Peter, a lot of musicians have attempted to transcribe birdsong for various
reasons. Some have just been fascinated by the songs, others have wanted
something more clearly defined than "sweet-pretty-little-creature."
Quite a few composers have used birdsong in their music - these range from
programmatic references used by early keyboard composers like Couperin, to
the incredibly complex works of Olivier Messiaen, who mimicked birdsong in
a large proportion of his works. He wrote an epic set of 13 piano pieces,
"Catalogue D'Oiseaux," each named after a bird, and including a range of
the birds calls and song. They are fiendishly difficult to play, but they
really do sound JUST LIKE the birdsong! The only one I've ever
attempted is *L'alouette
lulu* (Woodlark) and yes, if it's played properly, the listener hears the
song of a Woodlark (*Lullula arborea*). I'm not sure if I would have
managed to call in any Woodlarks when I played it ...
There was some discussion about Messiaen on birding-aus a few years ago.
Syd Curtis, who is known by many of you, took Messiaen to see and hear
lyrebirds.
James, do you put birdsong into your arrangements? Keen to hear some!
Russell
On 2 March 2015 at 17:47, Laurie Knight <> wrote:
> Thanks Peter.
>
> That’s useful. There probably aren’t too many other critters in the
> hummock grasslands that would be making a call like that in the evening
> hours, so it may help with the identification of Night Parrot populations.
>
> The bottom line is “what gets measured gets managed” ...
>
> Regards, Laurie.
>
>
> On 2 Mar 2015, at 11:09 am, Peter Shute <> wrote:
>
> > I've made a mockup of the call, if anyone's interested to listen to it:
> > https://soundcloud.com/petershute/synthesised-night-parrot-call
> >
> > John said they call very rarely, and might only call once, so you could
> listen all night and miss it because your foot crunched in the gravel at
> that moment.
> >
> > Before anyone complains that this could be abused, it's actually two
> Bell Miner notes. If people want to try to get a Night Parrot to respond to
> Bell Miner calls, I don't think they're going to have much luck.
> >
> > Peter Shute
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Birding-Aus
> >> On Behalf Of Peter Shute
> >> Sent: Monday, 2 March 2015 8:28 AM
> >> To:
> >> Subject: [Birding-Aus] John Young's Melbourne Night Parrot
> >> talk last night
> >>
> >> 1. John mentioned that the description of the call in P&K is
> >> spot on - "A far carrying two note whistle". I was under the
> >> impression that we'd been told that this description wasn't
> >> correct, but I could be wrong. John said that we should
> >> imagine the call as two Bell Miner notes, about half a second
> >> apart, with the second note half an octave lower. I think he
> >> said half an octave - can anyone confirm that? John said
> >> there's also a four note call, but didn't describe it.
> >
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