Incidental (Bird) Music

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
               --Ram Dass

In an average day, we are bombarded with a lot of noise, even in this time of coronavirus. As I work from home this summer I have a fan on and the windows closed, not just to keep the hot and humid air out and move the drier, slightly cooler air around, but to keep out the annoying noise from lawn service mowers, edgers and blowers; the roar of airplanes; the screams of children. I will likely have the radio on, too, hoping the classical music will counteract whatever stress remote work is inducing. Downstairs, MH will have the television on, scanning the news channels.

Sitting on my mother-in-law's deck, I could hear a common loon
calling from some distance away. Note the great blue heron
towards the center of this picture. (Margo D. Beller)

Unfortunately, this noise blocking also keeps out something I wouldn't mind hearing more of, the birdsong.

This is why I go out early in the morning to my porch where, despite needing a fan when it is particularly humid, I can hear birds as they go about their business. But the dawn chorus, when I can rouse myself to go out to hear it, is not as frenetic as before because the birds have long ago chosen their territories, built their nests and raised their young. If I'm lucky, I'll hear the chatter of young birds chasing after their parents and begging for food, or see a hummingbird come to the feeder for the energy she'll need to hunt insects and bring them back to her feed her young.

I call this incidental birding.

We traveled recently, to get away from the headlines and visit family in New England. Along the way I was amazed how many birds I heard from the car when we were driving the back roads. This should not have surprised me. Many years before, on a busy main street in Chicago, I heard something, crossed the street and found a goldfinch atop the traffic light. How had I heard this? Simple - I had trained myself to listen and listen hard because more times than not I have to use my ears rather than my eyes when I am out in the field once the trees leaf out.

This was one of the easier paths we followed, to a
marsh. We heard lots of birds along it. (Margo D. Beller)

So on our New Hampshire trip, with really working that hard at it, I heard many of the warblers that had passed through my neighborhood months before on their way to their breeding areas here: black and white, prairie, Blackburnian, to name a few. In a way this is more interesting birding than going out with the intent of finding birds because of the element of surprise. "What was that?" I think as I hear a snippet of bird call. "Was that what I thought it was?" One such snippet rattled around in my brain until I realized I'd heard a common loon. I'd like to think I am correct in my guessing because I have been listening - really listening - to birds for a long time.

Too often we are caught up in our own little worlds, especially now when, if the heat and humidity and hurricanes don't keep you inside, the fear of being infected with a virus does. Even before we'd ever heard of COVID-19 people have created their own soundscape by blaring their car radios or traveling with earbuds. blocking the outside world. After decades of putting up with cell phone conversations and the screeching of commuter trains and subways, it is a blessing for me to hear as little as possible for as long as I can.

When I sit on my porch - before the lawn services and the office Zoom meetings - and hear something - a robin, say, or downy woodpecker - I consider myself lucky. I sit with my coffee and enjoy the silence of the early morning, punctuated with the occasional chipping sparrow, flicker or catbird. I don't need "mindfulness" or other types of meditation, I just listen to what is or isn't going on around me. A hummingbird is a revelation. A catbird is a prayer. A cardinal is the world telling me it hasn't all gone to hell.

In short, it's my way of coping.