The sound of the honking
Snow Geese are possibly the noisiest of all waterfowl. Their main call, made by both males and females, is a nasal, one-syllable honk given at any hour of the day or night, at any time of year, in the air or on the ground.
One of the sounds that a hyacinth macaw makes is a "honking" sound like a goose would make.
As songbirds, crows have a vast repertoire of noises: caws, rattles, croaks, clicks, honks, screeches, and more. They can even mimic machines and human voices.
The American Crow is not known for the beauty of its song, a series of loud caws. You may also hear crows making a “subsong”: a mixture of hoarse or grating coos, caws, rattles, and clicks. These are arranged in sequences that can be many minutes long, given quietly and with a rambling, improvised quality.
Both crows and ravens make loud raspy signature calls, described as “caw” and “kraa” respectively, but American crows and common ravens have large repertoires of sounds in addition to these calls. They also can learn to imitate the calls of other birds.
“[The American Bittern song] has been described as the sound of someone taking an old crank pump and getting water out,” says Dr. Frederic Reid, the director of conservation programs at Ducks Unlimited, describing the American Bittern call as sounding like the three words “pump-er-lunk.”
The cuckoo has probably the most distinctive and instantly recognisable call of any bird in the UK. It even says its name! However, in the hullabaloo of spring birdsong, it's surprisingly easy to mix up that distant cuck-coo with the cooing call of the woodpigeon or the collared dove.
The laughing kookaburra of Australia is known for its call, which sounds like a cackling laugh.
Researchers think that the honking sound geese make as they fly is used to help maintain the integrity of the flock, and to co-ordinate position shifts with the V-formation in which they fly. But for geese, honking one's position is a trade-off that helps helps save energy for the flock as they fly.
Great Horned Owls advertise their territories with deep, soft hoots with a stuttering rhythm: hoo-h'HOO-hoo-hoo. The male and female of a breeding pair may perform a duet of alternating calls, with the female's voice recognizably higher in pitch than the male's.
Horns are designed a little differently these days, but the principle is the same: Electrical current flows through a copper coil in the horn, making a magnetic field. The field makes a flat, circular diaphragm inside the horn oscillate, and the oscillation makes the horn's sound.
Geese honk when they fly to keep the flock together while also maintaining the integrity of the flock. The honking not only lets the geese know where to go, but it also acts as a form of encouragement to the other geese, letting them know to keep up the speed.
But geese don't quack—they make a honking sound. Ducks eat mostly grass, fish, and insects.
Found in the mountain forests of the north-eastern Amazon—”in the Guianas, with small numbers in Venezuela and the Brazilian state of Pará“—the birds' call sounds metallic, like an electronic warning system alarm. Hear the white bellbird, the loudest bird ever recorded, in the above video by Anselmo d'Affonseca.
The Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis) is a medium-sized cuckoo found in Australia's east, far south west and in Tasmania. They are also found in parts of New Guinea and on a number of Pacific islands. The most commonly heard call of the Fan-tailed Cuckoo is the 'peeeer' descending trill.
As a result of recent taxonomic changes, the species found on mainland Australian has been named 'Australian Boobook' (Ninox boobook).
The male bittern's distinctive mating call is less secretive. The sound is a very deep and long mournful note which sounds a bit like someone blowing across the top of an empty wine bottle.
It's the American woodcock, a member of the shorebird family.
The sound of a dripping faucet may drive humans crazy, but for the American Bittern, it's similar to a mating or territorial call. Bitterns are shy creatures that tend to hide out in the reeds, so their ability to resonate can be a bit of a bombshell.
Screech. A screech is a “high shrill piercing cry.” One of the most famous bird screeches is that of the red-tailed hawk, which you might recognize from movies and television shows that dub it over the less strident call of the bald eagle to make that national symbol sound tougher.
When they are mobbing a predator, like an owl, for example, they make "very harsh sounding caws" that overlap, said Wacker. The louder sounds may be employed to give the impression of a larger, stronger group in a bid to scare the predator.
If a crow is sitting in front of your house cawing it symbolizes that someone will visit your home. According to Rishis, such behaviour of crows signifies that family members or friends who are living in a foreign land will visit your house soon.