Bird Song

A young blackbird was a frequent visitor to my garden last year. He would fly from one tree top to another with a song of six notes that he would sing over and over.

Birdsong

  • Breathe Deep This Dawn...

    I Hear You

  • As the weeks and summer past the song remained almost unchanged except for the slightest chip and chirp that would introduce or end his signature tune.
  • The blackbird's song returned the next spring to the open air that surrounds my home, only now his song was more, it spread with the twists and turns of longer life. Those months of winter, the struggle for food, the cold and rain changed his world. One morning I heard that song once more, distant but clear.
  • Enjoy the calls of countless tiny lives that unfurl by my open window, well before the sign of dawn or earliest hint of light...

     

    Birdsong

     

     

    I recorded the blackbird in full song for you to enjoy. You will hear his signature tune at 17 seconds and 1 minute 8 seconds in this short sequence.

     

    Blackbird

     

     

    I find it valuable listening to these moments from my world, side by side. After hearing the blackbird in isolation you might make out that same blackbird in the cacophony of sounds in the first chorus. In recognizing individual birds one begins to gain a sense of a larger community. That each bird is familiar with their neighbours, and that they are as much a part of this place as those more dominant and insistent features of my landscape. This in turn spurs me on to consider those who we might easily forget, yet sing so well and close...

    Breathe Deep This Dawn

    Breathe deep this dawn,
    Before the break of day,
    With quiet moonless thought,
    With feathered warmth you wake,
    Wash cool with air to cheek,
    Your song sing sweet from tip of distant tree,
    To neighbours near and known,
    Towards far others loved,
    Untouched,
    Past unfamiliar street your tune-flow on,
    Through torpid town and woodland stretch,
    Few moments left as sky alight,
    Your world of teeming voice recede,
    From sound to strength your spirit-shift to quickened early sight.

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  • Mike

 

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