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nhmagazine.com | August 2021
A robin’s song is a bit like a cantor’s prayer, sung solemnly but brimming with joy. I know this because of an app on my phone that has finally allowed me to figure out what some of that summer bird chatter is about.
T
Some say that flowers have their own lanhe birds have been so vocal this guage, though hopefully nothing as rude as summer, filling their treetop world the cry of my mysterious “Weirdo” bird. with entangled strands of songs and The romantics of the Victorian era concalls, that I began to think I must be missing something on my dog walks. What ARE sidered flower blossoms, with their seasonal they talking about? And just WHO are they? explosions of color and intricate shape and What finally compelled me to seek out smell, to be Mother Nature’s way of expressthe app was an “insult” I’d hear every day ing emotions. Viewed like that, walking while working in my garden — a shrill flute- down a dirt road can seem a bit like having voice declaring at top volume: “There he is, a conversation with the very life force of a there he is ... the Weirdo, Weirdo, Weirdo!” place. Perhaps we should pay more attention That’s my best attempt at converting the and try to also listen with our eyes — or insistent birdsong to English. Birders often maybe even with our spleens (or hearts). use the “lyric” of a birdsong (like the barred This issue features a number of people who owl’s cry of “Who cooks for you?”) to assist have learned to “listen” with more than just in identifying species, so I wasn’t really their ears. Most notably, one of my literary taking it personally. I was just curious — and heroes, Hancock’s Howard Mansfield, has picturing something large and intimidating, offered us the first chapter of his new book though birds are not so easily typecast and (due out in October) to excerpt for this issue. that booming “weirdo alert” could actually Mansfield’s head seems to contains an app come from a tiny feathered throat. like the one I use to identify birdsong, but While the app has identified lots of other his algorithm is set on detecting something birds out there, I’m still searching for the avi- more subtle. Mansfield assimilates the an Don Rickles, keeping my iPhone nearby ambient world of towns and people and work as I rake and weed. (If all else fails, I’ll walk and play, and detects the deeper notes that over to the Audubon Center on Silk Farm guide him to stories. He follows the invisible Road and ask some experts. Or if you have connective tissues of communities and finds any ideas about the culprit, pass them along.) links to a past that never really went away. The omnipresence of birdsong I hear in He translates messages that our world is apthe backyards and neighborhoods of Conparently always chirping to anyone who cares cord, where I live, may just be my projection to stop and pay attention. I’ve learned that of the solemn joy that comes from freely Mansfield’s words tend to impart a touch of (and masklessly) moving about in the world his ability to the reader, so don’t be surprised for the first time in what seems like forever. if, once you discover him, you start to pick Still, I suspect that the suppressed activity of up on those deeper notes all around you. the human population of New Hampshire Perhaps these notes are what enable everyhas been like a long holiday for the birds. one — from TV stars (like Charlie Moore, page The seesaw of nature works like that. I viv- 40) to medical professionals (like our Top Denidly recall the lushness of the roadsides and tists, page 60) — to delight, sustain, inspire and gulleys when our long spring drought was even heal us. So, keep your spleens open, fellow finally moistened by a couple of weeks of rain Weirdos. You might learn something. in early July. Even the weeds and invasives looked like complementary plantings by some master gardner.
photo by bruce richards
Hearing Voices
