A couple of years ago, we had company from a little mockingbird on our street. Not sure if the little guy got lost, but it decided to camp out in the tree right outside my house and serenade the neighborhood all night (quite loudly so). So naturally, one night I got out my recording gear, tiptoed to the tree, and… scared the little guy off. Luckily, it came back the next day so I set up my gear even more stealthily and further away. This time, I got more lucky: I got a 20 minute recording of the little bird chirping and singing away. Listening back to it, it’s incredible how varied the individual phrases are; over that twenty minute period, there are very few repeating patterns. Really makes you wonder how these birds communicate and what those phrases mean.

Here’s a short snippet of some of the sounds (with some traffic low-end filtered out). Watch your levels:

The sounds are pretty cool in their own right, but just imagine the potential for manipulation! Pitch shifting alone can give you a wide range from weird creatures to alarms and beeps. Here’s a random selection, pitched anywhere from 1 to 4 octaves down and 1 up:

And here’s a weird alarm I made while playing around with the recording: