Sounds
Songbirds /
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Articles on songbirds (not in any particular order - most recently discovered first)
Pesticides disrupt songbird migration - Wildlife Preservation Canada (2017)
”A team of Canadian scientists have linked harmful insecticides with migratory impairment in the white-crowned sparrow.”
Why you can thank geology for your morning songbird chorus - Dr Hanneke Meijer, The Guardian (2016)
“Today, songbirds are the most successful group of birds on the planet. With more than 5000 species worldwide, they form half of the world’s known bird species, and have colonised almost all corners of the world (with the exception of Antarctica).”
Borne on the Wing: Avian Influenza Risk in U.S. Wild Songbirds Mapped - Phys.org (2010)
“Scientists have discovered that 22 species of passerines--songbirds and perching birds--in the contiguous U.S. are carriers of low-pathogenicity avian influenza.”
Quarantine Birdsong Recordings /
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During lockdown, every day at around the same time, Tsering walked her dog to the same nearby patch of grass in an otherwise closed park. During these walks, she made recordings of the birds in the park (and other ambient sounds her phone picked up) for approximately 40 seconds and sent them to Alfred - sometimes with a photograph to capture something about that minor outing. While the park was closed to people, it was abundant with birds and they were louder than ever. These recordings and photos were taken between March 29th and June 19th 2020, while Barcelona is still in lockdown.
Recordings start with the most recent first, scroll to the bottom to start at the beginning with very first recording.
Between June 11th to June 27th, Tsering’s recordings were more sporadic. Some semblance of normality was returning to life and she wasn’t always able to go to the same patch of grass at around about the same time, sometimes she didn’t get to walk the dog at all.
The last recordings will be uploaded soon.
Quarantine Birdsong Recordings Day 52, no bird recording
It was my birthday, I had a drink on my terrace with with a friend in real life and a few others on video chat. I didn’t leave the flat, my kids walked the dog. No bird recording today.
Quarantine Birdsong Recordings Day 38, no recording.
We are now allowed out to exercise - once a day for an hour, no further than a 1 kilometre radius. I am coinciding walking my kids with walking my dog. Today I forgot my phone, which meant I couldn’t record the birds.
However, after the walk a bird came to visit us! It flew into the flat! Thankfully it didn’t get trapped and quickly flew out again. I just managed to snap this blurry photo before it did.
I started doing these recordings because I needed something to focus on, something to do when I was going for a walk. I had noticed how loud the birds had become when I was walking my dog and Alfred and I had been talking about birds again, it seemed like both the ideal distraction and an interesting addition to the project.
Every day I walk my dog and at first I enjoyed being outside but in the second week of lockdown I started to find it difficult and troubling to be outside. During this time I would see a lot of ambulances and a lot of police. My walk takes me past the local medical centre, it’s hard to enjoy being outside when it is so confronting and dystopian.