Birds in television and movies. (1 Viewer)

[SueO]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that in about 90% of movies with a "jungle" scene in them, the background has at least one laughing kookaburra call. I never knew they had so many in Africa and South America.

Hi affe22,
Before I knew that I had to look at the bottom of the page to see that the thread continues, I thought the first page was it. I didn't see your comment
#30 until days after I wrote mine, comment #39. I guess some bird brains think alike. Almost verbatim.

Peregrinator

 

[rb_stern]

Hi,

I just got home from seeing Tristan and Isolde at the local movie theatre (not the Wagnerian opera, but the current movie). It's a good story, and supposed to be set in mediaeval Cornwall, but the sound effects include Barred Owls, Western Screech Owls and Common Loons. Although Common Loons are possible off the Cornish coast in winter, I doubt if they ever give their yodelling call. The other 2 are quite common some 3,000 miles away.

Richard

 

[CornishExile]

Pride & Prejudice (or was it Sense & Sensibility? all blurring into a similar-stories-different-characters-Austen-blur) has a Little Egret flying over some water-meadows in the background.

Would have been a good record then.

ce

 

[Doug Greenberg]

My wife and I have taken to watching syndicated reruns of the American crimebusting show(s), "Law and Order." On a "Special Victims Unit" episode last night there was a birdwatching angle, with one of the possible witnesses to a homicide being a birder (in New York's Central Park). The portrayal of the birder himself was not flattering, i.e., he was kind of wimpy and strange. But as they introduced him the song of a Warbling video was heard, and when the detectives Stabler and Benson approached him, he told me, "Get out of my way, I'm looking at that Warbling vireo."

I thought SOMEONE must have had some interest in birds to get that small detail right :t:

 

[ensis]

Anyone seen a TV film called "Mama's Going to Buy You a Mockingbird"? I watched it many years ago, and I remember the young boy in the movie had a pet owl...

 

[Miedin]

On an episode of Seinfeld (Season 9 Episode 6 "the merv griffen show") there is a Swainson's Hawk that attacks George for the Squirrel he is holding. There is also dozens of Rock Pigeons that he runs over with his car and stomps in the park.

 

[columbidae]

Of course, there's the dead parrot in Monty Python's Flying Circus.

 

[pandachris]

I don't watch all that much TV, but I do enjoy a bit of armchair birding from time to time.

The British TV series Sharpe about the Napoleonic Wars was often quite good for honing song ID skills as much of it was set outdoors (the most convenient place for large wars, I suppose) and it was presumably filmed in southern Europe.

I seem to recall that in a US major golf tournament a few years back a sharp-eared American listener wrote in to the production company to register astonishment at hearing a desert wren (Cactus Wren?) calling on many of the live broadcasts, when the nearest brds of that species were actually a long way away. I think it forced an admission from the TV company that they added rural sounds to improve the ambience and viewing experience.

I wondered if something similar was happening with the rather good BBC2 program "Portillo goes Wild in Spain" last week because I heard a call on the soundtrack that sounded very like one of the Coucals. (I've started a thread on this, but didn't own up to the coucal theory there for fear of being laughed at!). The rest of the soundtrack sounded authentic - Sardinian Warblers, Hoopoe, Corn Bunting etc. and I'm sure the beeb wouldn't stoop so low, but I almost lost interest in the wonderul footage of Iberain Lynx they were showing whilst I tried to work out what the call really was.

 

[SueO]

As long as things have turned macabre, I'll have to point out that I think SheilaC's rememberance of the bird in the bottom of the cage in, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" wasn't as bad as it really was. I think Bette served the ex-pet to Joan for tea.

From macabre to sci-fi, lets not forget the giant chickens in the 1963 not-so- classic, "Mysterious Island" Herbert Lom was Captain Nemo.

 

[lvn600]

I think that I saw a Turkey Vulture fly by in the Movie "In the Heat of the night" while they were standing at the doorstep of a big white house.

 

[edge1255]

Big Bird in Sesame Street. Now that's acting!! 3

 

[matt green]

Virtually every episode of midsommer murders (british crime drama set in the english countryside) involves somebodies murdered body being found in a woodland,at which point,without fail you will hear the shrieks of buzzards and tawney owls!

Matt

 

[EMalatesta]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that in about 90% of movies with a "jungle" scene in them, the background has at least one laughing kookaburra call. I never knew they had so many in Africa and South America.

...and in the United States and even "Oz." I always wondered what that jungle sound was. I had no idea it was a bird from Australia. Good to know!

You can even hear it in the movie "Cape Fear" (the original one with Robert Mitchum). The family in the movie was staying in a houseboat on the eastern coast of the United States, and a kookaburra was calling at night (a terrible gaffe in the movie). And if I remember correctly, you can hear the bird in the "haunted forest" in "The Wizard of Oz."

Thanks for the choice bit of information.

 

[EMalatesta]

On an episode of Seinfeld (Season 9 Episode 6 "the merv griffen show") there is a Swainson's Hawk that attacks George for the Squirrel he is holding. There is also dozens of Rock Pigeons that he runs over with his car and stomps in the park.

I don't remember that episode. A Swainson's Hawk in New York City? Oh boy.

 

[EMalatesta]

I'm a big Hitchcock fan, but not too keen on 'The Birds,' probably becuase I'm a birder and therefore more critical. But most of the birds in it are Western Gulls, right?

.....

At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, there are birds in several films by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. There's a real live bird (I seem to remember it's a lark sp) in 'Mirror' and in his film 'Stalker' you can hear Golden Oriole calling when they get to 'the zone,' a place where peoples' desires are supposed to become manifest!

I fully agree with the Hitchcock comment. He made a lot of great films, but "The Birds" was a dud. I was rooting for the birds all the way! It was such an outrageous story, I just couldn't take the movie seriously.

I don't remember birds in either "Mirror" or "Stalker" (except for maybe a brief flash of a bird in the tunnel they were exploring in "Stalker"), but I seem to remember a few scenes in "Andrei Roublev" where crows (or maybe they were ravens) made an ominous presence.

 

[mattie]

I seem to remember an old British film starring Joyce Grenfell ... it was called 'The Tawny Pipit' and, if my memory serves me correctly, was about a pair of TP's nesting somewhere in England ...

clearly suppressed

i remember this too i think they on an air field or somthing

 

[Vectis Birder]

I fully agree with the Hitchcock comment. He made a lot of great films, but "The Birds" was a dud. I was rooting for the birds all the way! It was such an outrageous story, I just couldn't take the movie seriously.

Yep, same here. I hate that film.

 

[halftwo]

Watched Kindom of Heaven recently. In a few scenes in the middle of the desert you hear the song of Willow warbler.
Incidently going back to Ring of Bright Water - did you spot that the Otter was not in fact a European otter but some Asian species!!

 

[halftwo]

i remember this too i think they on an air field or somthing

They were all stringers as the shots of the birds on the nest show Meadow pipits.

 

[AmpelisChinito]

In the animated series, South Park, a Hermit Thrush loop plays in EVERY EPISODE, as background music when they are outside. I always hear it, has anyone else noticed that?