When looking for a poem that would fit with today’s bird images, I came across, just like earlier this week, yet another accomplished Australian poet I had never heard of. The poem is not exactly matching my goal which was to describe birds hanging out on infrastructure rather than trees. But it alludes to the fact that we take some things as common, if not vulgar, and delight in the unfamiliar, when “the truth is that nothing with you is common at all.”

That resonates deeply with my own approach to birds; the passion is not all about imagery of freedom or escape in flight, but also about their tenacity and ability to adapt to and thrive in altered environments. The more common birds excel at this, masters of survival in a world of stone and steel.

Not a Common Urban Bird

by Geoffrey Dutton  (1922 – 1998)

Birds do adapt, most cleverly so, but they might need a helping hand when living in noisy traffic – song birds change their tunes so that they can be heard over the din, but that means the tune loses attractiveness to potential mates….

What about music? Funny you ask. Recent experiments have cleverly exposed common urban birds to music and tried to figure out their preferences. Musical taste seems to vary, with Metallica’s heavy metal attracting more finches than sparrows. However, Debussy ruled, with more birds coming to the feeders set up with Pandorabird than when it played than when it when it was silent. Debussy it shall be! The Preludes, to make my Wednesday morning. Hopefully your’s as well.