What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, I think notationally you're probably a bit more accurate than me, jayne.

Birds are great musicians... instinctively break the rules when it feels right....

[Serial_Apologist]

Birds are great musicians... instinctively break the rules when it feels right....

No wonder then that their song was the last thing Messiaen contemplated serialising!

[jayne lee wilson]

No wonder then that their song was the last thing Messiaen contemplated serialising!

Those Woodies have just started up again outside.... there's a lovely huskiness to those coos... (maybe get a prepared piano onto that...)

[ardcarp]

coo cooo-coo, coo-coo; coo cooo-coo, coo-coo... often finishing with a single "coo".

Yes, spot on. How unimaginative their 'song' is, but not ugly like the corvids. I think the worst of all is that of the grey heron. Luckily they don't give voice that often, but it's the most ugly disagreeable noise imaginable.

[vinteuil]

I think the worst of all is that of the grey heron. Luckily they don't give voice that often, but it's the most ugly disagreeable noise imaginable.

... worse than peacocks?


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[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, spot on. How unimaginative their 'song' is, but not ugly like the corvids. I think the worst of all is that of the grey heron. Luckily they don't give voice that often, but it's the most ugly disagreeable noise imaginable.

Anthropomorphism, anyone...? Poor birds....

One of my most beloved sounds....

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/raven/

I see these in groups of two or three, out by the woods, or singletons over the house.... I hold my breath, transfixed by their size, the power of their flight....and this dark, dry yet sonorous, far-carrying call.... what great beasts they are, worldly yet prehistoric..

ASTOUNDING! Just as I wrote this.... that very call flew in on the dusk wind....! ...

It is time WE learnt from THEM...the better to judge ourselves.

[ardcarp]

Always been a bit iffy about ravens...if only because of That Poem.

[vinteuil]

.

... not ugly like the corvids.

... o I love the cawing of rooks. Childhood memories of rooks cawing in the many great elms around the fields nearby.


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[gradus]

With magpies here it's not so much the sound as the timing, first thing in the morning and drowning out the songbirds.

[vinteuil]

... worse than peacocks?


.

... sorry, had meant to provide an example :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDw2iIcmQ0

.

[jayne lee wilson]

... sorry, had meant to provide an example :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDw2iIcmQ0

.

Wow! Wish I had them round here..... I think I pick this call up, somewhere to the east from a local farm, deep in the evening.... sometimes it duets with a donkey...

[ardcarp]

Generally found in the grounds of Stately Homes. They're welcome to them!

[Sir Velo]

With magpies here it's not so much the sound as the timing, first thing in the morning and drowning out the songbirds.

Better that than the bleedin' pigeons round these parts - 5 o'clock alarm call here. They come and make their nauseating cooing from the pergola where they know they're safe. We need a few peregrines to sort them out...

[johncorrigan]

'In Our Time' on Radio 4 this morning was about bird migration - fascinating - got answers to questions that I never even knew were questions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmk5j

[jayne lee wilson]

2200, almost dark, the kitchen window open on the sunken garden...... a Jay screeching, grating, scolding something, high in the trees...an Owl, a Cat below?

Then, two Ravens flew over, once again with that dark guttural cry....... vronk...! veronk...!

Don't others here relish that wildness, that otherness?
All just a bunch of townies, I reckon....