Eden Wild Goose Nature
Nature notes from the Focus Magazine June 2020
EWGN 2020 06a Focus pix
Is it just me or are the birds singing louder?
Surely there can be no other Spring in living memory where so many people have talked so often about noticing and enjoying the abundant bird song. Several times I've heard the questions, 'Are the birds singing louder? Or is it just that we are quieter?'

An experiment conducted near Heathrow airport showed that chiffchaffs, small olive-y migrant warblers who fly to our shores in early Spring from Southern Europe and North Africa, and named after their admittedly somewhat repetitive song, 'chiff chaff chiff chaff'* increase and decrease the volume of their 'chiff chaff ' according to the environmental noise. So as a jet passes they will sing several decibels louder, and then as the din dies away, lessen their output. A bit like us in a busy pub, if you remember those.

So the suggestion is that although it might sound like the birds are singing louder, they're actually singing quieter, because there's less competing noise. And we're quieter ourselves, so hearing more.

Truly, bird song is a wonder of the world that is worth the effort of listening to and appreciating. The soundscape of birds in the environment enliven and enrich any scene, rural or urban. Maybe, in ancient times, we even learnt the joy of music through appreciation of birdsong, as the earliest instruments discovered, around 35,000 to -arguably- 67,000 years ago are kinds of flutes, made from bone, which produce a bird like trill

I would love to have a time machine so I could fly back and visit the England of 200 years ago, before any modern invention, just so I could listen to what bird song was like before modern life made us more immune to natural wonder, before serious despoliation of the environment. Still, living in the here and now world, I must content myself with tuning my ears up, being still, and listening to the glorious natural music that remains. And beyond that, I needs must play my part in taking any one of a multitude of small actions that make it easier for birds of all kinds to survive in this harsh old world, caring for my own environment and choosing wildlife friendly ways of gardening and living, as supporting birds also means supporting the environment they and we depend on.

Birds matter. We love them, we revel in the colour and music they bring us. And they are a reminder that we are connected, as all living creatures are; it's not us and them, it's all of us together, God's creatures. What hurts birds is also hurting us, though often we might not be able to see it, as many changes occur on a micro scale. So let's use the glory of the bird song as a spur to our resolve to make right choices for nature and to campaign any way we can to better our mutual environment. And perhaps, just perhaps, our collective initiative might be one positive outcome of this difficult lockdown coronavirus year.

*Interesting trivia, In Germany the chiff chaff is known as zilpzalp after their zilpzalp song!
 
Philippa Skinner