墨尔本PTE素材库——Woodpecker Head Bangs Communicate Info

墨尔本PTE素材库——Woodpecker Head Bangs Communicate Info

中文批注

这段音频的的确确是有些难度的。词汇量是一个比较大的问题，可能不少同学都觉得想要完全100%的理解会有些许的困难。生词比较多，专业性的词汇也不少，大都是平时不常会在日常生活中用到的词汇，大家可以借助下文的key vocabulary来进行学习。

这段音频的主要内容围绕在啄木鸟的声音变化所代表的意义。我们最熟悉的啄木鸟的声音就是它们用嘴敲打树干所发出的咚咚咚的声音。但其实，不同的声音也代表不同的意思。大家能在听完音频之后，复述出几个呢？

澳大利亚语言学院会定期整理一些PTE的素材库，让各位PTE的考生，能够在平时练习的时候就能接触到一些和official questions criteria相近的话题素材，不但能够锻炼PTE考生的听力和复述的能力，也能在消化每篇素材的过程中提高自己的阅读能力以及词汇量。例如这篇关于啄木鸟的文章，大家可以试着re-tell这段音频的内容哦！有问题一定要查看full transcript哦！弄懂为止！

【Key Vocabulary】

Woodpecker: 啄木鸟

Trunk: 树干

Bill: Vt. 宣布，开账单，用海报宣传

Drumming: 发嗡声，击鼓声

Slamming: n. 抨击，V.砰地关上，猛烈抨击

Remarkable: 卓越的，非凡的，值得注意的

Biologist: 生物学家

Manoeuvring: manoeuvre的现在分词，调遣，谋略，调动

Excavate: 挖掘，开凿

Forage: 饲料，搜索

Broadcast: 广播，播送

Downy: 柔和的，绒毛的

Wimpy: 懦弱的，无用的

Fend: 谋生，保护，供养，照料

Territorial: 领土的，区域的，地方的

Dispute: 辩论，怀疑，阻止

Tactic: 策略，战略

Reproduce: 复制，再生，生殖

Fledge: 长羽毛

Offspring: 后代，子孙

Conserve: 保存，使守恒

Headstrong: 任性的，顽固的，刚愎的

Chicks: n. 小鸡，小鸟 adj.胆小的，懦弱的

Full Transcript

Woodpeckers that listen to others of their kind drum into trees alter their behavior based on what they hear.   

[Pretty bird song]

Some birds produce beautiful songs.

[Woodpecker drumming]

Woodpeckers are not among them. The most familiar sound they make is when they tap on tree trunks with their bills to produce what’s called “drumming.”

“This drumming that they show is essentially them kind of slamming their head against a tree at remarkable speeds.” Wake Forest University biologist Matthew Fuxjager.

“Some of the woodpeckers will use this kind of drumming-type manoeuvring to excavate a nest, they’ll make little caches in a tree to store food, or some of them will actually forage that way. But then they also use it for this social signal.”

Fuxjager’s team broadcast the pre-recorded sounds of head slams to mated pairs of downy woodpeckers in the woods nearby. They discovered that there’s a lot of information communicated in the drumming.

For example, woodpeckers that produce shorter drums are probably kind of wimpy, and easy to beat in a fight. But if a drum is longer, the challenger might be advertising itself as a stronger, tougher bird, one that’s a bit harder to fend off.

And after hearing recordings of long drums, pairs of birds begin to coordinate the defense of their territory. They don’t bother with such behavior after short drums. [Eric R. Schuppe, Gloria D. Sanin and Matthew J. Fuxjager, The social context of a territorial dispute differentially influences the way individuals in breeding pairs coordinate their aggressive tactics, in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology]

The researchers think that this kind of coordination might have evolved because woodpeckers invest so much time and energy carving out their nest hole in a tree. If they were kicked out and had to start over, they might not get a chance to reproduce and fledge their offspring. By responding only to more realistic threats, woodpecker pairs can conserve energy to be expended at the hard work of raising their headstrong chicks.

(source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/woodpecker-head-bangs-communicate-info/)