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Re: Ventriloquism in Birds

Subject: Re: Ventriloquism in Birds
From: "Chuck B" cgbragg
Date: Wed Oct 3, 2007 1:14 pm ((PDT))
Barb Beck wrote:

> I took the parabola out one 
> night just to prove it.  Had a big Roche which could really pinpoint 
> exactly what it was aimed at.  As I remember the record was 7 birds that 
> I could sort out in different directions - all tooting perfectly 
> together and I could only hear one but could not tell the direction. 
>   
    'Ventriloquism' is defined as, "The art or practice of speaking or 
producing sounds in such a manner that the voice appears to proceed from 
some person or object other than the speaker, and usually at some 
distance from him." Since the owl(s) did just that, case closed. It's 
ventriloquism.
    I believe there was once a saying popular in these parts: 
"Microphones are not ears, Loudspeakers are not birds, A listening room 
is not nature." A parabola hears things differently from humans and 
others with organic stereo sound interpretation systems, but then birds 
generally have less to fear from parabolas.

 
========
Chuck Bragg, Pacific Palisades, CA
Membership, Newsletter, Web manager
Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society
www.smbas.org
========





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