The Sounds of Summer

Songbirds! Blackbirds, in particular, lured to the neighbourhood by the prospect of ripening fruit.  Somehow birdsong in summer is another memory trigger that takes me back to my childhood garden in Hanwell, West London. Listening to birdsong, I am convinced that there is a consciousness at work,

Birds might be birds, but larks or blackbirds, with their multiplicity of notes, their long calls, conveying complex messaging, represent a higher level of consciousness than, say, the pheasant, which communicates little else than alarm calls or mating calls with its trumpeting sounds.

Can I conclude that pheasants are quite dim? Well yes, but then corvids (crows, ravens, rooks), their intelligence proven to be the highest in the avian world, are not noted for song, only for a rough cawing sound. And the wood-pigeon's coo takes me back to youthful days in our back garden in Cleveland Road - a summer sound, but not an infinitely varied one.

Am I making species-ist value judgments as to the relative mental powers of birds? As I walk though my działka, I hear the songbirds passing comment on the day; engaging in complex dialogues, perhaps telling other birds of their species how they feel. But is this the pathetic fallacy? Also known as Morgan's canon, this is the idea that we humans tend to attribute human attributes and feelings to non-human beings, from birds to flowers to clouds - and that this idea is wrong. 

I think the pendulum is swinging back to pre-Newtonian times - animals can also be sentient, and can express profound feelings between one another - at least that is my intuition that comes from listening closely to birdsong.

Quantum computing, able to efficiently crack complex problems that would take today's computers ages, coupled to AI, might be able to decode birdsong into human language, through pattern identification. I believe than in 20 to 30 years, science might well have cracked the deepest of meaning in birdsong, and that we will be able to fully decipher complex messages in their calls.

Insects! It's warmer outside (24.3C) than indoors (23.0C), so the front door and kitchen door are both open, as are the downstairs windows. This allows various insects in, together with their buzzing. Houseflies and fruit flies (in limited numbers) I can cope with - komary (Culex pipiens - mosquitos? midges? gnats?) I swat without mercy. The buzzing of the housefly is another quintessential sound of summer. And so the first buzzing prompts me to listen, as I always do at the start of summer, to Pink Floyd's Grantchester Meadows; the sound effects of waterfowl taking off (in stereo) and the fly-swatting bit at the end fit in nicely.

 

Cannon! Pneumatic, rather than live-fire - several large strawberry growers deploy these bird-scarers at this time of year, with fields full of luscious red berries, visible to passing birds from afar, courtesy of Mr Darwin's evolution. The redder the fruit, the easier it is for birds to spot and peck and excrete seeds in new locations. The bird-scaring cannon, however, does its bit - from my observations, the time between shots is random; walking past the field, the dull crump sounds like an small artillery piece going off - which leads me to think about Rupert Sheldrake's notion of morphic resonance - or maybe just epigenetic inheritance - a sudden blast is associated with human violence even to birds that have never experienced shotguns themselves.

Mowers! The sound of fossil-fuel-powered mowers slicing blades of grass to with an inch of the ground annoys me. Lawns need to be let go, turned into meadows full of wildflowers, attracting butterflies and bees. The incessant racket that mowers make while slaughtering plant life is the worst sound of summer for me. 

Jets! At least the planes are no longer a bother as they used to be on summer's nights in Jeziorki. With planes taking off to the south on hot nights, opening windows means putting up with jet engines on full throttle. Not so bad when landing, but that necessitates a wind from the north or west. But from Jakubowizna, the airport is much further away, planes are much higher by then, and most would have veered off from a due-south course anyway.

This time last year:
My działka - powered by the sun

This time three years ago:
Poland's town/country divide explored

This time seven years ago:

A long walk to Czachówek

This time nine years ago:
Half a mile under central Warsaw, on foot

This time ten years ago:
Dzienniki Kołymskie reviewed

This time 11 years ago
Russia-Poland in Warsaw: the worst day of Euro 2012

This time 13 years ago:
Thirty-one and sixty-three - a short story

This time 14 years ago:
Warsaw rail circumnavigation

This time 15 years ago:
Classic Polish vehicles

This time 16 years ago:
South Warsaw sunsets