6/05/2008

Nightingales' thoughts from the past


New urban creatures
Back when Myriel suggested the topic of wilderness in the city, she gave an example that caught my attention. She said that Berlin is now the city of nightingales, with far more nightingales than anywhere on the countryside, because they find niches and there's no pesticides etc.
I think that there’s something so beautiful about it. I imagined all those animals that had enough of the countryside, and decided to go to the big city (we can guess why…). As urban humans, we can even identify with them.
Myriel suggested the safari donkey tour, we should look into that.
And as we observe them, sharing the same streets as we do – we should ask ourselves what do they gain from being urban creatures? Do they enjoy better social life? Independence? Gourmet food? Comfort? Can they become lazier now or does the competition make them tougher?

Nightingales as noise pollution sensors
So, that was when I started my little obsession with the nightingales. Apart from finding this lovely picture, I also found another interesting fact about those, city cool singing-all-night birds.
According to recent research, it was shown that the nightingales in cities sing in an even lauder voice in order to be heard over the urban background noise. So, basically, they are a bit like a noise sensor, which activates an alarm of powerful singing.
Don’t know what can we do with it, but that’s a nice thing, I guess.

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