A lone male sparrow, perched on a television cable that runs past my window, calls every morning. He is raising a family in a ceiling nook of a store room on the opposite terrace. He’s a neighbor I have been oblivious to; but now, I don’t miss a single call. My ears pick up the faintest chweep against the drone of urban clatter, and I smile, knowing, it’s him. His voice brings solace and comfort.
I am not the only one warming up to feathered neighbours under lockdown. World over, people have begun to notice and listen to birds from their windows. In Mumbai, the metallic single-note call of the coppersmith barbet, and the melodious crescendo of Asian koel males, both faded mnemonics of our idyllic childhoods, are being given an earful, with renewed wonder.
Feathered, flapping forms, articulating in cheeps, chirps and fluty tunes, speak to us, and move us, deeply. Picking up those voices may be part of our evolutionary history. “Why would it have any benefit to our ancestors to be able to hear faint birdsong? Why would our ears possibly have evolved so that we could walk in the direction of faint birdsong?” asks acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, before answering the question in his hushed, reassuring voice. “We come from a nomadic ancestry, and if we hear birdsong then we’re also listening to an area which has food, water and an extended favorable season long enough to raise the young off the nest. Bird song is the number one indicator of habitats prosperous for humans.”
A study about the mental health benefits of living with nature, particularly for urbanites, published in the Oxford journal BioScience, has demonstrated that afternoon bird abundances are positively associated with a lower prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress. The study is just one among many, exploring the connection between aspects of mental health and birdsong, which have come up with results indicating a positive relationship between the two.
Birdsong has always been a part of our lives: nourishing our souls, entertaining our hearts, telling us about the seasons, and inspiring timeless music and poetry. At the onset of the Indian monsoon, the hawk cuckoo male fills the air, repeating his loud, three-note call, till it reaches a crescendo. While British naturalists unflatteringly interpreted its call as ‘brain fever’, in rural Maharashtra, it has been interpreted as perte vha, which means ‘start sowing’ in Marathi. The bird, referred as Papeeha in Hindi (the name echoing another native interpretation of the bird’s call), finds mention in many compositions of Hindustani classical music, as well as film songs.
Our senses are attuned to, and our cultures embedded in, the diversity of animal sounds that float through our landscapes. Depriving ourselves of those voices, and living in the air-conditioned bubbles of our apartments, offices and Ubers, we would damn ourselves to a life of estrangement. Commenting on the lives we live now, participating and interacting almost exclusively with other humans and human-made technologies, the ecologist and philosopher David Abram says, “It is a precarious situation, given our age-old reciprocity with the many-voiced landscape. We still need that which is other than ourselves and our own creations…we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human.”
The antidote to this estrangement is reconciliation and reciprocity. The pandemic is an alarm call for our kind to stop plundering ecosystems on land and in sea, and reconcile our relationship with the living Earth. Spending some time observing birds and other life forms that visit our window and city gardens can be the beginning of the process of reconciliation. Butterflies can be wooed to our windows by growing larval host plants of the species found in our cities and towns. (I have observed and photographed the life cycle of innumerable Red Pierrot butterflies on my windowsill.) Common birds, like sparrows, are happy to occupy nest boxes, and start families, if the nest box is safe from predators.
I have not been able to put up a nest box, but a male sparrow (I would like to believe he is my friend from the opposite terrace) has been visiting my Kalanchoe plant, which is the larval host of the Red Pierrot butterfly. Thankfully, he is not interested in the caterpillars feeding inside the leaves (Red Pierrot caterpillars are leaf borers), but the coir rope which holds the Kalanchoe stems in place during heavy rains. He plucks strands of coir from the rope, possibly to pad up his nest. He makes the most of just a few strands of coir, and gifts me the joyous moment of reciprocity that I had been yearning for.
The sound of sparrows, or any bird one has grown up hearing, can help one transcend anxious thoughts about past and future, and enter a moment of pure presence. The voice of birds can tell our subconscious, in poet Ted Hughes’ words, “the globe’s still working.” We just need to give ear; the therapy is free, and so is the music.
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About the Author: Rizwan Mithawala is a Conservation Writer with the Wildlife Conservation Trust and a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Writers.
Disclaimer: The author is associated with Wildlife Conservation Trust. The views and opinions expressed in the article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Wildlife Conservation Trust.
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