The Sound of Belonging

Finding awe by listening

Red-breasted nuthatch. Pencils and acrylic ink on a plant print created with leaves from my neighborhood.

I started listening to the birds this spring thinking I knew my soundscape well. My goal was to make a list of birds to mark the difference before I planted California native plants in my front yard and after. Part of this is selfish because I want ALL THE BIRDS. Part of this is because I want to tell the story of how gardening with native plants makes a difference. I keep imagining cedar waxwings in the toyon I’m going to plant and hummingbirds in the sage. So, I’ve been listening for the baseline biodiversity in my illustrious yard of weeds.

In some ways, the soundscape of my yard is ingrained and soothing. I know the sound of the Santa Ana winds howling through the pine needles. I can pick out a Cooper’s hawk blocks away. I can ascertain the difference in a conversation amongst crows and between ravens. I’ve been known to jump up and follow the “killy killy” of a kestrel just to get a closer look. It turns out though, that I’ve never REALLY listened.  

For the last three weeks, the Aleppo pines have been making this noise like Beaker from The Muppets. Actually, it sounds like a bunch of Beakers (whatever species he is) having a convention. I had never noticed my pines meeping before and it was driving me crazy because I couldn’t find the source. I was imagining something like this:

Thank you Lauren Zurchin for making this for me on Midjourney!

Eventually, I stood beneath a pine with the sound ID running on the Merlin app and it told me it heard red-breasted nuthatches. The red dot next to the ID told me they weren’t supposed to be here and so, I had my doubts. (I have starlings, mockingbirds, and a 28-year-old African grey parrot that has traveled the country with me in our younger years. I’m pretty sure he pulls random bird species out of the archives just to mess with me. Incidental bird species are often suspect.)

Giving in to my doubt, and unable to see any nuthatches, I ran through the recordings of red-breasted nuthatches playing them out loud. I paused after a nuthatch recording from New York, thinking it just didn’t sound right. When suddenly, directly above me, I was being aggressively scolded in meeps.

I laughed. I still couldn’t see a nuthatch, but whatever it was, it wasn’t cool with New York nuthatches. I imagined a tiny, aggravated bird, spewing profanities at a Yankee that had the nerve to announce itself with an accent. And then, I thought about how amazing it was to be having an argument with my phone and a nuthatch.

I found them eventually. It took me a couple of days, a little bit of trespassing, and a few neighbors asking me what the hell I was looking up at with a camera. (But I also had a great chat about the nuthatches and the yellow-rumped warblers migrating through with a burly tattooed guy who spoke fondly of our lesser goldfinches.) I got a few blurry photos and confirmed that I do indeed have red-breasted nuthatches. They are shockingly tiny birds considering the way they can belt out a series of meeps, but they are also stunning.

I have probably always had nuthatches in October; I’ve just never really listened. I have chased birds my entire life. I’ve been here almost 20 years and I just never listened. They are early this year, hence the red dot on Merlin, but they are probably only new to me. I bet they know my yard well.

I bought some suet and put it out for them, hoping I might get a closer look. Also, because they are neighbors I have ignored. So, I did the next best thing to baking them a cake.

That’s the surprising thing to me about awe. These moments of awe remind you how small you are compared to the river of birds that flow above us and mark the season. It reminds you how small you are to think that this moment stands alone when you actually standing in the middle of a flow and ebb of seasons that have come long before and you hope will go on long after you. Awe makes you want to be a good neighbor. It makes you want to make the neighborhood better. It makes you wonder what you have missed by not listening.  

EXERCISE

Bird Song List

Spend 10 minutes listening to bird song and list the species you hear.

Find a comfortable spot and spend 10 minutes in your nature space just listening to bird song. Jot down the species that you hear. It helps to close your eyes and try to separate the songs. Early in the morning or at dusk is the best time to hear the most bird song, but any time you have available will work. If you are not a bird song aficionado, download the Merlin app from Cornell University. https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/download/ Be sure to download the bird packs for your region. Then, set the app on sound identification and let it run for ten minutes so you can see the list of birds it IDs. Even if you are a bird song pro, I highly recommend this app to discover species you might not even realize share space with you. Many of the warbler and sparrow species are difficult to spot and elusive, but you can hear them. I’ve been noting bird species on my street for almost 20 years and thought I knew everything but the incidentals. I was so wrong. I just keep discovering new birds like the red-breasted nuthatches.

There will always be things we must experience with our own senses and discover through our own research no matter how good technology gets. All the same, Merlin is a wonderful tool to jumpstart the discovery that the world above our heads is absolutely teeming with life.

What is on your list? That is the unique soundscape of your nature space.