court Palace. More recently ‘Ziggy’, another African grey, revealed the infidelity of its owner’s girlfriend when it imitated her voice when speaking to the third party in her affair!

The most skilled bird mimics are those species that increase their repertoire of songs by copying other sounds and are able to seem more impressive to rivals and mates. These sounds can be extremely varied, and range from the mimicry of other birds and mammals to the imitation of the sounds of human activity.

Each track reveals the amazing abilities of birds to listen, memorise and replicate sounds. Some birds can even copy complicated sounds that they’ve only heard once or twice.

Bird Mimicry is published by the British Library, price £9.95 [ISBN 0 7123 0529 7]. The CD is available from the British Library Online Bookshop.

The British Library Sound Archive holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of nature sounds including over 150,000 recordings of over 10,000 kinds of animals and their habitats from Britain and overseas. Over 400 of these sounds can be accessed online through Listen to Nature.

bl.uk/birdmimicry
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Now, neither of the samples on that page are of 'talking' birds but you can hear one elsewhere on the site: -

The most famous British budgerigar was Sparkie Williams, trained by Mrs. Mattie Williams of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He could utter about 550 words and recite several four-line nursery rhymes. Much of his vocabulary is preserved for posterity in the BBC's Sound Archive.

Sparkie was born in October 1954 and after a six-year working life as a character actor (two accents: "Geordie" and "refined") retired to a small bungalow in Bournemouth. He died at the age of eight, having returned to his native north-east. Sparkie had come to fame by winning in July 1958 a 'Cage Word' contest run by the BBC radio programme Home for the Day. In 1958 a 78rpm gramophone record - with Sparkie as a soloist, was issued by Parlophone (no.4475). He also appeared on a television commercial advertising Caperns, a make of bird seed. In 1962 the company produced over 20,000 copies of a disc with Sparkie's voice on. It was called Pretty Talk.

bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/listentonature/specialinterestlang/langofbirds13
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Scradje
 
Just a quick post to say that you can now download the legendary Pancho the Parrot's version of I Left My Heart In San Francisco over at WFMU :D
 
Never mind Parrots and Mynas, an Australian duck called Ripper was taught to say "you bloody fool".

duck.JPG


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-58475006
 
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