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He taught himself 114 bird calls. His classmates cheered.

Oklahoma · 3 June 2026

Samuel Henderson, a 12-year-old in Oklahoma, performed bird calls at his middle school talent show, and more than 29 million people have now watched the video. He has mastered 114 of them, including a cardinal and a red-tailed hawk that sound nearly impossible coming from a human. Samuel started teaching himself the calls at age six, and his mother first realized something was unusual in parking lots. "He'd make the sound, and they'd be following us," she told Good Morning America. "They think he's another bird." Samuel, who has autism and Tourette's Syndrome, keeps a journal of every call he learns. To check his accuracy, he uses a bird sound identifier app from the Cornell University ornithology lab, which names the species when he gets it right. The part people kept rewatching was not the calls. It was the row of classmates in front, cheering like he had just won something.

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