Garden Symphony

they're.

“I think the like, and the gold fins, you just get a lot of gold fins here, and unfortunately”

not as many green fins as now, I think there's some kind of disease that they're picking up, but the green fins, it's used to be very abundant here. You get red poles, get this time of year, get red wings, you know, feeding on the bearish. And I'm not that great, I identify the chirping fit to, I'm learning, like, you know, not a black bird, and woodpeck is, get green woodpeck is here, anemic, a very distinctive

sound. And of course you get the mag bowies and jack doors, and the claws, and stuff like that. I mean, this time of year, you know, I mean, you don't get, you know, light to the bat eight, and so you don't feel like getting up at six in a morning and walking in the middle of your church, but, you know, when you get to spring, it's like a cough and

“air, I've sound, and it's great to get up in a morning, you look forward to getting”

open, you know, and the sound is all around you. I'm sure I'm being, and this is get birdy, collaboration with Forestall it is.

I always think you can't, and it is like a, a kabab shop, a two o'clock in the morning in

that every other bullies are either trying to feed, a shark, or fight. Last time, we were getting ready for the big garden bird watch. I feel like everyone's got a unique perspective, even if you're at your window and you don't have a balcony, you're able to see you so much. In this episode, we're turning our attention from watching birds to listening to them,

tuning our ears to bird song and bird calls. And he whistleed this melody, which was like this, and I went, he's not the blackbird where we grew up anyway, yeah.

“You're here from some familiar voices, including Dr. Maya Ross Craig, City Girl in”

nature, and Jason Singh. We'll also be joined by musicians and broadcasters who found inspiration and comfort in the natural world. The simplicity of birds song is such, it's such, oh, it's so good for the soul. We're starting close to home, listing out for one of the more spotted and much loved voices in our gardens, the blackbird.

And our next bird, and I was thinking to about how their songs come together.

There's always a, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Jason Singh is a sound artist and a nature beatboxer. He spends his life exploring the relationship between us and the natural world through sound. From my earliest memories of birds, the blackbird is up there when I was in school. I had a lot of issues at the secondary school with learning attention. So I used to just sit there in my English class and he's the zone out to this blackbird

that was nesting in a tree, just outside the classroom. And just the melody, it just used to just tune me right in and tune me right out of what was happening in the classroom. And I just sort of found this place of calm and focus that I just really didn't have outside of that.

And also, because of the different calls, there's the song of the blackbird, like I just did. And then there's those calls, those warning signs of like, of like, when you sit flying. And that's usually where I've seen it, when it's recognizes that I'm there or someone's there, and it just flies by, but to go from into that, yes, pretty mad.

I personally never get bored of or get used to the fact that I see or hear a blackbird.

I'm not trying to be the blackbird. I like to be able to conjure the blackbird in that sense. The blackbird is like the landlord of the Lord. Is the first one to clear the pile of damp leaves? To us, just looks like garden waste, to a blackbird, like a soap and market.

Under those soft decaying leaves, there's actually a lot going on. Worms and insects are moving about, most of it goes unnoticed, unless you're a hungry blackbird, and there's something simple we can do to help.

shade of a hedge, blackbirds prefer to flourish in the shadows, where they feel safe from

hawks and cats. But when the ground is frozen, blackbirds struggle to flourish for food, soaking dried mealworms in warm water, and leaving them on a little feeder or tray can be a lifeline in cold weather.

“I think it's a really unique way to get to know the space around you, basically, and maybe”

that's the same for you. There are so many places that for me. You've been sitting in your birding question since big garden bird watch, and Dr.

Myoror's Craig is here to help answer them.

This one says, "I've decided to start a lifeless year, is it better to travel to see redbirds or stay perp? I feel like I'm missing out by staying in my city park." Dr. Myoror's Craig is an onlythologist, environmentalist, and diversity activist. She started her blog, Bird Girl, when she was just 11, and by the age of 17, had already seen half the world's bird species, which makes the perfect person to help keep us informed throughout

this new season.

“I think somewhere in between is okay, you don't have to start traveling the world, but”

you can also lead your local city park. I think people would be surprised by how many birds

you can see in kind of a 10-mile radius of your house, and these days as well, you don't have

to be alone wolf as a bird watcher. I think one of the nicest things is there are loads of people out there doing the same stuff, so I think kind of looking at places near to home but maybe different habitats, like kind of wetlands and woodland and stuff. I want to show a white swing in it, in our garden in Sheffield. I want to show it again. Genuinely, that's one of my favorites. I've seen one this year. I've seen one in Paris, I've

seen one in Paris. Yeah, they're there, I guess I'm there. Have you not, they kind of just turn up in the UK sometimes? Yeah. Have you, what is it, finger to the pulse? You will eventually see one that they are very cool. Because I do think that's one of the funny things about birds watching as people are very into lists and listing and keeping track of what they've seen and it can be anything from like a local patch list to a year list to

“a, you know, well, lifeless. But I think most birds watch as a definitely keeping track.”

Yeah. Did you get like a lot of competition between them? It gets very competitive. Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about yeah. Not that I've seen, but it wasn't surprised me. But yeah, I think if people do just want to catch me, keep track of what they're seeing. There's also definitely the resources for that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Do a little bit of a list. So I get all the fintures, the gold finture course and the green

finture. Guy Garvey is the front man of Elbow. Close, rocks, seagulls. We get those ring net paris. And a BBC six music DJ. Colored Doves of wood pigeons. He's also a keen bird. I was in France of a new year in the Armoniat region, so quite south-eastily. Round here as well, I've seen a proliferation of wagtails. Pied wagtails in Armoniat, but back here, I've seen the other ones that is

the other called grey. There's grey wagtails. Yellow wagtails. Yeah. So I wouldn't know which was which, but I've seen ones that are both colours. We get Pied wagtails here now and again. Don't see many. I won't know how different you've been to Pied than the grey one, because I don't know if I've seen a grey one, but and yellow one is a quite interesting thing. I don't know if you have a mixer bit a melody from a bird's song for your music.

I mean undoubtedly, because I mean it all comes from somewhere. I can have written a lyric or a piece of music and years later I'll realize what I got it from. But it is. Weirdly, my brother, my brother's two years younger than me and he's got a really good melodic memory. I am for swell, but then one day he goes, "Yeah, what's this?" And he whistled this melody, which was like this. Right? And I went, he's not the black bird where we grew up. And

he went, "Yeah!" Like that, and I couldn't believe each, remember, but then he couldn't believe that I'd remembered it. It's just this one, black bird where we lived and it's not like we ever commented it on it. It was kids, but as soon as you did it, I knew exactly what it was. It was the Holly's black bird. So yeah, I've doubtless stole the melodies from birds, but I'm not conscious of it, but I bet I have. Yeah, black bird singing in there, there, there, no.

the one that's on black bird. I bet that's the most recognizable bird starting the world,

“on account of that song. Ah, I bet it's interesting. It will be well-known. Yeah, yeah.”

Well done, well done, Paul. Nice one, Paul. Nice one, Paul. Nice one, Paul. Imagine here, you imagine here, you know, you like it, like here. Since launching this podcast, I've realized that a far more of it's birding than you might think. The green one, the one that feeds on the worms in the garden, so they're very distinct where they are. They're wonderful. They go to the edges of the grass, don't they? The green woodpecker.

Including two women who spend years soundtracking the nation's mornings and our nights. I feed the birds and we have lots of blue tits and we're all kinds of tits and then a couple of

robins as well. I always feel like they chat to me, it's like conversation that you have with them.

They're now sharing their passion for gardening and wildlife on their own podcast, dig it. Zoey ball and you're widely. When did you both become interested in bird watching

“them now? Well, it's something that comes later in life, I think. You know, I, because when you're”

young, you're busy off, you know, living in a rock or roll lifestyle out and about a garden about being young and life could be quite fast. And there just comes a point in your life and a found it with so many friends that there's a point where you just need to slow down and stop and it's been so therapeutic to both Jo and I being out in nature and our gardens. And once you start taking an interest in the birds that are really coming to your garden or you're seeing in your

local park or about in the skies, once you start learning about them, they're just such incredible beautiful creatures. And we are so lucky to be surrounded by such an amazing collection of birds and it's so wonderful. And when you, you know, I mean, I don't particularly recognize bird song but I do love the chatter sometimes. What do you think? Well, is that making that chattery record? And you go outside and you're like, all right, okay, that's the gathering of the

tits or there's, you know, learning about the time of day that they come to feed and the little gangs that come to the bird feed are in stuff. I go on dog walks and I have those apps, the, the bird apps I think merlin is the one that I use and you just hear all this like, yeah, the noise of the bird song and you just go, you, I mean, it's magic to me that you can hold your phone up and it will tell you what is all around you and tell me about the, you know, the species and how common they are.

I think it's incredible. I tell you what, living in the city, I do miss, we used to have

tourney owls and I never said we were in the countryside around tourney owls and they would

“and that's what I learned about the Twitter and the two being a conversation between two different”

person. I'm like, this, you know, which is amazing and that I, I found out they were tourney owls by listening to it, we heard the young to make calling for the parents or obviously we're out hunting at night and we found that on an app. So it was like, they're tourney owls. I live there for years. Didn't see him at all. I was in the middle of Richmond and we heard, I was like, that's a tourney owl and we looked up in the middle of Richmond and there was this beautiful

tourney owl in the tree because it feels like such a treat sometimes when you see them, it's pretty special. It is especially exotic, isn't it, to see an owl and a barn owl in the day like, you know, sometimes I've often seen that but that's an incredible size as well.

We moved into a barn conversion so I always felt like we moved into a whole community that was

here already so the rucks of obviously lived here for hundreds and hundreds of years and we were just the latest inhabitants and we coexisted with them and then the longer you live here the more you realise the same birds return every single year at certain times so we've got a woodpecker that is in the back of the house and it comes and feeds and it's the, I don't know what it's called but it's the black one with white spots and the red head so that's in the back of the house

at the front there's the green one the one that it feeds on the worms in the garden so they're very distinct where they are. They're wonderful they go to the edges of the grass so yeah green woodpecker. We have these amazing herons that exist I don't know where the herons live in pairs particularly but we've got one heron who's there and winter after winter after winter and it's so majestic and it's so beautiful and flies across it's like a terradactal when it goes across the garden and all the

kids get really excited to see it and then recently another one came and I presume they were mating so I'm kind of I'd but you never see baby herons. No you don't do here I wonder if they're are they? I don't try and if the herons walk you know now you're a little like slumber and the legs growing very slowly but they're amazing birds and it's it's kind of just being aware of but we live in this house for all around us are these birds that live in they all live in their

certain areas and they do their certain thing and we all kind of coexist but it's this really life

school there was a big rock lots of trees in the rockery was right next to it's massive and one

“of you know somebody took me's chucky stones at this one it broke its arm and it took it back home”

and I had it for about four years and rock call it joe crawl even though it were a rock. They're very intelligent aren't they they're beautiful. Oh yeah and it used to follow me around everywhere you know I just sat and I'd say get up but trouble is about five o'clock in them on and for I went to you know school before school but it went it was going wow and I used to get up and get it getting a dog mate get off it's in a dog mate and it got up and I could go back

to bed for a bit and it was a fantastic animal. So we used to have a sea girl called Max who would come and visit and he would tap on the window for would eat to feed him and in my son would he would talk so he'd get the sea girl go back back and he'd say back up and those have this really

mad little conversation and they're quite amazing you know and I love that sound of the black birds.

I mean that sound is so it feels like such a British sort of sound doesn't it it's like so beautiful that the simplicity of birds on is such it's such oh it's so good for the soul and it's free bird song has some surprising benefits and for many of us it can be a real antidote to the stresses of work and modern life. As a doctor I'd bite with some passionate about the well being effects of nature why watching birds and being in nature

and listening to birds song is is really good for our health. Years and it's your doctor and president of the RSPB doctor Amir Khan to tell us more. The theory is shown and I love this theory. The theory is that when our ancestors were under gatherers and they were moving from area to area for food and water and all of that kind of stuff one of the things they would listen how for would be bird song because that would indicate there might be playful food like berries and

other fruit bear but also more bird song means less predators so it was considered a safe place to settle for a for a period of time and so that idea of safety and and comfort that we get from

“birds song may come from that but I think that's the really lovely thing.”

Yeah it's just isn't it and it's bird song sometimes it's more we all think that they're singing for us don't we but a lot of it's territorial isn't it? Yeah yeah it's lovely doesn't it but

often it's quite aggressive and I always think that it's like a cubab shop at two o'clock in

the morning in that every other bullies that I don't try to feed or fight. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but when you hear it in a different way it's actually you know in terms of listening to the birds song because I could hear it the back there and it's carving people they're all of that that noise is doing wonders for our our body you know it's reducing our stress hormone cortisol which is low on our blood pressure

and our heart rate it's increasing our dopamine and serotonin levels which makes us feel relaxed and calm and happy and birds song in particular because it's because it's calming and comforting but it's not repetitive it changes every so often what it does is change our brainwaves as well so we go from beta brainwaves which are kind of like anxiety inducing busy brainwaves at birds song changes our brainwaves to alpha brainwaves which are more calming and

“but they're in producing our rest kind of stay so I think it's amazing yeah what another yeah”

this is called blackbird by John Drinkwater he comes on chosen evenings my blackbird bountiful and sings over the garden of the town just at the hour the sun goes down his flight across the chimneys thick by some divine arithmetic comes to his costumerous stack

till these suburbs are like demicards where music has her solitude and while he mocks the winter's wrong raps on his pinnacle of song figured above our garden plots those are celestial chimneys pots sound good in your garden sure but listen to my orchestra city girl in nature is a London-based content creator and young change maker she's showing how nature and birding can start right where you are helping in a city communities connect with

the outdoors nature connection is really essential for everyone everyone should have that in their

toolbox of life and carry it through because nature's always holding us we should be more in

“tune with that I think we need each other in different ways and in fact we need nature more than”

nature needs us and I think that's also an interesting dynamic to to consider to how much more we actually need nature and the wildlife and everything in the natural world should be popping up throughout this season from her patching southeast London so we've moved a bit further into the park and I feel surrounded by birds because we're almost in the middle so it's kind of like an auditorium if it was like the birds are like coming from different trees that are on the edge

of the park I feel like all the birds are just talking to each other some are complaining some are

“happy I feel like when they sing it's like a quiet kind of thing going on that's what I hear”

when I hear the birds sing in and they could be singing about anything it might not be happiness it might be like like a bully would movie you know they might be sad and just coming together and singing you know sometimes the sun isn't shining and they're still singing so for me that is still a reminder that there's stuff happening out here and in the evenings it's also like it's time to rest it's time to slow down a bit it's kind of what I get from them but also

like a sign of appreciation for the day definitely is gratitude more than even in any time of the day

“I feel like that's one of the core reasons why they're singing it's gratitude that's why I say”

choir as well because I guess I come from a bit of a churchy background and when I think

sing it's always gratitude is a big part of it you know sing and praise and I kind of get that you know

all flotter by and dee lotter by and named I think look at the hand spiel kind of up 18 bluc spiel can't really make him help out and debyuk dee in my background I live in the connected to an old church which is really lucky because there's a huge amount of green space here we get a lot right now but actually come March the the great spotted with pecker comes and drums which is wonderful we have a pair of breeding sparrow

hawks in these trees here and I love watching the young fledged ones wheel and play about in the

back here it's really amazing loads of great hits and blue tits and wonderful black birds and

thrashes yeah usual London center but it is the woodpecker drumming that for me makes my heart sore it wakes me up early every start spring with a big smile so one who hasn't only listened to birds but learn to respond to them is forks ingering nature activist

can a country how can Britain that is that puts nature's one of the the highest most important

“things that we aspire to and birds such a you know big thing in this country yet we have this”

incredibly high you know European wide level of nature to patient our baseline of of wildness is so low what would a country look like where we had right to swim in our rivers all of our rivers we had respectful access to land so that people could follow their intuition their journeys their where wanderings their their practices into nature what would fold permission to appreciate an

a door look like we could actually find that we have an incredible shift in our mental health

in our physical health in our relationship to communities to my migrants to people who living in urban centers to all the issues and all the complexities of the things that people are scared of actually nature is this powerful bomb this south could solve so many problems and at the same time it's been part of solving so many of my problems and helped me you know heal and reconcile with the problems that I've you know endured and had in my life. He's also the founder of singing

with nightingales a work of immersive theatre staged by nature told by humans and outshone by a very special bird I've done what 12 years now it will be this year of living for two months and going every night almost five nights a week to hear and spend our night together sometimes with people sometimes on my own and I've developed an incredible and quite kind of odd relationship I don't think I could spend more time with another being over my child or lover

and that deep listening that's taught me a lot about what interspecies communion means and the bird doing amazing thing when they hear humans make music in close proximity they will improvise and collaborate with musicians so we hold these connects concerts 40 of them over April and May every night a different artists from extraordinary humans come and after dark week take an audience of our 40 people into their habitat we walked through the dark to find the birds

when I return back to the woods in spring the beginning of April when I hear the first sound of the nightingale every year it grows in its sense of a thrill but also that few that like

thank goodness they're back because we never know who will return who will make it and the numbers are

“dwindling but that sense of horror they have returned life is good the spring is coming you know”

that sense of like first quenching after the harshness length of winter for me one of the things that I love about being a folk singer and that connecting him with hundreds thousands of years of generations of people who've carried old tradition and go back into ancient times is that the folk songs that I've inherited from my song collecting times and my the gathering of music is that so much of that song speaks about the land and particularly about birds

and when one is singing or listening to folk music it's I realize that our ancestors sang these songs of one main morning and the nightingale sang so early in the spring that throughout the hardship of November December January very much well I haven't till much what they were doing was really invoking that quality of those happier months and in times of hardship you know when food was scarce and nutrients were impossible to find those songs were such nourishment of remembering

“what was to come in that's wheel of the year and so that's how I often get through these hard”

months is that I sing about the better times to come and the song of the nightingale in these old songs and the luck and the song thrush and all sorts of other birds are kept alive through these songs. As I walk through those valleys by the side of a grove it is there I did hear those charming

As those birds in the spring we'll be heading out for the night with somelly in the nightingales

“later in the spring right that's all for this episode if you've got a question for us”

I want to tell us what you've been spotting send us a message to the get birding instagram

at get birding pod. Thanks for coming along with us today and I'll see you in the fall night

“birdies. Get birding was produced by Hannah Walker Brown the executive producer is Jane Gerber”

this is a get birding production be sure to subscribe like comment and leave a review wherever you

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