Birdsong Quotes

“When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere.”
― Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power

“In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music

Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.

Then, by the end of morning,
he's gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“Quartering the topmost branches of one of the tall trees, an invisible bird was striving to make the day seem shorter, exploring with a long-drawn note the solitude that pressed it on every side, but it received at once so unanimous an answer, so powerful a repercussion of silence and of immobility, that one felt it had arrested for all eternity the moment which it had been trying to make pass more quickly.”
― Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann

“Invisible magpies warbled in the plane trees. Softly, gently, never running out of melodic ideas, they perched among the leaves and spun out their endless tales.”
― Helen Garner, Joe Cinque's Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law

“Ok. It's possible that birds may sing just for the joy of it.”
― Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation

“A lark began to sing in the tree above her. Dortchen opened her eyes and looked up. It was such a small, plain, grey thing, yet its song was so full of joy. She could see its breast swell, its thin throat tremble. It lifted its wings, as if seeking to draw more air into its lungs. Song-notes were flung into the air, like golden coins thrown by a generous hand. All the lark's strength was poured into its music, all its joy.
Dortchen took a deep breath, so deep that she felt her lungs expand and the muscles of her chest crack. She wanted to live like the lark did, filled with rapture. She stood up, looking up at the bird through the sunlit leaves. It flung its wings wide and soared away into the sky. She wanted to fly with it.”
― Kate Forsyth, The Wild Girl

“The morning was a cup filled with mist and glamor. In the corner near her was a rich surprise of new-blown, crystal-dewed roses. The trills and trickles of song from the birds in the big tree above her seemed in perfect accord with her mood. A sentence from a very old, very true, very wonderful Book came to her lips,

'Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

“Alice haunted the mossy edge of the woods, lingering in patches of shade. She was waiting to hear his Austin-Healey throttle back when he careened down the utility road separating the state park from the cabins rimming the lake, but only the whistled conversation of buntings echoed in the branches above. The vibrant blue males darted deeper into the trees when she blew her own 'sweet-sweet chew-chew sweet-sweet' up to theirs. Pine seedlings brushed against her pants as she pushed through the understory, their green heads vivid beneath the canopy. She had dressed to fade into the forest; her hair was bundled up under a long-billed cap, her clothes drab and inconspicuous. When at last she heard his car, she crouched behind a clump of birch and made herself as small as possible, settling into a shallow depression of ferns and leaf litter.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“When you go to say hello to nature, put every redundant sound away, for nature is music, and that alone should suffice.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“As they spoke, a warm spring breeze caused rose petals to swirl about the courtyard. The fountain gurgled, and birdsong filled the air, as birds flew over the courtyard.”
― Isabella Auer, Daughter of Kings

“When he fell in love with birds and began to photograph them, his anxieties dissipated. The sound of birdsong reminded him to look outwards at the world.”
― Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation

“The day was warming fast, the air weighted with the sweetness of clover and grass and pasture scents. A dunnock fluted notes from its perch in an ancient hedge, while robins called from the treetops.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“Without birds, where would we have learned that there can be song in the heart?”
― Hal Borland

“Some people call it "singing," as if birds are putting on a musical show, rather than talking to each other, and this seems a rather self-centered view, a phrase which here means "the selfish way we humans often think about animals." Many humans, for instance, believe in reincarnation, which is the idea that when you die you are reborn as a new person or another animal, and many of the people who believe in reincarnation believe that a human is the highest form, the best thing to be when you are reborn. I have never been convinced of this. I looked at the birds. They did not seem to be thinking I was the highest form, nor has any other creature I've ever looked at, and their chirping did not appear to be for my entertainment.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“I communed with jackrabbits, lizards, and peculiar desert squirrels and felt astonished by how much life popped and teemed in the desert. The Sonoran birds made songs I'd never heard before.”
― Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt

“Facts swooped like swallows, darting across her mind; there was a rush of pride in things still remembered. Singing was limited to the perching birds, the order Passeriformes. Nearly half the birds in the world didn't sing, but they still used sound to communicate- calls as opposed to song. Most birds had between five and fifteen distinct calls in their repertoire; alarm and territorial defense calls, distress calls from juveniles to bring an adult to the rescue, flight calls to keep the flock coordinated, even separate calls for commencing and ending flight. Nest calls. Feeding calls. Pleasure calls. Some chicks used calls to communicate with their mothers while they were still in the egg.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“The birds had multiplied. She'd installed rows upon rows of floating melamine shelves above shoulder height to accommodate the expression of her once humble collection. Though she'd had bird figurines all over the apartment, the bulk of her prized collection was confined to her bedroom because it had given her joy to wake up to them every morning. Before I'd left, I had a tradition of gifting her with bird figurines. It began with a storm petrel, a Wakamba carving of ebony wood from Kenya I had picked up at the museum gift shop from a sixth-grade school field trip. She'd adored the unexpected birthday present, and I had hunted for them since.
Clusters of ceramic birds were perched on every shelf. Her obsession had brought her happiness, so I'd fed it. The tiki bird from French Polynesia nested beside a delft bluebird from the Netherlands. One of my favorites was a glass rainbow macaw from an Argentinian artist that mimicked the vibrant barrios of Buenos Aires. Since the sixth grade, I'd given her one every year until I'd left: eight birds in total.
As I lifted each member of her extensive bird collection, I imagined Ma-ma was with me, telling a story about each one. There were no signs of dust anywhere; cleanliness had been her religion. I counted eighty-eight birds in total. Ma-ma had been busy collecting while I was gone.
I couldn't deny that every time I saw a beautiful feathered creature in figurine form, I thought of my mother. If only I'd sent her one, even a single bird, from my travels, it could have been the precursor to establishing communication once more.
Ma-ma had spoken to her birds often, especially when she cleaned them every Saturday morning. I had imagined she was some fairy-tale princess in the Black Forest holding court over an avian kingdom.
I was tempted to speak to them now, but I didn't want to be the one to convey the loss of their queen.
Suddenly, however, Ma-ma's collection stirred.
It began as a single chirp, a mournful cry swelling into a chorus. The figurines burst into song, tiny beaks opening, chests puffed, to release a somber tribute to their departed beloved. The tune was unfamiliar, yet its melancholy was palpable, rising, surging until the final trill when every bird bowed their heads toward the empty bed, frozen as if they hadn't sung seconds before.
I thanked them for the happiness they'd bestowed on Ma-ma.”
― Roselle Lim, Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune

“Trelkovsky had never undestood why people insisted on comparing the noise of birds to music. Birds don't sing, they scream. And in the morning they scream in chorus.”
― Roland Topor, The Tenant

“The singing of birds became an orchestra- a symphony of gossip and mirth. I'd never heard so many layers of music, never heard the variations and themes that wove between their arpeggios. And beyond the birdsong, there was an ethereal melody- a woman, melancholy and weary... the willow. Gasping, I opened my eyes.

The world had become richer, clearer. The brook was a near-invisible rainbow of water that flowed over stones as invitingly smooth as silk. The trees were clothed in a faint shimmer that radiated from their centres and danced along the edges of their leaves. There was no tangy metallic stench- no, the smell of magic had become like jasmine, like lilac, like roses. I would never be able to paint it, the richness, the feel- Maybe fractions of it, but not the whole thing.

Magic- everything was magic, and it broke my heart.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“Despite Canada Goose presenting her a ring, nobody thinks it gives them any right to stick together having Timmy’s and listen to the call of loons...”
― Lana M. Rochel, Carol of the Wings: Vintage Folk Patchwork Tale

“the songs of Oma's birds
were the only sounds
I wanted to hear.”
― Sharon Kernot, The Art of Taxidermy

“In spring, streams gush with frigid waters, and inspired songbirds wake before dawn. Trees come alive with buds that swell and crack open; cherry blossoms, magnolias, and dogwoods seek rays of sunlight that will coax them into full bloom. Green tips poke up from between the crumbling dried leaves of last fall, and the days slowly, slowly grow longer before evening darkness envelopes the subtly bustling earth.
Your sleepy senses wake in tandem with spring, and your body craves new sensations.”
― Amy Masterman, Sacred Sensual Living: 40 Words for Praying with All Your Senses

“I remember one of the last things Mother said to us, one of the very last things. In my mind, it has become the last thing, and maybe it was.

She was lying on the cedar frame bed in the back bed-room in the early summer, with the bed moved over right against the window. The window was open to let the breeze and birdsong and sunlight in, the light rushing in through the lace curtains. She had lost a lot of weight and had had a hard time, but was never more beautiful in the way that there can be nothing more beautiful than dignity.

"I've seen a lot," she said, and smiled, and it was not an act for us, it was not a thing said for our benefit. She was just saying it, and smiling. She was just brave, was all.”
― Rick Bass, The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness

“The way he learned to sing was by imitating the songbirds: their warbles and whistles, their scolds. Before his stroke he'd been able to imitate certain notes and melodies of their calls, but never whole songs.

I was sitting under the umbrella with him, in early March-March second, the day the Texas Declaration of Independence had been signed, when Grandfather began to sing. A black-and-white warbler had flown in right in front of us and was sitting on a cedar limb, singing-relieved, I think, that we weren't owls. Cedar waxwings moved through the brush behind it, pausing to wipe the bug juice from their bills by rubbing their beaks against branches (like men dabbing their mouths with napkins after getting up from the table). Towhees were hopping all around us, scratching through the cedar duff for pill bugs, pecking, pecking, pecking, and still the vireo stayed right there on that branch, turning its head sideways at us and singing, and Grandfather made one deep sound in his throat-like a stone being rolled away-and then he began to sing back to the bird, not just imitating the warbler's call, but singing a whole warbler song, making up warbler sentences, warbler declarations.

Other warblers came in from out of the brush and surrounded us, and still Grandfather kept whistling and trilling. More birds flew in. Grandfather sang to them, too. With high little sounds in his throat, he called in the mourning doves and the little Inca doves that were starting to move into this country, from the south, and whose call I liked very much, a slightly younger, faster call that seemed to complement the eternity-becking coo of the mourning dove.

Grandfather sang until dark, until the birds stopped answering his songs and instead went back into the brush to go to roost, and the fireflies began to drift out of the bushes like sparks and the coyotes began to howl and yip. Grandfather had long ago finished all the tea, sipping it between birdsongs to keep his voice fresh, and now he was tired, too tired to even fold the umbrella.
....
I was afraid that with the miracle of birdsong, it was Grandfather's last night on earth-that the stars and the birds and the forest had granted him one last gift-and so I drove slowly, wanting to remember the taste, smell, and feel of all of it it, and to never forget it. But when I stopped the truck he seemed rested, and was in a hurry to get out and go join Father, who was sitting on the porch in the dark listening to one of the spring-training baseball games on the radio.”
― Rick Bass, The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness

“The wind announces itself through my open bedroom window. Sheet music is blown face down onto my floor, but the birds outside sing it from memory. Accompanying them are four steady-sounding knocks on my door, very evenly spaced, about mezzo-piano, my mom must be practicing drums too.
"Let's leave now, so we get a good view for the parade," my mom adds lyrics through the closed door.”
― Patrick R.F. Blakley, Drummond: Learning to find himself in the music

“The Springtime Guest by Stewart Stafford

From winter's wounded sleep,
Dear Nature rouses itself again,
Bearing no ill will for the scars,
Timely movement blooms again.

Bursting colour, praising birdsong,
Easy smiles when sprightly of step,
Lambs and cats frolic in sunny play,
Banishing winter's despair for now.

Welcome warm kisses on the wind,
Summer's young sibling promises,
Much more to come in rolling time,
With comfort in the heart of progress.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Bob repeats an option that sounds pretty close to the birds I've been hearing in the morning. Not knowing amy species, I've been referring to them mentally as the happy birds. Versus crows and ravens, which are never happy. And seagulls and pigeons. which are just plain annoying.”
― Lisa Gardner, One Step Too Far

“Be like the birdlistener who has no need to interpret what the birds have to say
but who is simply content that the birds have their say.”
― Wald Wassermann

“I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden's potted evergreens- so different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able to endure again.

Maybe Amarantha had won after all.

And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“…the touch of a nurse, a lover, or a comrade along the edges of flesh suddenly opened by desire or by explosives.”
― Simon Schama