Can any Naturerecordist help me with a private inquiry to which I respond
below? TIA.
Dear Dr Milewski,
You wrote:
> From: "Antoni Milewski" <>
> Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 22:16:49 +0800
> To: "Syd Curtis" <>
> Subject: Re: on lyrebirds, from antoni milewski
>
> One question in the meantime: am I right in thinking that lyrebirds are the
> only non-human animals ever recorded to play musical instruments?
In considering whether any other species does so, we come into the common
situation that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However -
In "The Vocal Displays of the Lyrebirds (Menuridae)", Robinson & Curtis
(1996), "Emu" 96, 258-275, I wrote:
"The display platform and its use by the male Albert's Lyrebird were
described by Curtis, 1972 ("The Albert Lyrebird in Display. "Emu" 72,
81-84). A video recording by D. Behrens (1994) shows the bird grasping one
of the vines and moving it up and down to produce the movement of the
adjacent vegetation described by Curtis. On several occasions while
tape-recording the song, it was possible to see that the movement of the
vegetation synchronise perfectly with the rhythm of the gronking song. If
the vine or stick neing moved crossed another and both were hard and dry, it
produced a tapping sound accompanying the song - a rare, possibly unique,
case of a wild bird using a musical instrument to accompany its song, if one
may so regard rhythm sticks."
Since then, Glen Threlfo, Naturalist at the O'Reilly's resort in Lamington
National Park, has filmed the same male that Behrens filmed. O'Reilly's
have produced a very beautiful commercial video and DVD of the lyrebird, and
in it you can see and hear the bird, carefully positioning himself on the
vines of his platform, and testing them, then launching into his 'rhythm
sticks' accompaniment to his gronking song.
I repeated this claim that Albert's Lyrebirds use rhythm sticks and may be
the only wild birds in the world to accompany their song with a musical
instrument, in a lyrebird article I co-authored which has been published in
the Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. (Second Edition, Thomson/Gale,
Detroit, New York, etc., 2003. Volume 10, page 334.)
>From time to time I get communications about lyrebirds, but no-one has yet
denied my claim and told me of any other animal that could be considered to
play a musical instrument.
I seem to remember being told of a frog (also occurring in Lamington
National Park) which builds a sort of amplifying chamber to enhance the
effectiveness of its voice, but that scarcely rates as a musical instrument.
So, for the present, I still regard the Albert's Lyrebird as unique in this
regard.
However, I am copying this to the <naturerecordists> mailing list, where we
have an amazing resource of knowledge and helpfulness. Maybe someone will
come up with another example.
I would suggest that anyone contemplating writing anything about Albert's
Lyrebirds should be sure to view that O'Reilly's video first. It is
available only from the O'Reilly's shop, and unfortunately I can't find the
email address. However, the address for the resort is
and I'm sure the office would pass on any message.
Sincerely
Syd
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
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