Here on Los Doggies Dot Com, we’ve blogged about birds. We’ve blogged about the loudest note in the world and the Emergency Broadcast Signal. Now it’s time for all three—the loudest bird in the world that sings an annoying set of tones like a FEMA alert.
The White Bellbird has recently gone viral for his stentorian song measured at a ridiculous 125 decibels, louder than a rock concert, loud enough to wiggle the wattles around your throat. He’s got a nice wattle (pictured above). I’d go insane with that thing flapping around my face, but the females seem to like it distended.
This song is also for the females, and they like it loud and in their face. Click on that score down below and let the noteheads tell you about it.
The bellbird song is two notes long—an F#6 that resolves up to a B6. This is the perfect cadence at its most perfect. Every TV show theme ends with this interval. The lyrics to the song are “kong-kay,” because the first ornithologist to write about it gets to attach their own onomatopoeia.
When a female gets close, the bellbird sings the first tone with his back turned, then swings his body around to the right, always the same direction, like Zoolander, to blast the second tone into the female’s face. In other words, they cadence in the face.
Is there any better mating call than screaming into a woman’s face?
Recorded music has been steadily increasing for a century. The bellbirds are also in the midst of their own loudness war. The louder he gets, the shorter his tones. It is women’s want. They will dictate how loud and short it can go. The bellbird’s song is notated above as a half-note and a quarter, but if things keep getting louder, they’ll evolve into hemi- and semiquavers, eventually hemidemisemiquavers at quadruple forte (𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓).
As songbirds go, there certainly are prettier tunes than the bellbird’s. It’s a little ridiculous to make that kind of sound no matter what species you are.
