The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Birds on song for joy of it
Yesterday was the spring or vernal equinox – officially the first day of the astronomical spring – meaning longer days and shorter nights. Unless you happen to conduct your life by the meteorological spring.
The natural rotation of the earth round the sun forms the basis for the astronomical calendar, and the seasons are defined by the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox and the summer and winter solstices.
Meteorological spring is based on the Gregorian calendar which was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
It is defined by the months of March, April and May and the succeeding seasons follow in similar three month periods – altogether a simpler and more consistent system, and meaning it’s already been spring for almost three weeks.
The astronomical season is less straightforward as it depends on the date of the spring equinox, which means the date comes later and can vary slightly from year to year. The astronomical spring will then last until the summer solstice, which this year lands on Sunday June 21.
Every four years the whole system is thrown into a right tirravee by the inclusion of an extra day each Leap Year.
It’s all just a celestial nightmare and I can only hope readers are impressed by the clarity of my explanation.
Singer, not the song
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song” is attributed to Maya Angelou, writer and leading American Civil Rights activist whose autobiography is called “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”.
I am greeted in the mornings when I take Inka out with the full-throated song of song thrushes which have obviously survived the winter well.
They are easily identified from their cousins, mistle thrushes and blackbirds, by the repetition twice, sometimes three times of each phrase of their song cycle.
So how do you explain Maya Angelou’s quote? Accepted wisdom is that birds sing to identify and defend territory, and warn off rivals. This is particularly important during the mating and breeding season which is about to start.
But there are other times in the year when it’s hard not to believe that they sing from the sheer joy of being alive – because they have a song.
Familiarity breeds content
I enjoy going to new places and seeing new sights, but I’m a bit of a home bird.
Having grown up in Montrose and never left my own familiar corner of the north-east, I count us lucky to have so many wonderful views on our doorstep.
Stracathro Brae, which overlooks the hospital, isn’t big but it’s got big views. What a choice for the traveller with time to stop and look – up the broad, fertile valley of Strathmore towards Stonehaven, and down the strath towards Perth.
I stopped on the brow of the hill because the view was just magic. There was a familiarity about it that added to my pleasure. Ahead of me the bellmouth of Glenesk, and the Hill of Wirren the highest point between
“Accepted wisdom is that birds sing to identify and defend territory, and warn off rivals
Glenesk and Glen Lethnot.
There are tremendous vistas up and down the strath, and the midmorning sun, still high in the east, threw the foothills of the Braes of Angus into high focus.
The hymnist was maybe overpessimistic when he wrote – every prospect pleases and only man is vile.
Better perhaps to remember the opening lines of the poem, Leisure, by William Henry Davies, the tramps’ poet – What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stop and stare ....
The words bring to mind the thought that too often we think we are too busy to pay attention to the countryside.
I heard a comment that some people get stressed when they run out of pavement, so they won’t so much as venture into the country. What a waste.
Nature’s blessings are our blessings – and they are free.
Swanning about
My picture, taken at the wee loch at the foot of Glenesk, shows a mute swan with four whooper swans which are winter visitors from Iceland or Russia. I’ve not seen whooper swans so far inland but their black-tipped, long yellow bills and loud trumpeting calls when they saw me clearly identified them.
The mute swan became quite aggressive, hackling his neck feathers and swimming towards Inka on the bank with loud hissing and angry grunts.
I spoke to Norman Atkinson, who formed the Angus Swan Study Group in 1980, about the rustycoloured feathers on its head.
It was blindingly obvious once he told me. Swans are bottom feeders and up-end to reach down with their long necks to feed on the water weeds and plants that form their diet. This one had been feeding in contaminated or mucky water.
And you’ll have noticed the two pairs of tufted ducks in the background. None came to the lochan when I started walking round that way a dozen years ago.
Now there are nearly as many as the resident pack of mallard.