Asia-Pacific News
Australia's famous songbird dead at 32
Dec 29, 2011, 1:54 GMT
Sydney - An Australian lyrebird that entranced people around the world with its gift for imitating other birds and even the sounds of a building site died of old age Thursday at the Adelaide Zoo.
Chook, who was 32, garnered more than 1 million YouTube hits for a vocal performance that included a note-perfect copy of a kookaburra's call as well as drills, hammers and saws.
Chook, an attraction at the zoo for 20 years, probably gained his construction site repertoire when the nearby panda enclosure was being built in 2009.
British naturalist Sir David Attenborough brought the vocal gymnastics of the lyrebird to a global audience.
A segment of his Life of Birds series featuring a lyrebird imitating a chainsaw, camera shutters and a car alarm was voted the British public's favourite Attenborough moment in a television poll.
'What bird has the most elaborate, the most complex, the most beautiful song in the world?' he asked his audience when introducing the lyrebird, a native of southern Australia.
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