Sicklebill & Riflebird: Nonvocal Sounds | Cornell / National Geographic

To add to their voices, some birds make nonvocal sounds as a form of communication. A familiar example is the drumming of woodpeckers, which takes the place of a song. Sicklebills and riflebirds make knocking and rustling sounds with their wings, and there are hints that the shapes they adopt as they display may help funnel these sounds toward females, like a megaphone. Filmed and photographed by Tim Laman, Ed Scholes and Eric Liner.

There are currently seventy-two short films in the entire Birds-of-Paradise Project playlist, ranging from 26 seconds to 8:29. In the upcoming weeks, we will present some of our favorites.

A film from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. If no film or link appears in this email, go to the blog to view it by clicking on the blog title above. If the film stops & starts in an annoying manner, press pause (lower left double bars ||) to let it buffer and get ahead of you.  [Chuck Almdale]