Birdsong, Beauty & Breathing

I'm awestruck by how amazing our little birds are, oh how I've taken them for granted!

I may be wrong but I don’t think anyone truly understands migration. Scientists describe it as an instinct that tells birds when it’s time to go but the concept of it is rather baffling if you really sit down and think about it. Or maybe that’s just my blinkered view as a homebody. I just can’t wrap my head around the journeys these little creatures make. Take the swallow, my friend Dan often goes on holiday to Cape Town. If he sees a swallow on his travels then it’s likely that this little bird hatched around the corner from his home in the UK. They both enjoy the food and soak up the sun in South Africa but when it’s time to go home, Dan sets off in a taxi to the airport, and the swallow flies to the Congo, takes a gamble crossing the Sahara Desert, soars across Morocco, crosses the Mediterranean, then eastern Spain, western France, crosses the channel and returns home to the UK, sometimes to the nest in which it hatched, home sweet home - with a few mud repairs perhaps.

Most birds (like humans) fatten up on holiday before the flight home but swallows prefer inflight meals, arial insects being top of the menu, I imagine it like a drive-through for birds, I could associate the McDonalds sign with flapping wings instead of an M but that’s taking the point a bit far I think. Speaking of flapping wings, birds of prey are far larger, so flying takes up much more energy. To avoid wearing themselves out they glide and when they find a thermal they spiral around it. A thermal if you didn't know (I didn’t) is a rising column of warm air that comes up from the ground and gives them a lift. I can’t help thinking about a board game I had as a child which had jets of air that propelled little pink balls of foam sporting piggy faces up in the air which would float above the board. The same effect (we discovered) can be achieved with maltesers! If you lay on your back, position your lips like you’re whistling and blow upwards like ‘a thermal’ you can sit a malteser on the air and it floats above your face, for as long as your breath lasts and then the trick is to catch the malteaser in your mouth (without choking yourself of course) and if you drop it the friends you’re with get to eat the malteser. The longer your out breath the better and it’s the tastiest breath test you can do, something I did a lot of as part of my midwife appointments but I can’t see them being impressed by my malteser idea.

Of course as we have diaphragmatic breathing we run out of breath but a bird doesn't (in case you’ve ever wondered how they breath when they’re flying at such altitudes). Instead of an in / out breath like us, it's a continuous flow of air passing through their bodies which are full of little air sacs and even their bones are hollow, which is probably why they’re so light (something I noticed when I kept trying to save baby birds from my murderous cat), not only does this help in flight but it allows them to sing for so long without pausing for breath.

This isn’t as obvious if you’re listening to a pigeon or the ‘teacher teacher teacher’ of a great tit but some songbirds have an almost continuous melody that serenades the listener. A robin is the first one that springs to mind, being the only birdsong I heard through the winter but notorious songbirds like a nightingale has over 1,100 syllables in which to arrange a melody. As lovely as it is to think that birds sing for our enjoyment it does in fact serve many purposes for the bird. Firstly it's all about attraction, which is why birdsong seems so abundant in spring, all those little birds are seeking a mate. After all there’s a time limit to pairing up, building a nest and hatching a brood while the food supplies are abundant, plus the little fledgelings need enough time to learn to fly and strengthen up if they have a hope of surviving the year as the seasons turn. So how does a song attract a lady? It helps if the songs are full of appealing variety, some birds will even adopt urban sounds to add to their repertoire like car alarms and ringtones (my childhood pet budgie perfected the sound of my dad’s work phone when he was on 24 hour call) but most importantly they must be loud and consistent, the volume and duration of a song demonstrates the strength and stamina of the bird. Like most other creatures, health and strength are important factors in choosing a mate and it’s as much of a showing-off performance for competing males as it is for the ladies. Although humans may find it difficult to distinguish one species from another based on audio alone, it is of course obvious to the birds but just to be sure, birds sing to confirm their identity (both gender and species) as well as their location - a pretty obvious detail if you’re looking to hook up.

You might see something similar in a karaoke bar, as birds aren't the only animals that sing to attract attention, but the reason we can’t sing like a bird is because we don’t have the voice for it. Our voicebox is called a larynx, located at the top of our windpipe and a bird’s is at the bottom called a syrinx. There’s a lovely tale about this in Simon Barnes’ book ‘Spring is the only season’: Syrinx was a beautiful nymph who took a vow of perpetual virginity (...) She was persued by the lustful Pan and, rather than submit, she flung herself into the river and was transformed into a reedbed. The wind passed over the hollow stems of these reeds and created a series of sweet sounds, Pan gathered them together and made a musical instrument: Pan Pipes.

So on that melodic note I’ll leave you to enjoy the sound of birdsong, perhaps with a new perspective, it’s not just good for the birds, it’s good for our health too. Birdsong has been proven to lower our stress levels by reducing cortisol, the hormone that fires us up and puts us into fight or flight mode. If we can hear birdsong then we know there isn’t an imminent threat, and although the context of this instinct may no longer be relevant, the positive effects are just as soothing. Another great reason to slow down, engage our senses, connect with the season and enjoy ourselves as much as possible, after all spring is fleeting and will have flown before we know it.

This article along with my recent posts on nettles and butterflies were inspired by the book I mentioned above, and I extracted many of the nature facts from the author’s well researched work. So if you enjoyed these posts you may love the book! I’ll admit I picked it up in a bookshop just for the cover (I’m superficial like that) and I’ve fallen in love with it and I’ll likely re-read it every Spring (or at least all the parts I’ve underlined - I annotate my books so shoot me!). Here’s a pic of the cover in case it’s of interest.