Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Looks with a voice to match? A rare find
IT is the magic combination sought after by agents, directors and producers the world over: stunning looks and a wonderful singing voice to match.
Few claim to have both attributes, which makes them such a special find. And just as that winning formula is a rarity in the entertainment industry, so it is with our birds.
Listening to some of the avian singers in my garden this week dusting off their best ditties ahead of spring, it struck me how drab in appearance our best vocalists can be, and equally how our most attractive species are often fairly monotone.
In today’s Western Daily Press I give a rundown of my top ten favourite songbirds. While they would all breeze through the knock-out rounds of a feathery version of X Factor based on vocal performance, the judges might be asking whether they couldn’t up their game in the fashion stakes. Only a couple in my list sport eye-catching plumage.
Our best-known singing virtuoso, the nightingale, which has inspired poets and musicians down the centuries with its complex songs, is a little brown bird that skulks around in dense cover. The skylark is uplifting in song – only anything but when it comes to appearance, being a mottled brown. Likewise the melodious song thrush opts for an understated outfit, while the curlew, with its haunting, bubbling trill, is much the same colour as the mudflats it paces across in search of lugworms. Our fine-sounding warblers are also a fairly nondescript bunch.
It seems that if you sound great there is no need to show off to potential mates with your looks as well.
And vice-versa. The great tit is a dapper little bird, with its yellow breast and well defined head markings. It wouldn’t appear out of place perched on a branch in the tropics. Yet its song is a repetitive see-sawing. The spectacular looking kingfisher has a shrill call and the bullfinch, one of our finest looking garden birds with its red front, gives a soft peep at best (though is capable of much more, as they could apparently be trained as cage birds to whistle tunes). As for the stunning jay, it simply utters a harsh ear-splitting screech.
So are there any species that tick both boxes?
Arguably the goldfinch comes close, being lovely looking and having a pleasant tinkling and twittering song – though it is hardly a master vocalist you would pay money to see in concert.
For my money the best contender would be the golden oriole, a yellow bird with a flute-like song. Sadly it no longer breeds in this country so you’ll have to travel to Europe to hear and see one. Worth risking lockdown quarantine for? Let me know when you get back...
A finch of scruffy and scrubby habitats, the linnet was once kept as a cage bird on account of its warbling song and pretty looks. The wheezing, twanging tangle of notes has something wild and free about it. It is not an easy song to identify, but the pleasant twittering helps draw attention to chatty flocks of these attractive finches – the males sporting cinnamon backs and pink chests. They tend to be wary and a close-up view is something to savour.
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