Sound thinking

We've (ok, I've) still not fitted a cat flap for Cookie and Mocha, as they seem quite content with their personalised aperture opening service. As a system, it does have the advantage of taking into account which direction the weather is galloping in from, thereby giving a much pleasanter feline experience via whichever door or window opens onto the leeside of the house.

In turn, we have become used to checking said aperture for an irate bundle of fur, silently miaow-ing at the double glazing. "Irate" because we're never, ever quick enough to respond, and "silently" because of the sound insulating properties of modern doors and windows.

All these decades later, I still find the silence of double glazing a little off-putting, having grown up in a house which had such thin panes of single glazing and so many draughts that it often felt like there weren't any windows. However, my ears were certainly attuned to any and every bird sound outside, whether it was territorial song, a contact call, a repetitive warning or a full-blown alarm call. And that could've simply have been a single male Blackbird in any given minute of its neurotic existence. 

I do worry about the disconnection that we have created in our lives by being so well-insulated and energy efficient, which has added another layer of illusion that we are separate from Nature. It must be more difficult these days for anyone to learn the identity of birds from their calls, a skill which is such a boon to wildlife watching. Even in my more hopeful moments, I am pretty sure that all those folk walking or running outdoors, yet wearing earphones or buds, are probably not listening to "Bird Sounds of the Western Palearctic" to brush up on their avian ID. It is concerning to think that listening to birdsong, one of the most obvious ways to engage with Nature, is becoming further and further removed from human experience. Each podcast or music stream is another incremental deafening of the wild spirit. 

Following the Autumn passage of birds heading south to warmer climes, things have calmed down in our garden. I am usually awakened early doors by several Blackbirds alarming, which only ever reaches fever pitch if the predator is a Sparrowhawk rather than one of the neighbour's cats. Then there's a period of comings and goings from the squabbling Starlings and the coo-ing Collared Doves, with a few House Sparrow chirrups thrown in for good measure. By the time I'm sufficiently conscious to think about getting up, the local Rooks and Jackdaws have arrived mob-handed, with their wide-ranging corvid conversations. If it happens to be sunny, a Dunnock might give a burst of song, but no-one else seems too keen on putting in that kind of effort just yet.

Ah, one of our neighbours has just thrown out some food scraps for the birds, so it feels as though every gull in Stromness has now descended upon the immediate area. I'd best away and let in our cats, who are quite convinced that the gulls are coming for them. I'm fairly certain that the pterodactyl calls on the BBC's 'Walking with Dinosaurs' didn't sound anything like a flock of Herring Gulls, but Cookie and Mocha are not taking any chances.