The language of birds
I love birds but I can’t claim any great knowledge about them. I’m able to identify a wide range of common birds, if I get a good sighting of them, and I know quite a lot about some species (corvids, mostly) but that’s about it. Walking with a truly knowledgeable birder is a revelation for me. A glimpse of a small, nondescript brown bird pinging around in the woods or a curved speck flying in the far distance, and an expert birder will immediately tell you what you’re looking at.
Me, I often have no idea unless the bird obligingly hangs around in plain sight long enough for me to scroll through the Bird ID app on my phone.
The ability to identify less common birds based only on a glimpse seems almost magical to me, a sort of super-sense that I can only marvel at.
But these days, I have more time to stand and stare and I’m lucky enough to live somewhere with a rich, varied population of resident and migrant birds. And I’m finding that, little by little, species by species, I’m gaining a little of that super-sense.
I realised this the other day, watching a bullet-shaped bird, slightly larger and bulkier than a thrush, flying low and straight with rapid wingbeats across a field. It was some distance away from me but immediately I knew I was watching one of the Little owls that live close to us. Later that day, I saw a faint, faraway cipher in the sky and, again, recognised the bird: a curlew. And sure enough, its distinctive flightsong sounded a moment later. A bird that seems almost too white in the grey January sky: a Little Egret. A dip of a softer paleness behind a tall hedge: a barn owl, hunting by day because it had rained the night before.
It’s not much but it’s a language finally starting to make sense to me – a language of habitats, time of year, flight patterns, body shapes, behaviours, colours, call and cry and song. A language of birds.
And, as I haven’t updated this blog since August, a few other birdy things:
In October, I glanced through the kitchen window and there was a woodcock on the grass just a few feet away, casually probing the ground for worms. I dashed upstairs to get my camera, praying the woodcock would hang around. It did, and I got this hurried shot:
And for the past couple of months, there have also been three short eared owls around. These beautiful birds hunt in daylight and they are extraordinarily bold. One day, while I was clearing brambles, one of them hunted nearby. I stood very still. It took a good look at me, evidently decided I was nothing to worry about, and continued to hunt all around me for another 10 minutes or so, sometimes flying within just a few feet of me. Here’s one of them perched on a post:
