THE influence of birds and birdsong in Scottish folklore and traditional music is to be explored in a special commission for Edinburgh Tradfest.
In Two For Joy, award-winning harpist and composer Ailie Robertson will celebrate how birds have given a sense of time and place to Scots through the ages.
Speaking to the Sunday National, Robertson pointed out that researchers have recently shown that of all natural sounds, bird calls were those most often cited as helping people recover from stress.
Yet, despite their importance for people’s mental health and for the environment, bird numbers are declining drastically in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, with some species losing as much as 95% of their numbers.
It is a crisis that Robertson wants to draw attention to in her concert tomorrow at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre.
“For centuries, birds and bird songs have inspired poets, artists and writers, particularly in Scotland, and I want to shed light on this as they are very important for our health and wellbeing, as well as an important indicator of the health of the world around us,” she said.
“A big study in 2022 by researchers at King’s College London proved a strong link between being able to hear and see birds and our mental health. It showed how the sight of birds and birdsong can lift the spirits and demonstrates how important it is that we preserve our bird species and people have access to birdsong.”
Although Robertson knew there were references to birds and birdsong in Scottish culture, even she was amazed at the amount she discovered when researching the festival commission.
“I was surprised at how many there were, especially the number of references to birds – In Rabbie Burns’s song Now Westlin Winds, there are references to nine different birds within the text, and there are many examples like that,” she said. “It goes to show how integral a part birds play in our understanding of place and time and Scottish landscape. That’s something I always find interesting when I travel because you hear different types of birdsong and see different birds, even if the soundscape you have on your own doorstep is so familiar you may not notice it all the time.”
Robertson said the hardest part of the commission was deciding which songs to include in the concert.
“In terms of repertoire, there is so much out there with many songs going back hundreds of years,” she said. “Birds and birdsong have influenced poets and songwriters for so long.”
Robertson started off with a list of around 50 songs she wanted to include but has whittled it down to songs and tunes about 16 different species of Scottish birds.
“It’s still a huge number but there is so much it could have been a five-hour concert,” she said. “There are lots of lovely Gaelic songs we found that imitate the sound of birds and one we are doing is a keening, a mourning song which imitates the call of the Red Shank.”
There are also Gaelic songs from St Kilda and an old Gaelic song about emigration that references the cuckoo’s luck in being able to come back again each year.
Contemporary songs feature, too, including one about a wren by Karine Polwart based on an old folk tale.
However, Robertson suspects fewer songs are written about birds and birdsong than in the past because they have become less significant markers of time and place.
“Our lives are just so much more urban – so unless you have a job outdoors, maybe you don’t see the connection between the different birds and the changing of the season and how much they signify for us,” she said.
“However, I think most people are still interested when they see the great birds of prey or a flock of geese flying overhead, or even just in experiencing the simple joy of watching birds at a feeder outside their window.”
She pointed out that during the Covid lockdowns when people were stuck at home, birds took on more importance and bird song could be heard more clearly because of the lack of traffic.
“They almost became our entertainment and we had the time to pay attention to them again because everything really slowed down.
“We often take them for granted but if we slow down and pay attention to them it is wonderful.”
Robertson added: “As we have more and more climate pressure, I hope it is something that people start to engage with more and realise it is so important to protect these birds because once they are lost, they are lost – it would be so sad not to have those different songs in the air any more.
“I hope the concert will encourage people to think more about bird life and the huge loss it would be if birds were no longer around.”
