Last weekend I saw something that I have been waiting my whole life to see. It started with a simple idea: going fishing. Tom had suggested that we follow up our Sunday morning karate session with a trip to a fishery nearby his family home, where we would sit in the sun, drink beer, and not catch any fish. This sounded like an offer that was frankly too good to refuse, so following an early rise and some bruises acquired from accidentally hitting myself in the ribs whilst practising with these, we packed a cooler and trundled off to the fishery.
Now I have to confess that I had minimal interest in actually catching fish. Asides from the relaxation and good company, I had been drawn by Tom’s promise that there was a veritable array of wildlife that regularly made an appearance at the little man-made lake, and it turns out he was not deceiving me. Within the first few hours of settling into our spot on the bank we had seen a Grey Heron carrying a very large fish, a Grass Snake swimming through the lake, and an American Mink slinking through the water, badly video’ed below (identified because Tom had spied it a previous week and thought it was an otter, so had written to the Sussex Wildlife Trust who had informed him otherwise. I thought this was a wonderful sign of us being in our 30’s).
But the crown jewel came just a little while later. I was halfway through telling some dumb anecdote when I saw Tom’s jaw drop and his attention be drawn by something over the lake. He urgently and without a sound grabbed my arm; something in the tree on the bank to my right. I turned just in time to catch an electric blue glint darting to the nearby woods. Finally, after waiting 30 odd years, I had seen a Kingfisher in the wild.
I’ve been fascinated by birds since I was a kid; partly from growing up living in the Sussex countryside with parents who loved having a birdfeeder, and partly because as a dinosaur obsessed child they were the closest thing I could get to the real deal (I mean, they are technically dinosaurs). We’d plan family outings around heading to WWT centres and Wildlife Trust areas, and because of this I’ve managed to see a good selection of the UK’s native bird species. But I’d never seen a Kingfisher. They always seemed to be just out of reach; I have vivid memories of people in hides whispering about seeing them earlier in the day, but feeling the disappointment as time went on and it became clear that they we would not be having the same luck.
My accessibility to bird watching has dramatically increased since I moved back down to Sussex, and it’s resulted in some truly special moments; seeing a Short Eared Owl silently glide through a small dean near Cuckmere Haven, or hearing the frog-like call of the Nightjars newly arrived from Africa up on Ashdown Forest with my friend Sam. And whilst I still have several lifers that I am waiting on (the visiting migrants of the Hoopoe and the Golden Oriole being at right at the top of that list), my life feels just a little bit more complete having seen that flash of blue disappearing into the trees.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, this week’s postcard to you is a loving tribute to our feathered friends, featuring songs that are either inspired by or reference birds in some manner, shape or form. And my god, were there a lot to choose from (so much so this may be just the first volume of a postcard mini-series..). But it would be impossible for me not to start this week’s postcard with something off Anna B Savage’s 2021 album A Common Turn, a record teeming with bird related references. Apparently during the making of the album she had a dream where a version of herself told her off for including too many birds in the album, and in an excellent display of stubbornness she instead doubled down on the decision. “Corncrakes”, which also opens the albums, is the track that initially got me hooked on Anna’s music. I love how the specificity of its bird references—swallows, doves, and the titular corncrake—is mirrored by those specific, but universally known moments of yearning, tenderness and confusion found in relationships in flux. To me, the birds feel like a grounding here, anchor points of memory that are tied to these uncertain feelings.
I’m immediately following this up with another song that means a great deal to me. “Parking Lot” by The Weather Station, an initially unassuming track off her excellent 2021 album Ignorance, is a song that fucks me up. It tells the story of watching a bird exist in a man-made space, and the complicated emotions that arrive from the experience of being in commune with nature in the 21st century. It doesn’t matter how many times I listen, every time I hear the line “It felt intimate to watch it/it’s small chest rising and falling” something happens, and I feel the emotion rise and my eyes begin to sting with budding tears. I have felt this feeling many times; the mix of awe and abject sadness in observing the natural world, of catching a glimpse of something that is so transient, that is only being observed by you at that one point of time, and yet is constantly humming in the background of all of our lives and being impacted by them at the same time. The instrumentation absolutely kills it too; I love how the lightness of the piano and swells of strings in the main verses is a perfect representation of a bird in flight, carefree and buoyed by the equally light and tight drumming.
Finally, I want to draw your attention to a track by Magnolia Electric Co. that I discovered in the process of writing this postcard for you. I’d known Magnolia Electric Co. and more broadly Jason Molina, the band’s leader, from their previous incarnation as Songs: Ohia, and the excellent song “Farewell Transmission” (confusingly off the album Magnolia Electric Co.), but I’ve never really dug into their back catalogue. However, I had found a reddit post linking to an entire spotify playlist focussed around the Whip-poor-will, a member of the nightjar family with another distinctive call and a resulting place in American folklore (for example, the opening line of Hank William’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” very directly references the bird). I decided to give the Magnolia Electric Co. song a go, and was utterly blown away. It’s a simple and brilliant piece of country music that to me feels like the perfect companion to the sweet but melancholy call of the Whip-poor-will. I especially love the low choral singing towards the end of the track. Just beautiful.
As always, here’s the Tidal link for you folks, and you’ll notice that there’s a secret bonus track that’s available for those of you on that platform. It would have been the closer on the main playlist, but the artist in question has remained steadfast in her boycott of Spotify (hell fuckin yeah), and so it’s only available in other places. But don’t let that stop you from listening, as it is an absolutely stunning track, and wonderfully appropriate. Anyway, I emplore you to spend a few minutes watching a bird this week. I promise it will make your day just a little bit better.
Postcard 21: 10/06/2024
Anna B Savage - Corncrakes
The Weather Station - Parking Lot
R.E.M. - King of Birds
Jodi - Blue Heron
Sea Power - The Great Skua
Yo La Tengo - Tiny Birds
Alessi Brothers - Seabird
Magnolia Electric Co. - Whip-poor-will
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Three Ravens
Bill Callahan - Too Many Birds
BONUS TRACK: Joanna Newsom - Kingfisher
I can't believe you didn't pick the quintessential bird song
https://tidal.com/track/35694832?u