The Characteristic ‘Tsirrr’ of the Long-Tailed Tit
i
Printed textile with game birds, 1814–16. MET Museum.
Nature

The Characteristic ‘Tsirrr’ of the Long-Tailed Tit

A Forest Full of Birdsong
Michał Książek
Reading
time 10 minutes

After a few seconds had passed, Pinocchio said tsree and flew off, its wings leaving a breeze on my forehead.

Zee zee said the goldcrest, which can be translated as ‘here here’. Tsrree!, the treecreeper zealously agreed, dropping down like a leaf. Tsrree tsrree, the tits joined in a similar dialect, nodding their heads. Somewhere to the side, a nuthatch started to mock them. The single kik of the great spotted woodpecker mixed with the eager chit chit of the willow tit and marsh tit. Within a minute, floating right above me in the crowns of the pines and spruces, and even all around in the hornbeams and hazels, was a cloud of sounds and movement. Movement, because it was difficult to spot anything straight away. Waving. Jumping. Short bursts of flight. Something you could notice even in the remains of the nettles or reeds and on the ground. I was standing in the middle of a mob of birds, though I can’t fly.

In the winter, the birds of the trees (a term for which is definitely lacking in natural sciences) group into flocks and forage in the area, looking for food. They are like an organism that penetrates every corner of the biochore (in this case, the forest) with each of its tentacles. If a goldcrest should find a cluster of butterfly eggs or larvae somewhere, it will call out to its brothers, with the starvelings from other species in tow. Meanwhile, in the forest you hear a wave of zee, tsree and chit. As if

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe

Also read:

Chirping, Whistling and Tootling
i
Illustration by Daniel Mróz. From the “Przekrój” archive (Issue 441 from 1953)
Nature

Chirping, Whistling and Tootling

The Joys of Recognizing Birdsong
Olga Drenda

Just as some human languages are becoming extinct, so too the songs of various birds are dying out as they’re supplanted by other birds that are more aggressive and better adapted to life in urban spaces. Meanwhile, although identifying those songs is a tricky, time-consuming art, it can also become a wonderful, lifelong passion.

Kroo-lik, kroo-lik (which to a Polish ear sounds like the word for ‘rabbit’) – that’s the mysterious noise I heard one night, coming from outside my window, clearly loud enough to rouse me from my dreams. I grabbed the pencil and paper I’ve taught myself to keep on the bedside table in case of the need to jot down a sudden idea. As soon as I got up the next morning, I started investigating on the internet. I found nothing to tell me which bird says kroo-lik, so I decided to change my approach and to focus on listening to recordings of bird calls. One of them confirmed that what I had heard was a female tawny owl. If I were superstitious, I’d have been worried (“When the tawny owl shrieks, the devils rejoice” – that’s a saying cited by an ethnographic reference book called Śmierć w obrzędach, zwyczajach i wierzeniach ludu polskiego [Death in Polish Folk Rituals, Customs and Beliefs], which adds that in Germany they call this actually rather charming bird Totenvogel, meaning ‘bird of the dead’). But instead I started wondering about the noises made by various birds and how to write them down, because the field guides I consulted said that Mrs Tawny Owl doesn’t cry kroo-lik, but kyoo-vit.

Continue reading