Standing outside yesterday evening in Detroit, I was on the phone with my mom and she asked me, ‘are those birds??’ I realized it must have been loud enough through the phone that in NYC it would sound like a full bird sanctuary or circus. Surrounded by trees and brush, and unable to see them anywhere, I was nestled in this safe cocoon of sound, of the early night calls of our feathered neighbors.
After I hung up the phone I stood there for a long while, taking it in and listening to all the different voices. I opened the trusty Merlin Bird ID app and recorded their calls. American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Chimney Swift. I love using the app, seeing the soft charcoal lines of their voices, watching their pictures light up when it’s their turn to speak. It always feels somehow like having a conversation with them.
This morning as I write this, I hear different birds outside my window, with different voices and calls from last night’s friends. They are different from the bird calls I heard in Michigan when I was little too. I’m always transported directly back to childhood when I hear a Mourning Dove call. It’s both sweetly comforting and also sad like a pang to the heart, almost too much to bare.
Along with the sound of the Mourning Dove, the bird that reminds me most of childhood is probably the Seagull. While not necessarily a backyard bird, seagulls in lakeside Michigan were always a frequent friend to see. The memories I have attached with seagulls are so precious to me like sacred treasures, almost too much to think about, and so amazed to have them as well.
Are there birds that remind you of childhood or precious memories? Is it seeing the bird, hearing their calls and songs, or both? Please share your memories and thoughts of birds and their voices.
I hope you’re having a great weekend. Please share any thoughts about birds, and I’ll see you in the Chat to share your photos if you have any. Happy Saturday, everyone.
Such a wonderful post! Suddenly I’m daydreaming about my childhood. Sparrows always remind me about the summer vacations in my grandmother’s home in a small village in the countryside. Early in the morning and by sunset, flocks of sparrows gathered in the rooftops of the little houses in town. Swallows remind me the beginning of spring and the end of summer (and the beginning of school when I was a child). I was afraid of seagulls. For a child, they’re very big birds! I remember the adults saying seagulls ashore, storm at sea. And I remember in the winter watching flocks of goldfinches. They’re so colorful!
Having moved to Virginia from Colorado after 20 years in the Rockies I've been greeted by so many of the birds that I knew as a child growing up in the east. Cardinals in particular and also the wonderful Mourning Dove and Mockingbird. Songbirds were rare in the part of Colorado where I lived so it's been a welcome cacophony.