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Birds in television and movies. (1 Viewer)

JWN Andrewes said:
The opening scenes of Cliffhanger show Mr Stallone scaling a crag with a flock of Alpine Chough wheeling around behind him. It was a good way into the film before I realised that the story was set in the States, so strong was the (subconscious) assumption I had made based on that identification that the whole thing was taking place somewhere in Europe! Very confusing.

James
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I must have missed the choughs. Probably because, being a climber, the entire film was ridiculous. The only semblance of reality was the amount of grunting old Sly put into it, but even that wasn't enough.

Gus
 
Hide and Seek with Robert Dinero when the father and daughter pull up to the new house you can here many pileated woodpeckers in the backround. In Funny Farm with Chevy Chase when he looks out of his office window sees a bird on a house and says look honey is that a lark she replies no its a sparrow i cant remember what it is does anybody please respond?
 
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Birdspotter said:
Does my head in every time theres a scary moment in the film,mostly set in woods the evocative cry of the Great Northern Diver can be heard.
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I think it was in the new King Kong film. When they sit on top of that mountain with the waterfall...?
 
I seem to remember an old British film starring Joyce Grenfell ... it was called 'The Tawny Pipit' and, if my memory serves me correctly, was about a pair of TP's nesting somewhere in England ...

clearly suppressed
 
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that in about 90% of movies with a "jungle" scene in them, the background has at least one laughing kookaburra call. I never knew they had so many in Africa and South America.
 
Dad's Army

In the Dad's Army episode "When did you last see your money?", the platoon march round to Mr Blewitt's cottage to search the interior of "the very nice-looking chicken" which has been stuffed, ready for the oven by his wife. They were searching for a paper bag containing £500 which had been mislaid by the forgetful Cpl Jones.

In the background were firstly, Tawny Owl hoots, followed, amazingly, by a churring Nightjar !!

Don't panic, don't panic !!!

Colin.
 
Birds from Australia show up in some surprising places in tv and film. A lot of old movies set in the african jungle include the call of the laughing kookaburra. Cockatoos appear in some unusual places as well.
 
I'm a big Hitchcock fan, but not too keen on 'The Birds,' probably becuase I'm a birder and therefore more critical. But most of the birds in it are Western Gulls, right?

I've heard there's a Bee-eater call in the postman pat theme music, but that may be untrue.

There is a seemingly animatronic American Robin in David Lynch's 'Blue Velvet,' which is superb.

At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, there are birds in several films by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. There's a real live bird (I seem to remember it's a lark sp) in 'Mirror' and in his film 'Stalker' you can hear Golden Oriole calling when they get to 'the zone,' a place where peoples' desires are supposed to become manifest!
 
All I can think of are
A) the one in "Mary Poppins" that sings with her in "A spoonful of sugar" - a very fake robin I recall
B) the one in "Whatever happened to Baby Jane" with Bette Davis - think
that ends up flat on its back in its cage :-C
and
C) that one in "Shrek" that sings too high and explodes - hilarious. :'D

Sorry - no good starring (or even cameo) roles for birds except for the ones you other folks have mentioned.
 
There was a movie a few years ago about a father and teenage daughter who use an ultralight aircraft to lead a flock of Canada geese on their migration. As I recall, the geese had imprinted on the daughter, so she had to pilot the ultralight. I'm pretty sure Jeff Daniels played the father, and the daughter was played by a young actress whose name I can't recall but I've seen her in other films. The title was something like "Fly Away Home". The story was pretty lightweight, but some of the filmwork was really good on the outdoor and aerial scenes.
 
Recent "Chronicles of Narnia" have (European) Blackbird singing (European) Robin song.

In the original C.S.Lewis book, children encounter a robin.
 
I think 90% of all jungles movies ever made have kookaburras making the "jungle noise" in the background.
 
gordon hamlett said:
A cockatiel in a cage in the recent tv series Rome (BBC/HBO) thus proved that the Roman empire extended as far as Australia ...


Gordon
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Not just as far as Australia, they also have neotropical Yellow-crowned Amazons on that Rome. As Obelix says, "these Romans are crazy..."
 
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