June 13, 2001
10:46 AM   Subscribe

I find this very sad... At least they aren't mimicking Eminem.
posted by machaus (16 comments total)
 
Are you more sad that they are mimic'ing a cellphone, or a chainsaw?
posted by nomisxid at 10:57 AM on June 13, 2001


I kinda like the quote:

"It's the males that are largely doing it. It means there is a male that is up to date, on the ball and has the latest sounds."

As if the birds were saying: "Yeah, but can your Motorola 2596v do this?"
posted by machaus at 11:02 AM on June 13, 2001


When I saw the URL I thought that someone had jumped on my idea. The ring of the cell phones is so annoying and ubiquitous to me, I was struck one day by what I thought was a fabulous idea.

Why not have the rings imitate bird calls? The tonal range available to the electronics is certainly more applicable than playing a symphony. (I'm sure we've all heard some of our favorite tunes butchered by a cell phone.)
posted by Dick Paris at 11:06 AM on June 13, 2001


...so you're suggesting that we butcher birds with our cellphones instead? That's evil!
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 11:23 AM on June 13, 2001


"I'm the slim tweety, the real slim tweety...."
posted by kindall at 11:25 AM on June 13, 2001


It could be worse. They could be imitating those 50 million different symphonic rings for the Nokia phones. Agony....A-go-ny!!!
posted by Cavatica at 11:44 AM on June 13, 2001


I'd like to wake up one morning to hear birds singing Bach's "Jesu" or Beethoven's Ninth or one of the other Classical tunes some cell phone users use. That would be kinda cool.
posted by bilco at 11:44 AM on June 13, 2001


Cjeap figgin birds ought to get their own soundboxes...
posted by Postroad at 11:49 AM on June 13, 2001


Hell, there's a bird somewhere in my neighborhood that's learned to mimic a car alarm. You know, the one that scrolls throught all those different blaring sequences. I haven't heard it lately, though, I'm sure someone hunted it down and killed it by now.
posted by Hackworth at 11:52 AM on June 13, 2001


Hackworth, a co-worker related the same phenomenon to me when I forwarded him the link. That car alarm sequence is just plain wrong. Brick, windshield, brick, windshield...
posted by machaus at 12:00 PM on June 13, 2001


All I need is my cat leaping on my phone every time it rings.
posted by perplexed at 12:07 PM on June 13, 2001


there is a bird near my parents house that does that heavy-equipment-backing-up Beep beep beeep beeeeep.

i think cellphones doing birdcalls would be pretty cool, though i would be hard pressed to give up my "take on me" or "iron man" rings i normally use.
posted by th3ph17 at 12:11 PM on June 13, 2001


Hackworth, the birds in my neighborhood (Las Vegas, NV)all imitate the car alarms, cycling through the various alarm noises. I first heard it > 5 years ago and even tried looking it up on the internet (didn't have google back then...). At first it was interesting, now it is depressing. I believe it is multiple species, it seems that some do it better than others.

I just inherited an African Grey Parrot, I'm glad he hasn't picked up the car alarm yet, he already has enough loud and annoying noises. It is rather interesting what he does learn, I can't get him to say my name (despite our best attempts) but he greets me with a fair imitation of my yawn every morning. My wife and I have considered teaching him some cute advertising stuff on the off chance we can make some of the money back on the birdfood he strews around the room. He learned to meow like our cat, but does it much louder, he even explores variations of it and mutates it into a bark (his previous owner had a dog). He curses in Spannish at his reflection in the mirror. And he does lots of other cute and annoying stuff that doesn't relate to this thread...
posted by mutagen at 1:22 PM on June 13, 2001


This reminds me of a couple different things. First of all, I knew a bird who used to mimic cars going down the street and their tires hitting cracks in the pavement, complete with doppler effect and all. Secondly, there was this bird at a pet store I went to who used to imitate a bomb dropping. It would go *whissstlleeeeee...* *BOOOOOM!!!* and when it did the BOOM, it would put its beak between the bars and the whole cage would shake.
posted by fusinski at 1:35 PM on June 13, 2001


Wow, who knew it was so widespread?

On a side note, I just remembered my old pet cockatiel from way back used to imitate our microwave beeping every now and then. Quite convincingly, too.

Maybe there's money to made from selling people tapes of natural bird calls to help re-train their "urbanized" squawkers? Too bad all the venture capital has dried up.
posted by Hackworth at 4:49 PM on June 13, 2001


Twenty years ago I had a mockingbird imitating my (land line) phone. Annoying as all hell. Rush inside .. no phone. I swear I could hear him laughing too.
posted by anewc2 at 9:11 AM on June 14, 2001


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