Birdsong for a perfect day
An ode to the neighborhood soundtrack
We have been having cooler weather so it has not quite felt like summer. This morning I heard a chorus of birdsong as I went for a walk. It was beautiful and calming. We have not had so much of it the past few weeks with the cloudy rainy weather. And yes, there was a bench nearby that I could sit and listen for a few minutes.
I am not a bird watcher but I do like to know what birds are in our area. In our neighborhood I generally see the following birds: Eurasian Blackbird, Great Tit, European Robins, Eurasian Magpie and of course Crows and Pigeons. Occasionally, we have a Buzzard swooping over our garden to pick up an unlucky field mouse. In our old neighborhood, we unfortunately had woodpeckers that for a while consistently woke us up. Some of our neighbors took to hanging up shiny reflective objects on the rooftop corners of their house to ward away the woodpeckers. When the sunlight hit them just right, the refracted light made it feel like we lived in a disco neighborhood.
Now the weather is warming up for the heat wave we will have on the weekend. In the morning, we had what felt like a monsoon rain, humid, warm and torrential for twenty minutes. The birds were at it again, as if warning each other of what was to come over the day. I was reminded of a poem I recently read.
Birdsong of Shaker Way
BY ANN-MARGARET LIM
Every day is perfect, if
when you wake, you hear birds
in the garden, in the yard. Birds
up and down, ushering in one more day
in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds
on telephone lines, light posts. Birds
twit, twittering on trees
hailing fellow birds
with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;
top-hatted, streamertail
tuxedoed, doctor bird—
busy-bodied hummingbird
tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras
punch-drunk in love. Birds
preening for, chatting up other birds—
the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song
on the lawn, in a dance of birds
an all-day-long conference of bird;
red-headed woodpecker
—drummer boy, or girl bird
in this daily symphony of birds
—an orchestra on Shaker Way
in serenade of each perfect day with birds—
from the very first mockingbird
heralding, in solo warble
one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:
precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.
Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.
I especially love the first line about how birdsong make everyday perfect. I try to catch morning or evening birdsong wherever I go. For me, it is the natural soundtrack to a city neighborhood. My fellow Hamburgers have found that birdsong reduces anxiety and irrational thoughts, or paranoia. It is yet another sense that is activated when one is in nature, the ultimate salve for our overactive and wearied minds.