Series 1: Episode 1 - Chris Packham, Jason Singh

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One of my favourite things about birds that I've always loved is the fact that birds you can find liter Rural parts of the country to write in the inner city. And so if you want to see a bird, you will see one. And I think that's something I've always found really interesting. Birds are a good entry point to natural history. But of course some of us use them as an entry and then 'Cause birds are the best things in life.

It doesn't matter whether you live in a tower block or you live in a detached house or you live in a caravan or wherever you live. Nature isn't separate from the This is Get Birding, a guide to birdwatching and a home for stories about Brought to you by me, Bird Girl, and supported by 7 Trent Water and Swarovski Optic. You just heard today's. Wildlife Presenter Chris Patrick. And nature before Jason Singh.

But before we meet them properly, I should probably explain a little bit more about who I am. So let's go on a walk. I'm Maya Rose, you might know me as Bird Girl, and I'm a environmental campaigner and activist and I run a blog also called Bird Girl. My parents took me out birding for the first time when I was nine days old and they've been taking me out ever since and it's always been such an important part. Which originally started?

Because my mum's half Bangladeshi When I got to age like eleven or twelve I just sort of noticed that there was no one that looked like me or my mum or my sister.

out and about a nature and as someone who'd had that opportunity growing up, who'd had such like an amazing childhood. It felt really sad to me that other kids weren't getting that opportunity. But I think the final straw to me in terms of like not seeing anyone that looked like me was the fact that when when I was thirst I was organising a nature camp because I wanted to hang out with other kids that were into nature, there wasn't one in the UK, and the final straw was.

The only people that signed up to this camp examination. We're like white teenage boys. And I was so tired of it by this point and I was like right I'm gonna go out and get I'm gonna bring them on this camp, I'm gonna make them come and make them have a good time. And that is exactly what I did. And one of the big things about camps was actually I was thinking about these issues for quite a long time and I really started to pick up that no one else was talking about them.

to really notice that there was an issue. really spurred me on in terms of really starting those conversations and making people think about these issues. I recorded that Walking the route that's been my daily association. All through the pandemic. You probably have your own walk that's helped you through. And I've been seeing a curiosity and an excitement about nature. That I don't think I've ever seen in And I've also been getting away.

So I thought I'd start up this podcast to bring together stories from people just starting out and from some of the best bird watchers in the field to help you get birding.

Who's better to start us off than Chris Packham? He's best known for presenting the BBC's Spring Watch, Autumn Watch and Winter Watch. He's vice president of the Bird Charity, the RSPB, and as the nation locked down against coronavirus last year. He and his stepdaughter, Megan McCubbin, decided to create a whole new community the self isolating Bird Club.

It's been a massive inspiration to me and thousands of others all over the country. And so I asked Chris if he'd join me in a digital bubble from his back garden in the new forest to tell me about why he set it up. Well I think back at the beginning of the year none of us really knew what was coming. And when we got to February and the beginning of March there was a lot of fear, a lot of stress and confusion.

And my mother always used to say, you've got to find good in the bad, and it was pretty clear that we were heading for a bad time. So my thought immediately was we've got to find something good about this. And that meant both personally and professionally, I suppose. And I found more Commonplace everyday things on my doorstep that I basically haven't seen in No, fifteen years and and I enjoyed them more than that.

And I and and I started to do a little bit of a Facebook live on uh woodland flowers which were growing in the gardens, wildlife garden. And it and expanded from there, people responded to these things which they too had just beyond their doorsteps and by that stage they were encountering them when they were taking their daily exercise. ac yn ymwneud â phobl sy'n mynd i'r cymdeithasol sy'n mynd i'r cymdeithasol sy'n mynd i'r cymdeithasol sy'n mynd i'r cymdeithasol sy'n mynd i'r cymdeithasol.

But what I think what they found was when they turned off their social media, when they turned off their televisions and they and they went out into their gardens if they were lucky enough to have one, or if they went out on those walks, they were

Encountering things that they'd seen before but never looked at before. You know, they were encountering things that they'd heard before but never listened to before. And there is a distinct difference between those things. You know, you can hear things but not listen to them. You know, they're background noise. But all of a sudden a lot of background noise disappeared, all those anthropogenic noises, the traffic, the air travel.

you know, birds singing, particularly in our cities because things were quieter and people connected with them and they've continued to do so. I think it's really h heartening in some ways. I think that's

You sort of touched on one of my favourite things about the Bird Club when you were talking then and it was just it's just the community of people that you've managed to build up where it's so strong and it's so positive. And I remember Um, looking over the Facebook page a few days ago and there was this post of a woman who had a relatively barren back yard, it was sort of a path and stones, and she'd put up some bird feeders and nothing was coming in, and so she turned to the bird club.

for advice and there were literally a torrent of thousands of comments of people trying to help to the point where Facebook had to shut off the comments. And I just thought that really summarized How much it's helping with people who are alone and I thought that that was just so positive. Yeah, it has been that and that was our mission really. We we were fortunate to be in that, you know, little little utopia.

Not that we weren't, you know, challenged by COVID, of course, we were constantly worrying about, you know, my father, uh Megan's grandparents, uh of course. I was separated from Charlotte, my partner, for the whole of that lockdown. So we were in the but our boat was sailing first.

I wanted to share that with people, so did Megs, and they responded and then started to share theirs. And I think the key to Self Isolating Bird Club and to all of those sorts of engagement is that it was never about rarity, it was never about exclusivity. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw.

that frequents our feeders in our garden and which I always get excited even though we see them a few times a week. And do you have any equivalence of those in your own garden? At the moment what's giving me the greatest joy Altyazı M.K. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd. I've seen up to 130 to 140 wood pigeons on that patch of sort of bumble about. I like their song.

there picking up acorns and sometimes when I come back round to the back of the house and they You know, white wing bars flashing as they rise up into the trees. I know we've scared them off of their acorn feast, but it it's quite a spectacle actually. I think that you know, I'm enjoying those wood pigeons as a simple every day. actually at the moment.

Yeah. And I think that's sort of helps to sum up one of my favourite things about birds really, which is they're not really like mammals or plants or insects. in that they're pretty much everywhere. Like wherever you look, there might not be grand numbers of them, but there's always going to be a bird or two, um, in every park, in every corner. And I think that's brilliant. And I think it's such

a fantastic way to get people interested because it's not difficult you just have to start looking and i think you're right i mean in the uk we don't have a great mammal well no that's not fair i was about to say we don't have a great mammal fauna we do we have some of the most beautiful mammals on My favourite. But when it comes to birds, you're you're absolutely right, you know, uh the sky's the limit.

al almost and we get a much greater diversity of a much broader range of sort of bird families which is interesting. And we of course we have all of those migrants that come and go as well, which Spice things are.

So birds are a good entry point to to to natural history, there's no doubt about that. And many of them are accessible. They come into the hearts of our cities, they come into our gardens, they'll if you train them they'll They'll feed a few centimetres away from your window and you can really get to grips with them as well.

It's a good entry, there's no question about that. But of course some of us use them as an entry and then never exit, um because birds are the best things in life. You know. Um I mean I you know, fur's okay, but feathers a lot better.

So, if you're feeling inspired to get birding, then on the 29th, 30th or 31st of January, there is the perfect thing to do to get to know your local bird. the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch. They get everyone to watch their garden, their local green space.

An hour and to just write down the birds that they see. And I think the best thing about the Big Garden Bird Watch is if you don't know your birds super well, if you're still getting into it, you're just getting started, it's a brilliant way of really getting to know all the birds that live in your when they're out and about. And I think especially at the moment where we are all spending so much time in our gardens if we have them. It's really nice to get to know the nature that lives there too.

So, if you are thinking about taking part in the Big Garden Bird Watch this year, BRSPB has great free resources online where they have pictures and labels. of all the birds that you're likely to see in your garden, which makes the task so much easier. I know Chris Packham does it every year, so I asked him for his top tips on how to do it. The the trick is quite simple. It f well for me it's hot chocolate and some vegan cake.

I love the big garden bird watch. I I like citizen science. I like engaging people, you know, with all levels of ability. on the same project where they can share their enthusiasm, their observations and it's meaningful and we know that over the years it's been running that you know, this citizen science project, which is enormously you know, big, has generated real data. It's measured real changes in the distribution and population trends and habits of our commoner birds.

And it's down to all the people that take an hour out of a weekend a year to look out of their lounge or kitchen window and count birds.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i

But in fact negative data is as important as positive data. We've got to remember that. So if you do the bird watch and you only see one blue tip, Um you might be mildly disappointed, but that data is important. You know the fact that you've only got one we need to know about. So it's not all about big totals and flash species like willow tits, it's about a lack of birds as much as an abundance of birds. I think that the most important thing that we can at this time. if they develop

Asking them to help us look after it in a time of desperate need, there's a far greater chance that they will. Do you think?

We know, we know for certain that more people are going out into nature than before. But do you think that the types of people coming out are diversifying? That we're seeing more people from the cities, more people from our minority ethnic communities? Well, I certainly hope that that's the case. When it comes to diversity,

uh you know, I think we've just got to work so much harder. I think our NGOs in particular have got to ymwneud â phobl sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n

Um I think we're making progress. I think because of people like yourself who are prepared to stand up and say what's what um and to ask them nicely to do more.

Mm. I I see positive changes, you know, people like yourself, people like yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw Rydyn ni'n amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg o amlwg

And sometimes you won't get them right because you may not have the breadth of experience. But do you know what? I'm happy with that. Because life is all about making mistakes and learning. more positive way. Absolutely agree. Um and in general on this podcast one of the main things we're trying to do is break down the barriers because I feel like a lot of people feel like birding's very intimidating, like you need to be an expert in every way.

And one of my favourite bits is we're asking people to give us a bird to watch every episode. So I was wondering if there's a single common bird in the UK that you could tell people to keep an eye out for, what would it be? It would be a song flash for me. at my previous house I was fortunate we had several pairs of songflush nesting around the the house Yeah. that really held my lockdown mood together. It was the song of those songs.

I I love the song of the song Frush. And they sang because there were three of them I presume, they sang from at the very beginning of the season right the way through. And I remember I always think of the window. And I was lying alongside the window. Yeah. Clarity. And that beautiful And at that point there was nothing else. Calling it was just this thrush. Whenever I wanted to I could hear the song of that. Well I think they're quite an attractive little bird.

beautiful creamy wash, yellowy creamy wash on their chest. So they're quite subtle. What boy do they make up? you know, for that with us. Transforms them into something. House. I've seen them in the garden here, they've I've seen them. Month or so one's gonna run. Add to the sound scope of my new space, because without them I don't

Mm. I love that as you speak we can hear both the birds singing and the dogs barking'cause I feel like that very much sums you up. There's masses of goldfinches out there. And there seems to be some sort of competition. A team of goldfinchers who are taking on all the rest, you know, the Great Tits, the Colt Hits, the Marsh Tits, the

You know, um the nuthatches and greater spots which are coming, uh it's that lot versus the goldfinches to see you can empty the feeder first. And as you can tell from the cacophony of that charm of goldfinches. Yeah. It was so nice talking to Chris and hearing the birds that he had in his garden. And as he said, the ones that you could hear the most clearly were goldfinch.

I truly think that goldfinches are one of the most beautiful common garden birds because they have that Gorgeous distinctive red face patch on them that can reach far back over their eye, and they have a lovely fan of gold in their wing, which they're named after, and beautiful smudges of.

and beige all over their body. And one of the best things about goldfinches is once you start putting out food, once you start getting them in, they're very reliably there in your garden or in your local green space. Like Chris said, I really do think song thrushes are one of the underrated beauties of the garden birds. They have this beautiful creamy breast with speckles of brown or

For it and a back that at first appears quite mousy but when you start looking closer you can see all the dappled details on their back. The most distinctive thing about them really. Isn't their lovely plumage, but their very striking voice? Which once you've heard them now on the show, hopefully you'll start noticing them singing all over the place.

Next up, I want you to meet someone with a voice to rival the song thrush. My name is Jason Singh and I am a composer, nature beatboxer and sound artist. Psst, psst, psst, psst. Jason beatboxes bird sounds, but he also creates compositions and soundworks inspired and informed by nature. And I asked him to explain how he made the track that you're about to hear from Tweet Music called Afternoon.

That was a commission that was for the National Trust, and they asked me to choose a National Trust site to create something that would be inspired by. So at the time I was living in Manchester and so Tatten Park was my closest um National Trust site so we went there and I spent a day just absorbing the sounds. And of those three pieces that were created 'Cause they were created for three different times of the day. My favourite is afternoon because it incorporates not just birds but also water.

And what's really lovely about that is that the whole of the album was made vocally and every instrument in it is made by the voice. Sometimes when people hear it they go, What are you even doing the sounds of the streams? So it makes me sort of go, Yeah man, I was able to accomplish that, you know. I'm quite proud of that piece of work. I run there mostly.

When I run past the tree, to me it feels like I'm running past a being. You know, it's a living thing. And the reason being as well is that at the beginning of the year I got COVID and it affected my breathing.

I noticed that and especially as a beatboxer for someone who relies on their on their breath and their voice, I couldn't you know I couldn't create anything for months. But the more time I spent in woods The more that I felt that I was getting stronger and that my breathing was coming back. conscious and very very aware that the oxygen from trees is helping me do what I do. So like now when I run past trees I'm like morning morning

I first came across you and I just didn't know very many creative projects that were using birds and nature in that way and I thought it was brilliant. And I was wondering how that actually started and how you got into doing all of that. I well I was born and raised in East London.

in tower hamlets and um where we lived, we lived in sort of a series of tower blocks um but which was surrounded by fields and we also had like community farms and we sort of grew up around this sort of almost like a fifty fifty urban environment but also surrounded by a lot of wildlife. and greenery. And so I've always been in tune to rhythms of things. Not necessarily just birds, but e anything that kind of, you know, creates a rhythm or generates a sound. So

I just got more and more inspired by the natural sounds that I was hearing. So I'd hear blackbirds for instance, and that was a very common bird around where we lived. I'd kind of just be inspired by those rhythms and melodies of a blackbird and try to just play things in a really fun way, not in a kind of, you know, musical or wow I'm you know, I've discovered this thing, but just just trying stuff out and just and just playing things. So I've I was always inspired by that.

Could you give me a few examples of these birds that you were mimicking? Yeah. I have to make sure that I'm all oiled up. Um and so that I can do this. So yeah, so some of the birds, things like sort of sparrows where you've got like And then what I would do I'd loop up loads of those to create a whole texture of sparrows. There was also the things I was doing with sort of um when I was doing stuff for the problems around blackbirds, so you'd get sound.

But then there's all sorts of kind of experimental things of blackbirds when they're flying off in or they're frightened and getting things like those kind of sounds. Um as as closely as I could I just mimicked them and then used technology to shape my voice. And that was really the beginning of

of um of actually incorporating bird song into cr you know creatively with with what I was doing. And then I sort of like when I was doing live shows um where I was incorporating that sort of more traditional beatboxing element of of pure beat. I'd just throw in bird sounds and young people loved it. It was just like, wow. This guy's doing bird song and he's dropping drum and bass and dubstepping.

you know, other things. I think the interesting thing is'cause you were talking about how you had this sort of fifty fifty urban nature environment when you're growing up. And I think that's such a good point that nature is everywhere and it doesn't matter if you live in a really urban area or in the middle of the countryside. And I think that that's really the message that we're all trying to spread at the moment.

Absolutely. I mean, personally, I've never really bought into the urban and the natural and the you know, it it's I think those kind of separations

sometimes people feel that maybe the park isn't for them or the forest isn't for them or the mountain or, you know, because they live in a particular place or in a particular, you know, situation. And I think it's paramount to kind of show that Rydyn ni'n gwneud yw'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r that may not be natural into our natural environments, you know.

Yeah, I think that's also the wider thing that I spend quite a lot of time thinking about and I think so many of the kids that I work with just so absolutely think of themselves as urban people, whatever that even means. And like I feel like that really contrasts with the fact that we're animals and we're human and we belong as part of nature too and

Um I'm doing that work at the moment to try and reconnect people with nature'cause I think it's so so important. And I think you're a brilliant example of how important nature can be. Oh, nice one. Thank you. Yeah, I think just that thing you were saying before, just in terms of like working with young people, like we did a project a few years ago in Town Hamlets actually, and I was invited back to my old secondary school to do a workshop with like teachers and young people.

And um we did a whole thing around bird song and dubstep and kind of taking rhythms from birds and applying them to beat. But what was really incredible was like the young people especially were like, I've heard these things before. I've heard this pattern before. I'm sure I've heard it before. And then when we sort of like worked out, okay, well this is actually taken from this bird.

People were like no way I can make bird song, I can do bird song and that whole just triggering that and you know and then for like over two weeks People going, Oh well I heard this today and I opened my window and I heard that today. Do you know what I mean? That that stuff was so powerful because it wasn't like I have to turn on my phone or I had to go onto YouTube or I had to do such and such. It was literally, I just opened my door and I was inspired.

You know what I mean? And I think that is something very, very powerful. And it's sometimes we just need to reconnect with that. Like it's there but we don't know it. And yeah, I think that's the really powerful thing about about nature. We're gonna leave you with another piece by Jason Singh. This one from a project called Mystery Bird. Jason's going to be back in each episode of this series to introduce us to more. pass on creatively in their work.

So we'll both be back in two weeks with more stories and tips and the first of my reports on what I've been seeing in my local pack. Please subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. We'd love to see your photos, videos, and to hear about the birds that you've been seeing. We're on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at GetBirding Pod, and you'll find me on social media at BirdGirl UK.

I'm Myra's Craig, also known as Bird Girl, and this is a peanut and crumb production with 7 Trent Water and Swarovski Optic. Thank you for listening. You know, half of all men encounter sexual performance issues, and if you're a healthy guy under 40, whose body sometimes just doesn't do what you want it to do, there's an 85% chance it's psychological, not physical.

That's where Mojo comes in, the world's first AI sex and relationship therapist, combining 50 years of sexology research with proven therapy techniques. Ready to get your mojo back? Go to mojo.so slash podcast for your seven day free trip.