The noise level is always high at home. Everyone talks all the time. It’s lively, but also loud. So, during a rare moment of quiet, my 7-year-old son thought he was being helpful by telling his father his phone was ringing. But that was not the case; it was springtime. A bird outside had chosen that same quiet moment to chirp. In an age when our senses and minds are overwhelmed by digital technology, this confusion between a pale imitation of a bird and a real chirp ruffled my feathers. I decided not to let it end there and quickly called specialists in birdsong to learn how I could help my child hear and recognize this living soundscape.
Is there a right age to start identifying bird calls? Tanguy Loïs, a bioacoustician at BioPhonia, a consulting firm that monitors biodiversity, thinks not. He regularly takes his 5-year-old nephew for walks on Ile aux Cygnes, an island on the Seine in the heart of Paris. “He is already able to recognize the chaffinch’s song, which is very common and one of the first you can learn: a short phrase of a few notes in a few seconds, always the same,” he explained.
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