Thats the thing, you can talk to practially every animal while wildshaped. Even to the Owlbear, which is techically not categorized as an animal. Just Halsin stays mute.
Huh! I attempted to talk to at least one animal (not Halsin) with my wildshaped moon druid and nothing happened so I assumed this didn’t work and stopped trying. Perhaps I’d actually come across a bug. I’ll try to replicate but don’t think I recall what animal it was.