Disturbing? Or just neat? However you look at it the fact is that released cage birds in Australia have been rejoining wild flocks of their kind which then learn to say things that the previously-caged birds have been taught to say:
“We have had people call us thinking they are going mad or had something put into their drink because they’ve gone out to look at the flock of birds in their backyard and all the birds have been saying something like: ‘Who’s a pretty boy then’?” the Australian Museum’s naturalist, Martyn Robinson, said yesterday.
Weird.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
The Kaka in Wellington are descended from birds bred in Auckland Zoo, where a keeper taught one to wolf-whistle. All the Kaka now use a modified version of that whistle in their frequent calling. Cultural contamination!