Thinking about singing

On this morning, I was presenting my new animal cultures presentation to a symposium. The conference was great: some really like-minded souls. My particular plaudits to Rimona Afana, sensitive, rigorous in her research and an all-round role model, and Eveline Baptistella, an incredibly informed and inspiring scholar. But everyone was great. And the atmosphere was welcoming, supportive and collegiate.

In the coffee break, I went out and saw Bobbit. He has taken a few things from my hand now. Including one worm... though he rejected this one.

The singing was an added bonus this morning. I felt as though he were encouraging me in my work. The presentation, after all, features a lot of Bobbit. You can watch it, but it's 20 minutes long.

Later in that first film, you see the pigeon. I didn't know if she was sick. Clare says many young pigeons have been blown from their nest trees in the high winds and that may be the issue here. She was very wet and I was right next to her. Once she shook her wings but she hardly opened her eyes. I hope her parents find her and encourage her to somewhere less exposed. At least she was not on the ground.

Bobbit, subsinging higher up, used a large leaf as an umbrella.

A few times now, I have heard the blackbird's subsong. Usually the juvenile male, but on this occasion, I think, the adult.

This quote made me think harder about bird song:

And the wolf probably also calls (to) himself, he recalls himself to existence in the silence of the night. Like a traveller walking alone through a nocturnal landscape, no longer even able to make out his own hands, almost doubting his own existence, begins to speak out loud to himself. To call himself by name. His voice lifts him into existence, as if he were pulling himself out of nothingness by his own hair, by the force of the word.

Morizot, Baptiste. Ways of Being Alive (p. 48). Polity Press. Kindle Edition.

What if song... or subsong... or both, in different ways, are a means to make the self manifest to the robin after he has spent time with his self entangled in the multi species environment while foraging? His voice lifts him into singular existence - emphasising his one strand in the riotous tapestry of life....

The strands had changed the following morning: a scatter of pigeon feathers on the lawn, as Bobbit bounced in the branches of the lilac.