I was wondering if anyone lives or has lived where birds known to mimic human speech live wild?
My question ism do they pick up human speech in the wild? I assume there is a time when the birds are young, when say a myna, would learn the bird calls of their mother. But if they live in a populated area, like mynas do (When I was in Singapore, they seemed to be common), I assume a few may pick up a few human words on their own.
I have a group (murder) of crows who roost around here that seem to mimic me calling my dogs. It may be wishful thinking, really. I have heard of them mimicking car alarms and such.
Seems like its possible.
Mimicry in parrots and mynahs is usually seen in captive specimens. If they don’t have a flock of the same species to learn vocalizations from, they copy the other critters around them, including the hairless apes.
Of course, various bird species have adapted this skill as a courtship mechanism. The mockingbirds, lyrebirds, etc., incorporate sounds from around them into their displays for potential mates. I’ve never heard of a wild mimic copying human speech, but plenty of other human-produced sounds are copied - the famous Attenborough video of a lyrebird includes chainsaw and camera noises, car alarms, etc.
Freaking lyrebird learned camera noises during the photo shoot. Incredible.
There are reports of feral psittacines in New York City picking up human speech. Not sure if they’re confirmed or not.
Likewise, the same phenomena has been reported in Australian cities.
Awkkk! Fugeddaboudit! Awwk!
Awwk! Gidday!! Awwk!!
Allegedly, “F*** you”. This is Brooklyn we’re talking about, after all…
My late spouse was the authority on that sort of thing, if he were still around I could ask him for his references, but, alas, he is not.
I was thinking pretty much this, but when I was in Singapore, the myna seemed to be everywhere and it’s pretty much 100% urban, and full of humans, so I was thinking perhaps if birds that nested and lived in dense urban areas might pick up some human speech.
I know mynas are related to (or perhaps a type of) starling which also are numerous in urban areas and can talk in captivity.
It may be possible. I have read that crows purposely mimic the calls of raptors to scare off predators. It may be they vaguely learned your voice to get the dogs out of their feathers, so to speak.
Another crow tale:
Back in grade school one day a friend of mine had a crow turn up and start following him to and from school. It’d hang out at the playground during the day.
And it talked. “Hello” and some other phrases I can’t remember.
It seemed to think the kid looked like whoever it used to pal around with and learned the phrases from.
Because of this incident, I’ve noticed many stories over the years about crows picking up speech from people. So it happens.
I think it’s unlikely in this situation because they DO have flockmates of their own species.
Unlikely, but not impossible - parrots are mimics and pick up sounds from their environment, as do mynas, lyres, and other species including the common crow. Some of these are more likely than others to pick up human speech, but if a bird is raised/lives near people, especially people using the same words over and over (“Do you want fries with that?”), they could pick up words and phrases.