Karl Reich

Ernst Karl Reich ( 1885-1970[1] / 1871-1944 )[2] was a German businessman and aviculturist who maintained nightingales and canaries at his aviary in Bremen. Along with Hans Duncker he carried out breeding experiments on canaries. In 1910 the first commercial gramophone records of bird songs included the songs of nightingales from his aviary. He was able to get a nightingale to perch and sing right into the horn of the early recording equipment.[3]

Reich was a businessman in Bremen and ran a hardware store on Fedelhörenstrasse and lived on Am Wall. He was a keen aviculturist and breeder of canaries and other birds. Along with Karl Gustav Hartwig and Carl Röben he was a founding member of the "Gesellschaft zum Schutze der heimischen Vögel" on 17 March 1914 which later became the Bremer Naturschutzgesellschaft (BNG).[4]

Reich managed to extend the singing season of nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos) by altering the day and light period and enchancing the spring period. Through this extended period he was able to make young canaries listen and learn nightingale songs. One of his canaries bred in 1911 that he called Bär (bear) had a very deep voice and he was able to back cross it and produce a strain of canaries that could sing nightingale songs. He believed that his "nightingale canaries" had somehow got the songs into their genes. His co-experimenter Hans Duncker saw that the explanation was that Reich had selected canaries for better song learning abilities.[1][5] The oldest commercially issued gramophone record of a bird song was made in 1908 with recordings of captive nightingales in the aviary of Karl Reich in Bremen. The HMV catalogue noted that "G.C.9439. Made by a captive nightingale. For the first time in the history of the Talking Machine industry, a genuine record has been obtained of a bird. The Nightingale in question is the property of Herr Carl Reich, of Berlin...."[6][7]

References
  1. Birkhead, Tim R.; Schulze-Hagen, Karl; Palfner, Gotz (2003). "The Colour of Birds: Hans Duncker, Pioneer Bird Geneticist*". Journal für Ornithologie. 144 (3): 253–270. doi:10.1046/j.1439-0361.2003.03018.x. ISSN 0021-8375.
  2. Note: some sources have the dates as 1871–1944
  3. Petri, Olga; Howell, Philip (2020-03-20). "From the Dawn Chorus to the Canary Choir: Notes on the Unnatural History of Birdsong". Humanimalia. 11 (2): 163–192. doi:10.52537/humanimalia.9457. ISSN 2151-8645. S2CID 243562745.
  4. Reineking, Viviane (23 June 2014). "Politisierte Vogelschützer". Kreiszeitung.
  5. Duncker, H. (1922). "Die Reich'sche Gesangeskreuzung (Nachtigall/Kanarienvogel) eine "erworbene" Eigenschaft: Vorläufige Mitteilung". Journal für Ornithologie (in German). 70 (4): 423–430. doi:10.1007/BF02538207. ISSN 0021-8375. S2CID 6708621.
  6. Boswall, Jeffery (1963). "Recording the voices of captive birds". The Avicultural Magazine. 69: 121–127.
  7. Kellogg, P. (1938). "Hunting the Songs of Vanishing Birds with a Microphone". Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. 30 (2): 201–208. doi:10.5594/J14702. ISSN 0097-5834.
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