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Outlook: From songbird to birdsong expert

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Picture: Image of portrait of Gisela Kaplan by Raffaela Casadei

19/07/2021 GMT

From songbird to birdsong expert

BBC World Service - Outlook, From songbird to birdsong expert

Former opera singer Gisela Kaplan on how she became an expert in bird communication

Gisela Kaplan went from opera singer to a leading expert in birdsong with the help of an Australian magpie nicknamed Maria Callas

Professor Gisela Kaplan has had a lifelong bond with birds. As a lonely child in post-war Berlin, she would visit a family of swans for company. They made her feel safe and comfortable, offering some consolation during an otherwise hard childhood. This relationship formed a fascination with birds that eventually saw her becoming a highly-regarded ethologist, a specialist in animal behaviour, and an expert in Australian magpie warbles.  Along the way, Gisela had a career in opera singing, before moving to Australia and becoming an academic.  It was a surprise gift from her partner - a course in animal rehabilitation - that saw her hand-rear native birds, including an Australian magpie she named Maria Callas. Over the next 25 years, Gisela was to make some remarkable discoveries about how the species communicates, helped along by her operatic knowledge.

Protecting the embattled ocean is a tough job anywhere in the world, perhaps even more so in the coastal city of Lagos where piles of waste wash up on its shores every day. Doyinsola Igunye has been working hard to clean up Nigeria's beaches with the help of local children and in 2018, she told Outlook's Ijeoma Ndukwe how she's been saving sea turtles at the same time.
First broadcast in October 2018

Picture: Image of portrait of Gisela Kaplan by Raffaela Casadei 
Credit: Raffaela Casadei 

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