Bird by Bird: lyre lyre, home on fire

I can relate to that little boy overwhelmed by the avian world. But pay attention to your assignment, young Master Lamott, and the birds might tell you their secrets.

Birds are funny things. The millions of birdwatchers, birders, twitchers, whatever you want to call them, are even funnier still. Years ago, I had a lecturer who was so passionate about birds, he wore them embroidered on his shirts, stamped on his belt buckles, and etched on his boots. He would start an ecology lecture with, “I knew this bird once…,” and never did I hear a tale about a long-lost love,or a mysterious acquaintance in a faraway land. Instead, I slept through an account of the foraging talents of the treecreeper, the social habits of the babbler, and the parental responsibilities of the emu.

But when the lecture turned to the uncanny ability of the lyre bird to mimic just about anything it hears, I considered this a worthy skill, and I paid attention.

The lyre bird learns the sounds of the forest, quite literally, bird by bird, to add to his repertoire of courting songs. Impressively, the Casanova in the video not only does birds, but camera shutters, car alarms, and chainsaws as well.

See for yourself.

For those thinking, okay, nice post about birds, but what's it got to do with Anne Lamott's book about writing, consider this: treecreepers, babblers, and emus have their own appeal, but sometimes, it takes that one special bird to get people thinking. One bird mimicking chainsaws. One bird singing about his own demise.

And so I tell myself to keep on writing, because you just never know which bird will be the one to touch someone's heart.


P.S. I liked the book.