A look at why the loon's call is used as TV and movies' go-to wilderness sound effect

As the clip continues, we learn why the loon calls are so particularly annoying to people like Sohl. The loon, for starters, is a pretty unique bird and is found largely in Canada and the northern United States, not in every wooded region of the world, as Hollywood suggests. Though it migrates south along the US and northern Mexican coasts, Sohl says he “certainly wouldn’t expect a common loon in Hawaii, or in Bolivia, or in South Africa,” or in many of the international locations its distinctive call is heard in different movies.

Sohl also says it’s annoying to hear them identified as other birds, in scenes set far away from their lake habitats, or, in the case of an Avengers movie, popping up in the far reaches of outer space. As to how all of this started, the video points out 1981's On Golden Pond—which used loon sounds appropriately—as a possible origin and the haunting, melancholy nature of the call as the reason it’s been picked up all over the place. (A study of the cry’s pitch by Vox musicologists compares it to a similar vocal slide used in blues and soul songs.)

Watch the rest of the video for more loon facts. In the meantime, we’re pretty sure every birder out there would like us to add that bald eagles actually sound like this and not, as decades of stolen bird valor would have us believe, like a red-tailed hawk.

[via Digg]

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