How I Fell in Love With Birds

... only recently

Photo by Abdul Rehman Khalid on Unsplash

Birds? Not on my radar …

It’s interesting how perception changes over time. I can’t remember noticing birds at all as a child - apart from feeding them in winter and taking this resposibility very seriously.

If anything, I was a bit reluctant, cautious of the birds. Like with friends’ free-flying budgies and canaries. I found them boring (compared to my cat) or unpleasant when they landed on my head or shoulder and clawed my hair or nipped my ear.

… unless they did something extraordinary

I admit, though, that I was fascinated, but also a little frightened, by the grey parrot in a guesthouse in the Harz Mountains where we spent a few days on holiday when I was five or six years old. Jakob entertained us at breakfast with his speaking skills. He also barked like the owner's dachshund, whistled the chicken dance that was popular at the time and asked us to tickle his head. I had never heard an animal speak like a human before and didn’t know what to make of it. I also had great respect for the parrot's beak and claws and didn’t feel like getting too close.

But apart from that, I can’t remember spending much thought on birds, although I’ve always been very fond of animals. I was more interested in mammals. Especially cats and horses. (And you could also stroke horses and cuddle cats. Try that with a canary.)

Fast forward about twenty years. I was living in a big city now and attending university. We lived in an block of flats on the second floor, with only the top floor flat above us. Houses of this type were built in a uniform pattern on both sides of the narrow street. In the summer, we witnessed a stunning (and shrill screaming) show every night. A flock of swifts flew in circles between the houses on both sides of the street, as if they were on the tracks of a rollercoaster. A very fast one. They were exactly level with our windows facing the street. It was a pretty cool performance! Until one day a swift didn't get round the bend and shot through the tilted window into our living room. I don't know who was more startled, it or us! (But it all turned out well.)

Fast forward another fifteen years or so. Sitting on my parents’ patio one summer, we were all amused by a particularly hip blackbird that incorporated a then well-known (or should we say the standard) mobile phone ringtone into its song. We laughed tears about it.

I was very impressed by a bird of prey show in a nearby wildlife park. Seeing these birds up close made a big impression on me - and I ducked my head as they flew over the grandstand. Still a bit anxious.

Birds have remained foreign or of little interest to me all these years.

When it changed and why: Our own garden

I only really started noticing birds when we moved into our small house with a garden and I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to the circumstances of my job and a life that wasn’t for me. I spent a whole summer sitting on the bench doing nothing but listening to and watching birds (and bees and dragonflies).

The song of the blackbirds at dusk in the highest treetops of our maple and on the chimney of the neighbouring house touched me so much that I had tears in my eyes. I was part of nature, the rest didn't matter at that moment, everything else was so far away. Everything would be fine. Everything was already fine, right here and right now.

I got to know our cute robin, enjoyed the frequent visits of great tits, blue tits and fir tits, had fun watching the cheerful sparrows that invaded our garden like a gang of juveniles. Everything was always a great spectacle with them. I enjoyed watching the blackbirds turn the leaves on the beds - just like hay used to be turned in the countryside.

I watched with delight as blackbirds and tits bathed in our bird bath and laughed when a wood pigeon tried to do the same but didn’t get more than its feet wet - not for lack of trying. The bowl wasn’t made for big birds like pigeons. Not deep enough in any case.

Tits tried to take a sip when the blackbird was in the tub, but were scared away. A second bird bath in a different location wasn’t accepted. They all insisted on the old black plastic bowl, which was only supposed to be a temporary solution because I didn't have anything better before we moved in. Well, some temporary solutions last a lifetime, don’t they?

Sharing space

It’s funny sometimes, isn’t it? Something was there the whole time, but you didn't notice it. And then when you do notice it, suddenly everything changes and you wonder how on earth you could have missed it before. (And how you ever got by without it.)

That happened to me with the birds.

I realised that birds are the animals with which we most obviously share public space. (Unlike insects, which are not always so noticeable to us, at least not where I live. And definitely more than mammals.) When we really listen, really look, we realise that they are always there, even in the city and in any season.

My husband and I sometimes say (only) half-jokingly that our garden isn't just ours, but that various birds call it their territory - and the cat next door does too, of course. He has made it clear to all the other cats in the neighbourhood that this is his property. He roams it at least twice a day like a lion in the savannah - and prefers to ignore us. We are tolerated. Just barely.

Wonderful surprises

In the past weeks, I've had some wonderful experiences with birds that have made a deep impression on me: the awe-filled wonder of watching a heron so close up on our neighbour’s roof for four or five days in a row; the deep joy of watching our robin in the garden near the house; the unexptected sighting of a cormorant on our small river (I’ve never seen one here before) and the delight of hearing and seeing several great spotted woodpeckers on my first solo walk in the forest.

Yet it's not about spectacular sightings, it's about realising that I am surrounded by birds and birdsong every day, wherever I am. When I started noticing, really noticing, my perspective changed. I feel more connected with nature, more integrated into it.

Falling in love and wanting to know more

Merlin app

Sue Sutherland-Wood

recommended the Merlin app to help me identify birds, and that was a real game changer for me. (So, thank you again, Sue!!)

I think it's so brilliant how this app works and how simple it is. I started by recording the morning birdsong and watched who sings, who sings what, who joins in hesitantly at first, then more and more strongly and confidently until it reaches a climax. It’s like witnessing a choir practice every morning. That's how I finally learned to recognise the robin and discovered that we have chaffinches here.

It's so much fun! I’m getting a little bit addicted to it. So exciting!

Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed: An Introduction to Birdsong, Simon Barnes

I stumbled across Birdwatching With your Eyes Closed: An Introduction to Birdsong, a book by the English author and journalist Simon Barnes, which also had a deep impact on me. It opened my ears, so to speak, to the trills and repetitions and verses and where the birds were sitting, e.g. at knee height in the hedge and so on. It helped me to be even more attentive.

As chance would have it, I found this book at exactly the right time. It takes the reader twice from winter into the depths of spring and teaches us to recognise one birdsong after the other as the chorus grows louder and more varied.

Barnes' approach is humorous and pragmatic. He very much helped to sharpen my ear.

Along the way, I also learnt about the science of birdsong, the difference between song and call, the physiology of songbirds and much more.

“Learning birdsong is not just a way to become a better bird-spotter. It’s tuning in: a way of hearing the soundtrack of the planet earth.” (Simon Barnes)

The book is a love declaration to birds and birdsong, how it enriches life and helps to block out the constant background noise and tune our ears to the sounds of nature. I loved it!

Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without audio samples. You can find Simon Barnes’s podcast of 66 birds here on the publisher’s website.

Both the book and the app have given me a completely new experience. They have deepened my interest and enthusiasm for birds and opened up new perspectives for me.

Looking forward

I have even more to look forward to in the coming weeks:

My next walks in nature when spring is finally here - and with it, more birds.

My very own morning choir right outside my window. Not forgetting the evening song of the blackbirds.

Watching the next generation of birds emerge in our garden. The first birds are already building their nests (or renovating last year’s ones like the magpies in the maple tree).

Seeing owls in the forest on an outing with one of our local nature conservation groups.

Oh, and identifying birds by their song is all well and good, but I borrowed my dad’s binoculars at the weekend anyway. Just in case.

Birds are very much on my radar now. They are a real delight!

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