I am besotted, yes, besotted with a recently released music album, Simmerdim – Curlew sounds. Simmerdim is the name for the twilight of endless summer evenings in the Shetlands – and (Eurasian) curlews are wading birds that live and shout their plaintive, distinctive cries in those regions, a species at the brink of extinction.
Photograph from RPBS
Why am I so enchanted? Let me count the ways.
For one, it is the strangest mix of music and bird sounds, a compilation of various international artists linked to diverse musical styles. I knew of none of them other than David Rothenberg whose experimental jazz is on my regular listening list. All the others are traditional folk musicians (who I usually never listen to), Indian tabla, electronic music or styles I can’t define. In other words, the music stretches my brain.
More importantly, it stretches my heart. The music is joyful, funny, sweet at times, funky at others, and tells stories. And, of course, there is an entire separate CD of multiple recordings of curlew sounds in locations across Great Britain, including Orkney as well as five locations where the RSPB is prioritizing work to save breeding pairs – Geltsdale and Hadrian’s Wall in England, Conwy Valley in Wales, Insh Marshes in Scotland and Loch Erne Lowlands and Antrim Plateau, both in Northern Ireland.
Most importantly, the entire effort of putting this album together was in pursuit of helping a bird species close to the brink of extinction, the Eurasian Curlew. Of the eight known species of curlews, two are presumed extinct already, and of the remaining six, three – the Eurasian, the Bristle-thighed and the Far Eastern – are at risk of extinction. All the proceeds from the album (you can buy it anywhere if you don’t want to listen to it for free on Spotify or YouTube, for $13 or so) go to the preservation efforts of the Royal Protection Society of Birds. There are people actively engaged in doing something about environmental threats, and not just waving their hands in the air…
I have seen curlews a few times in my life, in Scotland, in Virginia, and at the Malheur preserve in Eastern Oregon. Never once photographed, though. Most distinct about them is their long, curved beak (15 cm!) – it gives the genus its name, Numenius, “of the new moon,” alluding to the crescent shape. They also have a neat trick for their eggs – they are pointy, and arranged in the ground nests like a 4 leaf clover, point inwards, round side outwards, allowing for thighs fitting, so the mother bird can cover them all when she sits on them.
Photo source here
They have made appearances in literature and poetry, addressed by writers like W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas and Ted Hughes (details here.) Their distinct calls gave the curlew its common names in most languages (Ref.): Dutch wulp, Italian chiurlo, French courlis, and so on to the English curlew, which is reflected in a number of its dialectal folknames too: cawdy mawdy, courlie, whaup, wailer, whistler, whitterick. Leave it to us Germans to name it according to location instead: Brachvogel – literally translated as bird of the wastelands….
One song on the album introduced me to a myth, perhaps not written by someone famous, but preserved in folklore across the British Isles.
Thoughts around that myth are the ultimate reason why I got so sucked into this music, I believe. Here is the story: An abbot named St. Beuno helped establish Christianity across Wales in the 7th century. (He also replaced severed heads, but that’s a story for another day.) According to legend he was sailing off the coast of Wales and dropped his prayer book, with all of his annotations and thoughts connecting him to what he valued most, into the water. A curlew flew up, dove after the book and rescued it, bringing it safely to shore to dry out.
The Saint was so grateful that he blessed the curlew and said they should always be protected – going against the tide of popular belief that declared the curlew as a harbinger of doom. Their night cries were thought to portend bad luck, death, and in one instance, connection to the end of the world. Legend had it that if you see 6 curlews fly together and a seventh finally joined them, the world is done. These myths of the seven whistlers, by the way, lasted well into the 19th century, with lurid details varying by county, some including the assumptions that these birds harbored the souls of wandering Jews….
So this “malevolent” avian is doing a good deed, after all, and is recognized by the local bigwig, the Bishop, the Saint. Doom and dread, goodness and healing all wrapped in one. What does that imply? For me, in this moment where dread rules (see diagram on the right,) considering the direction this world in general and this country in particular is moving, it reminds me to recognize the other, more positive possibilities as well. It’s not about saving the world, or saving a bird, or by mysterious coincidence saving a Christian prayer book or equivalent religious paraphernalia – the legend is just a powerful reminder that there are options to revise one’s thinking, or refocus on aspects that are currently out of focus. Choose your perspective. Only way not to loose it, if you ask me.
Here is the song BEUNO’S BLESSING.
And here is another one that gave the album the title.
Only one song from the album here. YouTube then turns to other music.gain, if you visit band camp or spotify the whole compilation is available.
Photographs today are from last week, meadows in the wetlands near the river, probably as close to British spring bloom as it gets.
