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This is Scientific Americans, 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkins.

The melodious sounds of trills and tweets, whistles and warbles are a harbinger of spring.

But do you ever wonder what birds are actually talking about?

Maybe they're catching up after a winter away. Or maybe they're saying,

step off, this twig is my territory. Or maybe they're signaling that there's a predator about

even when there isn't. Well, if a bird-crying wolf sounds silly, a new study shows that in Australia,

certain male songbirds use this trick to get females they wish to woo to stick around a little

longer. The results appear in the journal Current Biology. The superb liar bird,

that spelled L-Y-R-E, is famous for its ability to imitate the calls it hears in its local environment,

from the fluid melody of a shrike thrush to the distinctive laugh of a cuckabara.

The males weave these oral entertainments into songs they sing to attract mates.

What lia birds are most well-known for in Australia, what they call their recital song,

their amazing lyrical loud song that they sing from the tops of the trees, before dawn throughout

the day in the winter dusk during the breeding season. And this recital song, also, most of it is

mimicry, and the mouth is reels through imitations of lots of species of forest birds,

and they're disciples through them. Each new imitation is different from the rest.

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