Between bouts of skull-pounding MIDI music, the gentle electronic tweets of “Breezy Singers” have their charm. Based on real-world recordings made by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, their chirpings meld with the plastic clatter of cheap robotics: hardly the emperor’s nightingale, encrusted with diamonds, rubies and sapphires, but it’ll do.
Don’t be tempted to hurl these from cliffs and trees, crying “Fly, Goldfinch, fly!” – the instructions warn that they are for indoor use only.
ELECTRONIC SINGING BIRDS [My Favorite Things]
Call me when they start singing John Denver. And I personally dig the MIDI.
I have pet birds (parakeets and cockatiels) like John has. Years ago, when sound sampling chips first became commonplace, there was a plush teddy bear with such a chip in it. It was called “I Say What You Say Bear/Dog/Pet/Bird” and it would take audio samples through its mic. And repeat them.
I borrowed one from a friend of Mom’s, put it next to my two ‘keets at the time, and turned it on.
I wasn’t sure if it was good for my two birds to be jumping around and chirping like Humbird, but it sure was hilarious for a few minutes!
Best video ever, ha ha. Those are great, though.
Its nice to see more of these motion sensitive Ro-birds being marketed. They have been around longer than Billy Bass.
One thing you can do, if you are curious, perhaps slightly cruel (Cornell says you really shouldn’t) is take those recordings (They have CDs available, and books with sound chips are the easiest) into your yard and play them for your birds.
You will quickly notice your local birds probably have a slightly different dialect for their call, and that some of the recorded calls can sometimes stir up a bit of excitement (Maybe they are singing the equivalent of ‘free beer’ in ornitholinguistics)
First we had a bird listening to electronic music. Now we have electronic birds making music.
You two are conspiring together, aren’t you.
We were gifted the cardiinal, it’s cute, but the batteries were not replaced.