Abstract:
How do birds select the sounds they mimic, and in what contexts do they use vocal mimicry? Some birds
show a preference for mimicking other species’ alarm notes, especially in situations when they appear to be
alarmed. Yet no study has demonstrated that birds change the call types they mimic with changing
contexts. We found that greater racket-tailed drongos (Dicrurus paradiseus) in the rainforest of Sri Lanka
mimic the calls of predators and the alarm-associated calls of other species more often than would be
expected from the frequency of these sounds in the acoustic environment. Drongos include this alarmassociated
mimicry in their own alarm vocalizations, while incorporating other species’ songs and contact
calls in their own songs. Drongos show an additional level of context specificity by mimicking other species’
ground predator-specific call types when mobbing. We suggest that drongos learn other species’ calls and
their contexts while interacting with these species in mixed flocks. The drongos’ behaviour demonstrates
that alarm-associated calls can have learned components, and that birds can learn the appropriate usage of
calls that encode different types of information.
