John Clare, poet and birder

from Thirteen Ways of Considering Black Birds by John Bennett and John Laidler

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

Purchasable with gift card

name your price
Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

The poet John Clare was an expert birder recording scores of species, many of them the first records in his county. In his poem ‘The Blackbird’ he writes,

And song in the spring mornings heard
As mellow as the flute . . .

Clare lived at a time when birdsong filled the fields and valleys or rural England. Rachel Carson observed with deep regret, ‘the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.’
In the breeding season, Blackbird song bursts as a fluting fluid stream, melodic and calm, pure tones with portamento finer than the famous convoluted arpeggios of the Nightingale or its close relative the Song Thrush. Birdsong is two-handed, both a seductive song to attract a mate and a warning to rivals. The song is music, partly improvised and unique to individuals. Calls of rich contrast and variety are valued and some mimicry occurs.
My attraction to Melbourne is not merely cultural, but a chance to hear my favourite birdsong, the Eurasian Blackbird, introduced to the city in the 1850s for its song, and now considered a pest. Out of the forests, they have colonised urban parks and gardens the world over.
------------------------------------------------------------
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962. ‘Voice from Pesticides - DDT - Rachel Carson - Silent Spring’ MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipbc-6IvMQI