Garden birding
Have you ever wondered what birds are thinking as they go about their business in your garden? Do pigeons ponder and doves deliberate? Clare asks…
What do garden birds really think when they go about their business?
I’ve always been an emotional little being, and that’s probably one of the reasons I find such comfort being in nature. Observing wildlife is a meditation for me and I feel the nuances in the environment, deeply. Sometimes, it can be overwhelming. I ask questions that can never be answered – “does the Blackbird get lonely when his song goes unanswered?”, I wonder, and “does the Blue Tit worry about her young once they’ve flown the nest?” If I was a bird, I’d worry about this and much more. We can observe a lot when we sit quietly in the garden or look out of the window, but in terms of knowing exactly what is going on inside the minds of the birds we see, we can’t be sure.
When you start to explore whether birds have feelings and emotions, you’ll find, as I did, that there’s not really a clear answer. In fact, it brings up more questions than it answers. Some cultures walk much more in step with the natural world. Their lives are so much more entwined with the animals they live among, since they depend on each other in ways that we don’t have to.
In New Delhi, there are several bird hospitals run by followers of Jainism – a religion that believes animals and humans both have souls that are of equal value.
These hospitals are full of the birds you and I see (and overlook) every day, such as pigeons and crows. Some have broken wings, some have been attacked by cats, but all are treated with love and compassion. And you don’t have to be religious or even spiritual to see the beauty in this.
Is it proof that birds have feelings? No – but it’s proof that many of us would like to believe they do. Corvids, we know, have the capacity for play and anyone who has been killing time at 5.15pm on Youtube may have seen
videos of snowboarding crows (if you haven’t, I’m giving you permission to search it, even if your boss is looking over your shoulder). You can’t argue that this is not pure, unadulterated fun! What’s the point of it? Living for the moment, that’s what. You should try it sometime. And it seems that crows can express gratitude, perhaps even show affection. In 2015, the BBC reported that a young girl in Seattle was given gifts by the crows she fed every day, including buttons, pieces of a glass and even a bit of Lego.
These little tokens were kept in a box and treasured, hidden away from the sticky fingers of her little brother. The crows in your garden might not bring you chocolates and flowers but with a bit of perseverance, it is apparently possible to build a bond with them. If you want to be the lucky recipient of old tat, that is. Marie Kondo, the decluttering queen would not be down with this.
Joy, in my opinion, is apparent in the way the Long-tailed Tits flock together fiesta-style to the bird feeder in the front garden. I know as I write this that our very own Mike Weedon will roll his eyes, but I’ll take the hit on that. For Mike is a much more knowledgeable birder than I will ever be, but what I lack in facts, I more than make up for in imagination.
Of course, you can’t have the ups without the downs and as such, there’s the feelings and emotions we’d rather not experience, the sadness and the sorrow.
Once again, it’s the crows who are more in touch with their feelings here, demonstrated in the ‘funerals’ they hold when a group member has died. This in itself could form a whole column and if you are interested in the intelligence of corvids, I’d recommend reading the research undertaken by Kaeli Swift of the University of Washington. Back in the UK and in my own back garden, what about the sparrow who is taking a dip in the old tin bath I’ve made into a pond?
His jerky movements, his hyper-alert state suggest fear – but in humans, we’d label it as paranoia.
You see, I’m terribly guilty of anthropomorphising these creatures. You’ve known that from day one; but who are we to say what birds do and don’t feel? Their lives might seem less complicated than ours – they don’t have to contend with the onslaught of social media or bad news that doesn’t mean they are not succinctly aware or affected by changes in their environment. They just don’t have the same access to therapists that we do.
Like us, they are just muddling through this thing called life as best they can.