Redditor Shares Newfound Knowledge About Humans Decoding Bird Language

The coos and chirps aren’t for birds alone.

Jesse

• Published in Interesting
• November 22, 2022

Birds are fascinating, and it’s not just because they get the privilege of living high above the rest of us. 

While they may not be the top pet choice worldwide, they are still adored by millions of people around the world. Statistics from the American Pet Products Association show that Americans own as many as 16.2 million pet birds.

Although birds are everywhere, there’s still so much that people don’t know about them. For example, many people don’t know how prominent their personalities can be or even the fact that they don’t have teeth. 

One thing people do know about birds, though, is that they have a species that can speak. Parrots are famous for being able to communicate with humans in their own language.

Yet, most people don’t know that there are humans who can understand birds who speak in their everyday bird language, and surprisingly, this has been going on for a very long time. One Redditor could not hide his fascination when they found this out, and neither could we.

OP shared in the TIL subreddit that they had learned that some indigenous people have figured out how to decode bird language. What makes this fascinating is that hunters, especially, can use different tones to locate predators and other animals around the vicinity.

OP also shared a link to an article on decoding bird language. The article educated on how people can also take a page from the Native Americans who have been decoding bird language for centuries on their own.

You can bet other Redditors had a lot to say about OP’s recent findings. Scroll down to read all about it!

It's fascinating to know that there are humans who can understand bird language

The post garnered 62.6k upvotes and over a thousand comments. We gathered the best reactions for you below:

Human-bird communication has been happening under the radar for a very long time

This poultry farmer seems to have learnt how to understand his chickens

"We've known about human body language and dog postural language for awhile. It's amazing it's taken us this long to realize other animals are doing the same."

A trailer park supervisor who is adept in bird language

Making friends with a wild bird....it's all about communication.

Turns out that there are tribes that communicate with each other using bird calls

"In the UK our blackbirds have a frantic "CAT" call."

"Noticed this when I was a kid and started hunting. Birds and squirrels would make certain calls when they saw me."

"I had a park manager who did this at one of my jobs."

"Hmm, I can tell what's going on by the noises in my backyard myself. Squirrels tell everybody about hawks, cats, and possibly humans too."

"I decipher bird language around my house. Anyone that lives in the woods and stays outside a bunch probably has."

"It you listen to the animals around you it’s easy to learn what most sounds mean."

"After many years of watching birds while hunting you figure things out. Ravens and crows are the best at helping find things, animals, predators, friends."

"If you just listen in the woods you can often hear these interactions"

"When I am hunting I always listen to the birds. They can tell you if you've been detected."

OP’s newfound knowledge is clearly intriguing to the Reddit community. And from the comments, we can tell that this human-bird communication has been happening for a long time.

Many commenters shared what they knew about man’s ability to decode bird language. One thing is clear, most of these commenters find birds as fascinating as we think they are.

Did you just learn about this information today? If not, we'd love you to share what you know about human-bird communication.

Jesse