If a participant [in a study] reported seeing or hearing birds at one point, their mental well-being was higher, on average, hours later even if they did not encounter birds at the next check-in....
“Listening to birdsong through headphones was able to hit the same pathways that might be beneficial toward mental well-being.... That’s a very, very nice finding.”
One study compared people whose headphones played birdsong with those subjected to traffic noise.
IN THE COMMENTS: Sean said:
Lemme guess, they didn't do crows.
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So that's the reason behind Meade's avatars. Makes sense.
Birds helped me during Covid. Their carefree singing and flying reminded me that the fear and lockdowns were unnatural and would have to end. I envied their freedom.
Black crows in the meadow
"Across a broad highway
Black crows in the meadow
Across a broad highway
Though it’s funny, honey
I just don’t feel much like a
Scarecrow today"
A owl sometimes perches in the tree next to the bedroom window and hoots all night. Stupid owl. Not healthy.
Lemme guess, they didn't do crows.
I wonder what the effect is if you can hear both simultaneously? And does the type of bird matter?
I ask because I'm on vacation in a place where I can hear all the traffic there is (not a lot, but there is a main regional road below us), but the birds are also constantly singing. And then there are the roosters.
Am I able to tune in harder to the nice birdsong and tune out the traffic and crowing, and achieve the desired mental well-being? (I don't mind the crowing, but I suspect it's not what the researchers meant by "birdsong.") Or is there some kind of adding-vectors effect that I can't influence by my own conscious attention?
Now that's for the birds!
“Peacocks are just a buncha goddam showoffs if you ask me”
I've got a woodpecker in an old tree on the south side of our house. I doubt they did woodpeckers. However, there are several mourning doves around here, and they are soothing to listen to.
Birds aren't Real.
Merlin is a wonderful app for your phone if you are interested in identifying the bird calls you hear around you.
I was going to snark about guinea hens. The most gawdawful racket I've ever heard.
Just yesterday while watching the PGA tournament, I noticed that one of the things I like about watching golf is hearing so many birdsongs I don't get to hear down in Texas.
Well, not really watching, but looking up from my tablet when something happens. Still, when listening I can almost feel my blood pressure going down.
Except for the grackles.
"being around birds is associated with better mental health"
My mother (rest her soul) begs to differ. Mother was not phobic about anything...ecept our feather friends.
Ah the beautiful call of the theropod!
In moderation, perhaps, but diversity has a blighting effect.
My other nesting partner is a bird.
Meade said...
“Peacocks are just a buncha goddam showoffs if you ask me”
I rolled into a farmers place at dusk and when I stepped out of the truck, I was greated with a blood curdling scream for help. The guy had a nesting pair of peacocks. At dusk, alone, that was the most scared I can recall.
Most any natural sound is a therapeutic to mental health as long as it doesn't overwhelm. Rain; falling water; birds; cattle lowing; the wind through the trees; so forth. I do enjoy bird song, and even the cries of the peacocks and watch-goose. Tornados, traffic and city noises: Not so much.
I had many happy times hunting pheasants and quail. Not doves, though. Too hot and not much to eat.
The birds are singing at 415 AM now. That's early.
We invite Martins by putting up houses for them. As I garden I get to listen to their chirping. Soothing. Sublime. Simply a joy.
Being around birds is associated with better mental health
That's why they put you in the Booby Hatch.
oh well the boyd boyd boyd well the boyd is the woyd... b b b boyd boyd boyd...
https://youtu.be/9Gc4QTqslN4
Except when they gather on playgrounds, while children sing.
Peacocks make a horrible sound like someone is being murdered when they're scared or having sex.
Which is sort of porny and very hard to unhear. When I lived in Ruskin, a neighboring seniors trailer park had lots of peacocks and one donkey. The cops got tired of having to drive all the way out to the key to answer well-intentioned 911 calls.
Hawks riding air thermals, on the other hand, are proof of something right in the world. Unless you're a mouse, or worse, a vole.
I'd be very curious to see the questionnaires and research model measuring mental health in that study. What is the effect of some researcher calling you up several times a day to see if you heard birdsong? How the heck do you produce a real blind study out of that? By not asking? Not hearing birds, yet being asked, doesn't present a real double blind.
@rehajm,
https://youtu.be/5Oiy5RcDf40
Being around Boyds is associated with better mental health.
Not really.
🤪
Buzzards being around is associated with poor physical health.
Lemme guess, they include the Brit slang of "birds" in their definition of avian fauna?
Sexist pig statement, yes, but also true.
And as for buzzards, I give you Gary Larsen, the reason I moved to Texas.
Mockingbirds get two pills in the head if’n I sees ‘em.
When the buzzards are wheeling you tend not to be quite so wrapped up in worries about your mental health...which, ironically, improves your mental health...maybe not for long though.
Lot of birds around our house, chattering, zooming, mating. Little guys nest in the eaves. Hawks built a giant nest in the oak last year. Crows buzz hawks at every opportunity. Two turkey vultures sat on the roof two weeks ago looking at something. They are living cartoons. All delightful.
We have a pet sparrow that my daughter rescued when it fell out of its nest as a chick. I can't say it's approved my mental health. It's mostly a pain in the neck, sometimes literally.
Crows got nothing on Steller's Jays.
And yet crows are classified as songbirds.
Go figure.
"I envied their freedom."
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?
- Bob Dylan
"Merlin is a wonderful app for your phone if you are interested in identifying the bird calls you hear around you."
This.
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