For me a true harbinger of spring is being woken up by birds in the morning, and while a disturbed night’s sleep is not good for your health, there is robust evidence that birdsong has a positive impact on our health. Cat has already explored the health benefits of music in her blog, but a further interesting question is where human music came from? Not many mammals sing, but almost all birds sing – did humans develop music from listening to birds? 

For many years I’ve been trying to move beyond ‘birdsong’ to being able to differentiate birds by their song, at least just a little anyhow. Getting started is really difficult, books are of little help, apparently there are over 12 species that go ‘Pee-oo’, though I’ve only heard the ones that go ‘Tweeu, tweety tweety etc’.  

I first made some progress with Simon Barnes’ entertaining book ‘Birdwatching with your eyes closed’. Starting in your first spring, you can quickly start to identify the local great tits and chaffinches getting excited about the change in the weather.  We all know the cuckcoo but the chiffchaff’s name is also a pretty good giveaway of its mating call.  These latter two are migrants, and once you’ve started to listen to them you might find more questions popping into your head like, where on earth have they travelled from, how long did it take them, and rather sadly how did they manage to get past Malta?

Smartphones and apps have also made this a lot easier. The Merlin app by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology does an extremely good job of identifying birdsong, and suddenly the difference between a blackbird, blackcap, song thrush and a skylark begins to seem obvious, or obvious-ish anyhow. And now occasionally I’ll find myself standing in the wood trying to pick out the different instruments playing in the orchestra.  

But whether you actually learn to identify the birds really doesnt matter, I found that just trying has made me appreciate my walks and nature more, and encourages my mind to trace the amazing journeys that many of these birds are making. Equally these moments where we stop and truly listen, putting all our focus on one sense, are becoming increasingly rare, but doing it for even just a few minutes will improve your concentration, reduce stress and improve your mood.