Words On Birds 07-11-25

 

     Summer is a quieter time in the bird world. Most birds are quietly going about their business of nesting and raising a family or two, or more. This summer weekend may be a good time to kick back and relax with a good book. A lot has been written in praise of birds and bird watching, so I thought that I would again share with you again some of my favorite quotes by persons famous (writers and naturalists), and by some not so famous:

 

     “The first written verse in the English language was in praise of a beloved bird.”, John Kiernan

 

     “I go to Nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in tune once more.”, John Burroughs.

 

     “Birds are to see, to hear, to store in memory.”, Allan D. Cruickshank.

 

     “In order to see birds, it is necessary to become part of the silence.”, Robert Lynd.

 

     “Everything about a hummingbird is a superlative.”, Tom Colazo.

 

     “A bird thinks nothing of its flying or it would fall.”, Leslie Sahler, American Writer.

 

     “Even when the bird walks, one feels that it has wings.”, Antoine Marie Lemiere.

 

     “The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”, Henry David Thoreau. 

 

     “You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers. A certain free margin…helps your enjoyment of these things.”, Walt Whitman.

 

     “On the surface, birders find watching a wholesome pastime which gets them out into the fresh air, alerts them to stimulating sights and sounds, provides the fun of being both competitive and companionable. On a deeper level, it becomes a particularly intense personal experience, conscious or subliminal –the astonished awareness that comes in some unguarded moment when the watcher is left oddly vulnerable to feelings that only nature can provoke.”, Joseph Kastner

 

     “For most bird-watchers the coming of the warblers has the same effect as catnip on a cat.”, Arline Thomas.

 

     “Nature is not a competition. It doesn’t really matter when you go out if you don’t identify anything. What matters is the feeling in the heart.”, Richard Adams.

 

     “One can never be lonely in a room with a fifty-pound sack of sunflower seed. There it sits, large and comforting — a presence.”, Josephine Johnson 

 

     “Crawl and stall, creep and beep, will I ever get home to sleep.

Up to the sky a look above, watching alone the birds I love.

What are those shapes so full of grace, beautiful and so out of place.

Three lovely herons, just doing their errands.”, An Ode to Herons by the late Joe Paluzzi, birder (stuck in Boston traffic).

 

     “In a world that seems so very puzzling is it any wonder birds have such an appeal? Birds are, perhaps, the most eloquent expression of reality.”, Roger Tory Peterson.  

 

     “…we judge bird song not by its musical quality nor even by its creativeness, but by its effect on the human spirit.”, Len Eiserer. 

 

     “Nature is always hinting at us. It hints and hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.”, Robert Frost.

 

     “We do not need this little bird as much as we need the qualities required to spare its life.”, Deirdre Platt (age 16).

 

     And when I can’t find that bird that someone else just saw, I am always mindful of the words of the late Ludlow Griscom, “Birds have wings!”