There’s a first time for everything and so this is my first experiment with recording songbirds in the morning. One of the silver linings to the dark cloud of movement restrictions and social-distancing that has come with the Covid-19 era, at least here in Dhaka, is reduced noise of traffic and a corresponding increase in my ability to hear the natural sounds around me. Since I also spend more time in the apartment since I work from home, I’ve gotten to know our local birds better. One morning this week I awoke to the sweetest birdsong, and if this works out, above is a link so you can hear it. You may need to unmute or turn your volume up. Listen closely in the first seconds, and you should hear a more distant bird calling first – then one near me starts up a bit louder: these two seemed clearly to be responding to each other. If you listen quite closely at the very end you’ll hear a muezzin beginning the morning call to prayer from a bit farther away. I quite enjoy these morning sounds as the sky slowly lightens, and the relative absence of car horns has most definitely been a + in my book 🙂
By the way, if anyone has any idea what this bird is, let me know. It’s one of the lovelier calls I hear sometimes. One can hear crows aplenty – my brother Steve commented on their raucous calls in one of the videos of the urban mango harvest recently.
These next birds I know well and always knew were fun songbirds to listen to. On many of my office days in June (we’ve had partial staff going in one or two days a week to try to be a bit more productive and keep a bit more common team spirit), I noticed that a pair of these myna birds seemed to enjoy my window ledge at least as much as the other bird whose photo there I had published back in January (check that out here: https://somuchworldsolittletime.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/lakes-streets-of-dhaka/) One day they were chirping and singing to each other or to their own reflections in the windwo so much that I simply had to collect a bit of video. It’s rare even with these common birds for them to be so close and still not see you since the window is mirrored and if I was quiet, they stayed a long time.
And finally, a potted plan claimed for bird-dirt-bath use by a local sparrow. For a few days, I noticed more and more dirt on the ground and wondered what – on – earth – was – happening?! I mean, yes we had heavy rain storms with wind…but no other pots created this kind of dirty footprint all around them on that balcony or any other balcony. So wtf?! Then one day I saw a little sparrow flit merrily between the bars on the balcony and flutter its wings to cover them in dirt and “bathe” itself. I assume this reduced little insects or something of that sort. Does anyone know for sure?
