Archive for the ‘bird song’ Category
mnemonic: listening to birdsong
Each day, I walk the loop of our drive and stop for a moment at our concrete bench. I sit there and settle, listening to the sounds: a jet passing overhead, cars on the roadway, a neighbour using a saw. Then I start to hear the quiet mutter of the breeze, the rustling of leaves overhead, the occasional song of a bird.
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This morning I heard the ‘caw’ of a crow, the ‘yank, yank’ of a nuthatch, the winnowing of a snipe. When we assign a pattern of words to mimic and remember the sound of a bird call, it is known as a ‘mnemonic.’ Various other sounds are remembered that way: the ‘chug, chug’ of a train, the ‘drip, drip’ of a tap. Bird mnemonics known to almost everyone are the ‘chick-a-dee-dee-dee’ of the chickadee, the ‘who cooks for you?’ of the barred owl, and the ‘conk-la-ree’ of the red-winged blackbird.
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My new poetry book ‘mnemonic: soundscape and birdsong’ focusses on sounds in the woodland and along the shore. Most of the poems celebrate the way bird song can be a metaphor for the events in our lives. For example, the tapping of a pileated woodpecker on the wood of a backstop at the baseball diamond sounds like the connect of bat and ball during the game.
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My book ‘mnemonic’ includes my poems and pencil drawings.
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To obtain a copy of ‘mnemonic,’ take a visit to Dog Eared Books in Oromocto, or Westminster Bookmark in Fredericton. You can also order the book from Chapel Street Editions here, or from Amazon Canada here.
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I hope you enjoy my poetry and my sketches. You can find a comprehensive list of bird mnemonics at South Bay Birders Unlimited ‘Mnemonic Bird Songs’ here.
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All my best!
Jane Tims
nuthatch: bold acrobat
Sometimes I hear a knocking at the door and answer, to find no-one there. Instead, a nuthatch is tapping, banging a sunflower seed against the shingles. Later, he will sound off in the grey woods, ‘yank, yank, yank.’ He is one of my favourite birds: the red-breasted nuthatch, Sitta canadensis.
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This nuthatch is slightly smaller and has a shorter beak than its cousin, the white-crested nuthatch. We have both but the white-breasted species has a faster-repeating ‘song’ to announce its territory.
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The red-breasted nuthatch has a reddish orange breast, a short tail, and sturdy feet and bill. It has a white eyebrow and a black line on either side of its eye. Perhaps its neatest trick is to walk upside down on branches, head downwards.
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In my poetry book, mnemonic: soundscape and bird song, I pay tribute to the red-crested nuthatch in a couple of poems. Here is a stanza from ‘woodland mnemonic’ …
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nuthatch, bored, pulls
endless rope, yank, yank, yank
hangs upside-down, beats
a seed against the shingles
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In the book are 53 poems about bird song and other sounds in nature, and 15 illustrations of birds found in New Brunswick. Some poems are merely descriptive, others see bird calls and songs as metaphors for various life events. For a copy, contact Chapel Street Editions here, or Amazon.ca here.
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“An orchestra of other surrounding sounds prompt the author’s poetic rendering, revealing a world chock-full of interesting information for those alert to its resonance. mnemonic offers a doorway in which to first stand, and then engage a journey from poem to poem into the author’s immersive experience of the great world’s soundscapes and birdsong.”
– publisher’s comments on the book
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Enjoy your day and take a little time to watch our neighbours, the birds, and listen to their songs.
All my best
Jane
a life-list first: sandhill cranes
As the result of a posting on Facebook (in New Brunswick Birders), my husband and I took a drive to the Canaan Forks area of New Brunswick to see if we could see any of the sandhill cranes spotted there. We had given up on finding them and were on the road out of the area when my husband spotted two in a field between us and the river. I wish I was a better photographer: they were so elegant and deliberate, walking the edge of the field. As they walked and fed, their legs and necks were in a strange sort of synchrony. They appear quite ‘muscular’ and could be confused with a deer if their heads are down feeding.
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Both birds had the red patch on the front of the head. They stayed together, turning to retrace their steps when they came to a small ditch between fields.
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The sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis) can now be added to my life list!!!!!
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Have fun watching the birds now returning from their migrations!
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All my best,
Jane
soundscape and birdsong
These last two weeks have been fun for bird watchers. I saw my first dark-eyed junco, just back from a winter spent to the south. I also heard that lovely, impossible-to-imitate song of a winter wren. And I have cleaned up our feeding area so the spring birds will be easier to watch.
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This weekend, I am looking forward to talking with other bird watchers about my new poetry book ‘mnemonic – soundscape and birdsong.’
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I am looking forward to the event, hosted by the folks at the L.P Fisher Public Library, who have been so supportive of my writing through the years! Wish you could come and hear me read …
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All my best!
Jane
including ‘sound’ in writing
I am so proud of my new poetry book ‘mnemonic – soundscape and birdsong’ (Chapel Street Editions, 2024) because it focuses on including sound in writing. Of the five senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste), most creative writing focuses on vision. It is a bit of a challenge to include the other senses in order to give a more complete idea of the sensations contributed by your surroundings.
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My book includes bird song as a main part of the soundscape. It also includes other sounds: the singing of a rock skipped across a frozen pond, the call of the spring peepers, the clinking of ice in glasses, the sound of a kettle boiling over a woodland fire.
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For ways of including sounds in writing, you can look at some of my earlier posts here, and here.
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I think my favourite poem in the ‘mnemonic’ collection is about my Dad who took us along the Yarmouth shore to find iron pyrite (fool’s gold). The sounds in this poem focus on the shorebirds. Here is a short excerpt:
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he takes us prospecting
we wedge into crevasses
keen for pyrite gold
cube within cube
embedded in stone
we always forget the hammer
we chip and scratch with fingernails
reach across rock
dare the waves
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a sanderling cries
quit quit!
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shorebirds
befriend me
a dowitcher sews a seam with her bill
bastes salt water to shore
the sanderling shoos back the tide
terns
plunge into the ocean
and complain they are wet
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I hope you will have fun incorporating sound into your writing.
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All my best,
Jane
mnemonics – soundscape and birdsong
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I am looking forward to another presentation, this Saturday, of my new poetry book, ‘mnemonic – soundscape and birdsong.’ I will be at Dog Eared Books in Oromocto for a few hours, to share my book and some favourite birdsongs. When you enter the store, listen for some of our well known birds and their songs. I will be using www.allaboutbirds.com to demonstrate how well established mnemonics mimic the sounds we hear in the woodland and seashore.
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I enjoyed working on the poems in this book for four reasons:
. I feel strongly that we should include all of our senses in our writing; sounds are a significant component of our surroundings …
. my life has been enriched as I have come to know the birds in the morning bird chorus and to listen to the chorus with understanding …
. bird songs have accompanied me on many of my life journeys and are symbolic of various important milestones in my life …
. I love to draw birds, to try to show the softness of their feathers and their sturdy bodies in pencil …
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I look forward to seeing you at the reading and hearing some of your favourite ‘mnemonics.’
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Thank you so much to my publisher, Chapel Street Editions, for the lovely work they have done on this book!
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All my best,
Jane
book reading and signing
This week I am preparing for a launch of my new book ‘mnemonic – soundscape and birdsong’ at Westminster Bookmark in Fredericton. The poems are enjoyable to read and I look forward to talking about one of my favourite topics – birdsong!
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Preparation means thinking about what I will say, choosing the poems to read within the time given and deciding what to wear. It also means letting you all know about the reading.
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As you can see, I will be reading with another author whom I have never met: Christine Higdon. Her book title is fascinating and I am looking forward to reading her story of four Vancouver sisters in the 1920s. Reading with another author is great: it introduces you to someone you may not know and their books. It means the audience is treated to two readings instead of one. And it usually increases numbers of listeners.
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My talk will focus on the idea of using mnemonics to remember bird songs and calls. Mnemonic means ‘a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.’ Mnemonics are a well-know way of identifying bird calls.
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This idea has been with me as long as I can remember. When my Mom heard a white throated sparrow, she would always answer with, ‘I love dear Canada, Canada, Canada.’ And I have always known the chick-a-dee by its name-sake call. In later years I have come to love some particular mnemonics and the birds they help identify: ‘who cooks for you?’ by the barred owl, ‘yank, yank, yank’ by the white-breasted nuthatch and ‘whirr-zip!’ by the northern parole warbler. A bird call I have never heard is the ‘cheer, cheer, cheer, purty, purty, purty’ of the northern cardinal – I have never seen a cardinal either! What are your favourite (or unique) bird call mnemonics?
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Some of the best sources for mnemonics are Audubon Vermont https://vt.audubon.org/sites/default/files/bird_song_mnemonics.pdf and Stanford (South Bay Birders Unlimited) https://web.stanford.edu/~kendric/birds/birdsong.html a great place to listen to various bird songs is All About Birds https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/browse/topic/sounds-songs/
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I am looking forward to the opportunity to read and talk to the audience on Sunday! Hope to see you there. And hope to hear an afternoon chorus of bird song mnemonics from the audience!
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All my best,
Jane
new poetry book: ‘mnemonic’ …
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squirrel-proof
As a result of our focus on feeding the birds this week, my head is full of birds and squirrels and deer. Hence, a poem…..
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squirrel-proof
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plan for success
buy a feeder, smarter
than any squirrel
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fill the feeder
laughing
all the way
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drive into town
to buy more birdseed
confident, smug
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left turn
into the driveway
shadow
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white tail
brown thighs vanish
around the corner
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feeder empty
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Photos are from years past. We don’t have much snow here in southern New Brunswick!!!!!
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All my best!
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
drear November: feeding the birds… and other wildlife!
Every winter, we feed the birds. I have records going back to 2011 and I have photos of birds visiting the feeder for many years before. I notice that I get chickadees, nuthatches and bluejays when I feed with only sunflower seeds. I also get finches, grosbeaks, sparrows and juncos when I feed with a mixed seed variety. Both grey and red squirrels visit our feeder. And a white-tailed deer.
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Last week we bought a new feeder, so I could have both sunflower seeds and the mixed seeds at the same time. I filled both feeders when we arrived home, later in the afternoon. The next morning, not a seed in either feeder. By the tracks all around, I know a deer cleaned out both.
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I don’t mind feeding a bit to the squirrel and deer. But not the whole lot! So this morning, I altered my tactics. I put the mixed seed feeder on a hook off our deck, so high the deer can’t reach it. The sunflower seed feeder can stay in its place, but after this I will only put a quarter of the usual feed there. That way, the birds can get feed during the day and the deer can nibble on left-overs without ruining my budget. The squirrel will be able to reach the feeder on the deck, but I will lure him away with peanuts.
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Do you feed the birds, and do you have any strategies for making certain the squirrels and deer don’t get there first?
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
nichepoetryandprose 