Birdsong
On the wellbeing benefits from hearing birds singing.
Hello. Welcome to the latest edition of Compassionate Nature. Last week’s edition looked at how music appears to support compassionate intentions and motivation. There are many lovely sounds in nature, perhaps none as evocative as the sound of birds singing.
“But I think if any song can touch the heart, then one should value it.”
For me this quote from the book Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is wholly appropriate for the glorious sound of birds singing. While the dawn chorus is perhaps the more well known periods of collective birdsong, I rather like the more subtle, reflective dusk chorus. In a previous edition of Compassionate Nature from early 2024 I looked at the wellbeing benefits from birdwatching. However the studies included in that did not factor in birdsong, a gap which this edition addresses.
We have a lot of mature trees around us and so have a number of birds singing through out the day. At the moment this is especially true of the Great Tits, who are belting out what has to be said is a highly repetitive and distinctive song for periods across most days. As well as being an easily identifiable bird visually, the Robin has a very gentle, soothing song in comparison to the Great Tit. Robins are one of my favourite birds. I enjoy how they come to help in when you are working in the garden and we had a very inquisitive one go into the shed the other day, possibly on the way to help unpack the bird seed!
While this is a digest about human psychology and behaviours it is an interesting aside to wonder why birds sing, especially at certain periods of the day. There appears to be a number of theories. I liked this theory published in 2023 by Lotte Schlicht and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence. They propose, based on analysis of Blue Tit behaviour, that male birds sing as a result of being absent from their mate. This is especially prevalent at dawn when the male birds have left the nest first and are calling out to their mate, while it occurs at dusk when the female birds have returned to the nest before the male. Taking an overly romanticised and anthropomorphic view you could see this as the male bird plaintively singing “Where are you my love?”.
Or it is the perhaps more likely, domesticate question of “What did you ask me to get while I was out?”
A 2020 article from the Natural History Museum explored the relationship between bird song and mental wellbeing based on studies from Eleanor Ratcliffe and colleagues from the University of Surrey. Their studies looked at aspects including how different birdsong invoked varying emotions in participants, including negative ones, and what influenced those responses. The results suggested that mental well-being benefits associated with hearing birdsong may depend on how you perceive the bird species, the tonal characteristics of their song and your level of nature connectedness.
Some more recently published papers expand on these points.
The more the merrier?
Natalia Zielonka and colleagues from the University of East Anglia conducted a study to explore if diversity of birdsong influences levels of mental wellbeing benefits. The study had two focus areas and was carried out across 21 vineyards in the UK.
Firstly, during key seasonal periods across 2021-2022, the research team assessed the variety in soundscape characteristics by recording bird species and birdsong across 32 monitoring sites situated in the vineyards. Secondly, visitors on tours at 3 of the vineyards in 2022 took part in randomly allocated conditions. One condition had the tour as normal while in the second condition the tour had the natural soundscape enhanced with the playback of additional bird recordings. This part of the study was supported by 186 participants, mainly female, with 107 experiencing a normal tour while 79 undertook the enhanced tour. The participants were not aware of the tour differences.
The results of the recording data from the 32 monitoring sites showed varying results, suggesting that greater diversity in bird species resulted in a louder and varied soundscape, although an abundance of birds did not. Participants data from the tours suggests that the enhanced tour, where the recordings provided greater diversity in birdsong within the background soundscape, resulted in multiple benefits to the experience. The participants who took the enhanced tour reported greater levels of enjoyment, connection with nature and satisfaction from the tour. And in line with Eleanor Ratcliffe’s work the study also suggested that individuals with greater nature connectedness reported more positive benefits than those with less sense of connection to nature. These findings were consistent across all the 3 vineyards where the tours took place.
The study findings are limited by the specific context of the vineyard within which the tours were conducted. Additionally the researchers used recordings of 5 non-UK species (to avoid conflicting with local bird sounds) which may have introduced a novelty factor that some participants on the enhanced tour picked up on, which could have increased their positive reaction. These limitations aside the results are supportive of other research and I thought it interesting that greater diversity of birdsong in the background appeared to provide an unrelated experience with greater fulfilment and joy.
Add sound
A 2024 study from the Southwest Forestry University in China by Kaiyuan Yi and colleagues took a more experimental approach to assess the impact of birdsong upon peoples experience, this time within the context of an urban forest. The term urban forest encompasses all trees within an urban environment, from large spaces such as parks to a tree on a street corner. Other research has indicated the physical and mental health benefits of urban forests, with this study aiming to look at different elements of an urban forest and whether visual and audio differences influenced the benefits, with birdsong being used as the key auditory difference.
The study was conducted with 330 participants recruited from the University’s student body, of whom 222 were female and were aged between 18 to 28. The participants were randomly allocated to various experimental conditions relating to visual and audio differences. The participants heart rate and skin conduction were used as physiological responses linked to emotional arousal and attention, along with self-report measures of anxiety, mood and sense of restoration. Measurements were taken at the start of the experiment, after watching an exciting film clip (to increase physiological arousal levels) followed by after viewing and listening to the urban forest settings. The settings were taken from the urban forest of the city of Kunming, such as a woodland, a park and a tree lined street, with some groups listening to audio of birdsong recorded from each of the scenes. One group listened to different recordings of birds to assess reaction to the timbre or quality of birdsongs.
The results suggested that all the urban forest scenes helped to restore physiological and psychological measures after the artificially induced arousal, with the greatest benefit from the woodland and urban parks scenes. The tree lined street was the least beneficial. Birdsong was found to increase participants perception of nature across the different scenes and also appeared to increase levels of attention recovery. The influence of birdsong appeared to be meditated by how much the visual scene was valued by a participant. For example, the birdsong seemed to have less positive influence in the participants less-preferred wetland setting. Analysis of the participant group who listened to different birdsong found that individuals experienced more influence on their heart rate recovery levels when they heard singing by bird species they expressed a preference for. The analysis also suggested that pleasantness and richness in sound appeared key to participants appreciation of the birdsong.
The study is limited by an experimental design held indoors with pictures and recordings of birdsong which may influence responses. Additionally only the timbre of the birdsong was assessed and other tonal characteristics of birdsong may have a bearing on reaction. As the sample was taken from University students the results are not generalisable, especially as the students were from landscape and architecture design courses which may have influenced their experience and responses. However despite these limitations, the study does again suggest that birdsong adds something to our experience within nature and highlights that this can depend on what bird you hear and how you feel about that bird species.
As these studies indicate, for many people hearing birdsong brings joy and a boost to their mental wellbeing. Birdsong is a key feature of the natural environment that surrounds us. Indeed it has been suggested that the type and quality of birdsong can be indicative of how well a natural environment is doing. Writing in the journal Sustainability in 2023, Paul Devos from Ghent University proposed that the strength of birdsong, specifically the dawn chorus, could be used as a measure of the ecological quality of urban green spaces.
However birds are struggling. Many bird species are in decline, alarmingly so in some cases, often as a result of human activities and behaviours.
“It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.”
In the opening chapter of her classic book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson portrays a world where the damage to the natural world from human agricultural and horticultural practices has resulted in a widespread extinction of birds, leaving us surrounded by a deathly silence. We have not reached that stage, yet.
If birdsong can touch our hearts, then it is a gift we should value. A world full of birdsong is one we must not squander or degrade but do everything we can to support. The natural chorus that greets the start of day and bides it goodnight cannot be allowed to fade away to silence.
If you are in the UK please do consider taking part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch event running between 24 to 26th January. Not only will you be helping to support important research into bird populations, you may find joy and fulfilment in doing so.
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References to specific research (all open access)
Devos, P. (2023). The bird dawn chorus strength of an urban soundscape and its potential to assess urban green spaces. Sustainability, 15(8), 7002. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15087002
Schlicht, L., Schlicht, E., Santema, P., & Kempenaers, B. (2023). A dawn and dusk chorus will emerge if males sing in the absence of their mate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(2011), 20232266. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2266
Yi, K., Zhang, J., Zhang, Z., Shi, X., Du, W., Yang, L., & Meng, W. (2024). Differences in Public Perceptions of Recovery in Different Urban Forests Based on Birdsong. Forests, 15(12), 2217. https://doi.org/10.3390/f15122217
Zielonka, N. B., Tubman, V., Dicks, L. V., & Butler, S. J. (2024). Increased bird sound diversity in vineyards enhances visitors' tour experience. People and Nature, 6(6), 2325-2338. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10721