Birding the Media

In the Steven Universe episode "Giant Woman", the Gems explore a location known as the Sky Spire. Listen closely as they arrive, and you'll hear the distinctive song of the Red-winged Blackbird.

We start off with a Peregrine Falcon.

Now look at this guy's living room. That's a lot of birds.

A Great Horned Owl painting, several models/statuettes/mounted birds (an oriole?), a skeleton under glass (chicken, probably), another painting (goldfinches, maybe?), and a window where tropical birds stop by.

A Great Horned Owl skateboard, and the best cable package ever. I'm not sure what that buffy passerine in the shadowbox is. Thoughts?

And the star of the commercial is a Black-throated Magpie Jay, a Mexican corvid.

They have it making a finch-like noise. Here are some actual recordings of their calls.

The Atkins diet is still around, and in this TV spot, Sharon Osbourne hassles a female American Robin about its diet.

It’s an okay representation of a female AMRO. The coloring is about right- females are typically duller overall than males. Those white underarm bars shouldn’t be there, and its white “eye crescents” are full spectacles here.

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Thine Own Self", Data loses his memory on a pre-industrial planet and accidentally contaminates the populace with radioactive metal fragments.

You can hear what are probably House Finches throughout almost every outdoor scene. But in the quieter, indoor scenes, you can hear Wood Thrushes.

Wood Thrushes are plump, eastern thrushes. They're reddish-brown on top and white with bold, dark spots underneath. Their song is quite beautiful, often characterized as an "ee-o-lay" sound, followed by a springy noise.

In this Esurance commercial, a Eurasian Collared Dove tries to line its nest with a dollar bill.

As the name suggests, EUCOs aren't native to North America. They entered via the Bahamas in the 70s and quickly colonized most of the United States. According to the story posted around online, they originally escaped during a pet shop burglary, after which the owner decided to release about 50 of them. That's all the detail that's ever given- if anyone knows more, I'd love to hear about it.

The holidays is when Coca Cola rolls out their Arctic-themed commercials.

This here is an Atlantic Puffin. Puffins and other auks may look like penguins, but that's just convergent evolution- they're not closely related.

Stevie Nicks's 1982 song, Edge of Seventeen, is best known by its lyric:

Just like the White-winged Dove Sings a song Sounds like she's singing Whoo... whoo... whoo...

The song of the White-winged Dove is rendered as "Who cooks for you?", though this is harder to work into lyrics.

Doctor Who has been on TV all week in lead-up to the 50th Anniversary.

In "The Waters of Mars", there are birds kept in the garden of the first human colony on Mars, "to keep the insect population down". They all die in nuclear explosion.

The one we see is a European Robin, the national bird of the UK.

Let’s check back in on Gravity Falls.

In the "Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained- Hide Behind" short, Dipper dashes through some bushes in chase of a creature called a Hide Behind. He flushes a couple of birds.

I don’t know what these are supposed to be, if anything. There’s the dove-shaped one with a dark blue body and a light blue head. No doves match that, not even Rock Pigeons, which come in all kinds of colorations. The red one is shaped like a waxwing, it’s just not colored like one.

So really, Dipper passed two cryptids in search of another one.

They do get footage of a “Maraca Owl”. It looks and sounds like a Great Horned Owl, just with a maraca.

The Google Doodle for October 22 was a commemoration of the "216th Anniversary of the First Parachute Jump". It's a little game where you have some control over where the parachute lands you. In the sky, you encounter three species of birds- a grey-red passerine, a gull, and something parrot-ish. You can also land on some ice floes and encounter penguins.

The penguins are generics. All the penguin species that have large orange bills also have more coloration. I think the others are generics, too. The gulls and parrots don't really match too well with real-life species, and I'm just going to call the other one a wren. Since this a game where you can parachute from France to Africa or Antarctica, I don't think you can expect too much reality.

In Nova issue 8, Nova has a disagreement with his helmet and rips it off mid-flight, causing him to lose his powers and fall through a flock of ducks.

They seem to be Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Field marks include the pink bills, reddish bodies, grey heads, black eyes, and white-and-black wings.

They’re mostly Central and South American birds, but they’ve been pushing up into the US, and can be found in various spots in the States. This page is taking place over Carefree, Arizona, which is near Phoenix. eBird shows sightings in the Phoenix area, so it’s not an unreasonable bird choice for the setting.

On The Aquabats! Super Show!, Eaglebones Falconhawk has the ability to summon an invisible bird of prey named "The Dude."

During the summoning scene, we see its head, and it looks like a Peregrine Falcon. They're the ones with the solid dark hood. Compare to Prairie Falcons, which have strong "mustache" bars along the sides of their faces.

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist ends with Master Tang lying incapacitated in a field, while a "hawk or something" chows down on his leg. The legs seem to be inserted into stock footage.

It's probably a Red-tailed Hawk, by virtue of its visibly red tail. As I said before, they're insanely variable. They're not found in China, where the movie is (implicitly) set, but Kung Pow isn't a documentary.

In the famous "Garbage Day" scene from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, you can hear a couple of birds singing. One of them is plainly an American Robin, the other (at 0:15) is a bit more tricky.

I think it's a Song Sparrow. They're neighborhood birds, and they're permanent residents in California, where the movie was filmed. Their song is also insanely variable.

Birding in Grand Theft Auto V is proving to be richer than expected.

There are five bird models in the game- an American Crow, a generic hawk, a Double-crested Cormorant, a California Gull (note the red spot on the bill), and chickens.

They can be best seen with a sniper rifle advanced scope. Use Michael’s time-slowing ability for a slower look. The hawks and cormorants can be found flying over most rural areas. I found the crows hanging around Trevor’s airfield. Gulls are found near water. The gulls take off if approached, but they will walk past you if you’re still.

Birding by ear has proven interesting. Ambient bird noises are considered sound effects by the game, so if you dial them up, you’re also dialing up traffic noise, the wind, your footsteps, and other miscellaneous noises along with them.

Bird sounds are accurate in their placement- in urban areas, you hear mostly House Sparrows. American Robins and American Goldfinches can be heard in Michael’s backyard. In rural areas, you’ll hear the “reeeee” of a Red-winged Blackbird, as well as American Kestrels, American Crows, and Red-tailed Hawks. At night, you’ll hear Great Horned Owls.

There are some oddities. You’ll hear something like a Pine Warbler in a lot of places- as their name suggests, they mostly stick to pines. There’s also something that makes a strong, repeated “tweet” like a Prothonotary Warbler (which are eastern birds- San Andreas is based on California). On the nature trail in Vinewood Hills, there’s a constant, variable song that I haven’t identified- it could be a Northern Mockingbird’s song edited into several pieces.