bird song

I have a small park near my house. It has a lake and some wetlands and the bird species there are abundant. I have seen 75 different species of birds in that park, most of them tiny insect feeders like the golden-crowned kinglet, the ruby-crowned kinglet, and pacific wren. But I have even seen a Merlin attack a sparrow (the sparrow escaped into a bush) and I’ve seen an Osprey fishing in the lake.

But what’s most amazing about this park is the sheer number of birds and the noises they all make. I’ve written here before about this but I can’t shake it from my mind. It’s absurd how many birds are singing at the same time and how loud it is when I’m just walking in the park. I’ve posted some videos on my instagram and in them you can usually hear one bird most prominently but if you listen, the forest is alive with dozens of species all singing at the same time.

I also wonder what that park must have been like 20 years ago. In my lifetime we have lost something like 29% of the birds in North America. That’s three billion fewer birds. This joyful cacophony I hear every morning, this literal lust for life as male birds seek mates, must have been almost unnerving 50 or 100 years ago. There was no freeway 100 years ago, no 8-lane interstate pumping out a steady drone in the background. Just birds. If we went back in time, the planet would be other-worldly. Imagine rivers teeming with fish, the sky blackened by birds, the sounds of a planet bursting with life. And go back even further to the Jurassic era and imagine what it would have sounded like with giant birds – we call them dinosaurs – all vocalizing!

I’m trying to think of a short story about someone landing on another planet. The planet itself is devoid of industrialized life. It’s just an ecosystem going at full pelt. I’m not sure what the story will be about, I don’t want it to be negative.

I also wonder about an alternative timeline on this planet. What if humans had worked cooperatively and installed solar cells strategically around the planet. The sun shines on our planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We could have easily built a cooperative solar grid which would power humanity. We still could, I guess, though that seems unlikely now and also what effect that would have on the rapidly warming climate is unknown.

I want to believe that humans have it in us to do these things. To not just exploit the natural world, gobble it up, spit it out, and move on. But I’m not really sure if we do.

Birds are tiny, incredibly light, little creatures and the smallest of them often make the loudest and most complex songs. Their migrations often span thousands of miles and their return to your area every year is a sure sign that our planet is still working. Imagine the tiniest rufous hummingbird, weighing less than a teaspoon, they fly 4,000 miles a year from Mexico to Alaska! Doing a circuit just to breed. They should start arriving here in Washington next month.

Listening to birds is proven to elevate mood, clear your mind, and help with stress. Nature is an antidote to many of our human-caused ailments. I find the most successful way to go birding is to get to your local park, sit somewhere, and let them come to you. They will, trust me.

I’m not sure where I’m going with all this. Maybe it’s just a mess. I guess I would just say go find a green patch, settle there for a few minutes, and listen to some birds. You’ll feel better.

Qq

31 comments

  1. I had a pair of male pileated woodpeckers playing around on the ground in the wetland behind my house two days ago. I watched them from the house w binocs for 15 minutes. That moment produced such internal joy that I’m smiling just writing about it. Thanks for the reminder.
    Clipper

  2. I can sense your love for birds through your writing. I wish I shared your passion for birds, but the African alarm clock (its a bird) just makes me hate birds every single morning.

      1. That’s the one Tim.

        To show how little I know about birds, I just learned what it was called last year. A Zulu friend of mine complained about a bird called “iNkankane” and really confused me, but all he had to say was “African alarm clock” and I caught onto what he was talking about.

        It is impossible to sleep with that bird outside.

        1. There’s a great video of Pharrell suffering through a morning of those birds. Seems like it’s a South Africa thing?

  3. Check out “Alien Worlds” on Netflix.

    Watching it with my 8 y/o son. The series is thought provoking without hyperbole.

    He and I really enjoy it.

  4. Thanks Tim. This triggered many memories/thoughts. Have you read Chesapeake by James Michener? His description of the waterfowl population 250-300 years ago on the Chesapeake Bay is quite something. Unfortunately, so is his description of the decimation of it as well. I think of that when we’re on the Rappahannock River here in VA. My father-in-law has had an osprey nest in front of their house there for years. The same pair return year after year. I’m completely amazed by the innate ability of these glorious creatures to travel thousands of miles each year and return to the exact same spot to start a new family. This year he installed a camera on the perch so that we can watch the family grow. So far we have two eggs in the nest.

      1. BTW. I read somewhere once that the earth receives enough power from the sun every hour to power global energy needs for a year. Wish I could remember where. It’s hell getting older.

  5. If you haven’t already read it, The Long Earth series (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter) hits on a lot of those topics indirectly along the path of an intriguing sci-fi concept. It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking read and may help crystallize the type of story you want to write.

  6. Tim, you write so beautifully about all my favourite topics, bread, birds and Arsenal. Here in Islington we don’t get the most exotic birds, but the goldfinches are beautiful and characterful. We did by chance have a rare sighting of a pair of grey wagtails in the next door garden (astroturf!)They are more striking than the name would suggest as they have a vibrant yellow underside.
    At the Emirates Stadium we’re often treated to the sight of pied wagtails which swoop down onto the pitch, seemingly unperturbed by the action around them.

  7. Great post Tim, down here at the Savannah in southern Kenya weaver birds are plenty but I love watching hornbills and how they stretch their wings as if they are trying to fly while melodiously singing.

  8. Posts like this are why this is my favorite Arsenal blog. Come for the Arsenal, stay for the birds, bread recipes, and philosophical investigations.

  9. can’t speak much on the birds but i can talk about football.

    let me start by saying that arsenal should win this game 0-3. however, it looks like they are going to go with xhaka and chambers as the fullbacks. in an emergency, i’m okay with it. but, with hector and cedric available, this is not an emergency and i am not a fan. if i were the slavia prague manager, my instructions would be clear; run at both those two any time you get a chance. the end game would be to either collapse their defense in the wide areas or see one of those guys, probably xhaka, get sent off. that would make the 0-3 not so straight forward. we’ll see.

      1. The quality is there in this team. Like baking, we might not know what we are trying to bake (scones, bread or etc), but the ingredients themselves are quality enough to bake something better than what we are getting out of Mikel’s oven.

        I am still scared because it is a do or die competition for us, but Slavia should really have no chance against what we have, even if it is makeshift. Sometimes the difference in quality speaks louder than tactics.

        Come on you gooners, use this game as a confidence builder for Villareal.

  10. Devlin. I think we have better players then Prague which is why we are lead 4-1 on aggregate. The knockout format and the level of competition means we have a real chance to do well in the Europa league. Unfortunately we don’t have a talent advantage in the PL and over a 38 game schedule that is the main factor which determines how well you do is why we are in 9th place.

  11. I missed most of the match today and won’t see it until tonight but someone said to me it’s the best he has seen Arsenal play all season. Looking forward to it.

    Lovely post, today, BTW. I looked up this poem, I remember we studied in Middle School:

    A Bird Song
    Christina Rossetti – 1830-1894

    “It’s a year almost that I have not seen her:
    Oh, last summer green things were greener,
    Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

    It’s surely summer, for there’s a swallow:
    Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
    The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

    Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow
    O’er height, o’er hollow! I’d be a swallow,
    To build this weather one nest together.”

  12. That was a tidy result. Good example of how to play on the break. Let’s see more of that.
    And it turns out that Auba has malaria. Yikes. Pretty much a better excuse than the flu. Get well soon.

    1. to think, people were questioning whether he was really sick. he’s had a rough season. wishing auba a speedy recovery.

      1. For me, when it comes to the health of footballers, I trust in what we are told, if there is a problem. Only if the player comes out and disputes what has been reported will I believe otherwise.

        I have met too many players who have been termed as lazy or been reported as having issues with management, the truth though is that they all want to be out on the pitch. If anything, players should be saved from themselves more often than people think. Its a drive in every professional footballer, let alone elite level athletes. It’s the only reason they got so far and continue playing at a certain intensity.

        I have also seen players who have fallen out of love with football, now that’s different. That’s where a serious drop or dropping of players can occur. It will also show massively on the pitch when that happens.

        Outside of those, I do not know why people would question footballers when they are out with health issues. It annoyed me with Ozil and how hisnhealth issues where used to label him as a player who plays when he wants, and will continue to annoy me with any other player.

        1. you’re absolutely right when you say that it’s more likely that you have to protect the player from themselves. this was my biggest beef with wenger. so many players played for arsenal when they had no business playing. it’s the nature of a jock that if they can walk in a straight line, even with a torn acl, they’d try and play if you let them. vermaelen and rosicky were the worst. as a result, they had chronic conditions and were frequently unavailable; they never allowed themselves to adequately heal before being reintroduced to the team. wenger always let them come back.

          fabregas’ last game for arsenal comes to mind. that game, everyone knew that neither he or gallas were fit but, because it was a champions league game against barcelona, wenger said “i’m going to let them declare themselves fit”. he started them…and they both left that game with season-ending injuries.

          i was that knucklehead. as a result, i was a 33-year old man who couldn’t even chase his 2-year old around in the back yard. that’s awful. coaching u19 boys, the guys that play for me are some fucking studs; the lazy players all quit. they often want to come out and train and i have to protect them from themselves. i make them help me set up cones or manage the training sessions.

      2. I questioned “the flu” which he definitely didn’t have because no one has influenza in all of the UK. Sick, sure, but the flu, no chance.

        1. The club might as well have said that he had scurvy or rickets. They were about as likely as him having the flu.

  13. Unai Emery and Villareal in the semifinals. How the world turns and fate plays out.

    Wouldn’t it be something if Wenger attended the match and we had the last 3 managers together at the same place and same time?

    And Arteta kicked Emery’s butt with a smiling Wenger looking on?

  14. Just a big thank you, today, Tim. That’s all. These posts are wonderful morsels of joy and respite you feed us. Very fortunate to feel connected to this community.

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