![]() At the same time, let us not allow otherness to bar the door to kinship, curiosity, and imagination. The same sound vibration is received and understood in profoundly different ways by birds and mammals.Īs we listen and seek to connect, we should remember and honor this difference. Or so it seems from the small number of studies that have sought to understand hearing from the birds’ perspective. They attend not so much to relative pitches, but to the overall shape of the sound, the nuances among layers of sound frequencies. Birds are sensitive to rapid sonic changes and are tightly focused on the mid-registers. Avian brains and bodies also run several degrees warmer than mammals, stoking chemical reactions and thus speeding nerves.Īll this manifests in different perceptions of sound. The folds and layers of the forebrain have different geometries, hierarchically layered in mammals and clustered into nodes in birds. Neurons are crammed into bird crania, giving their small brains as many nerve cells as much larger primates. Bird and mammal hearing, then, is grounded in two different architectures, more linear and direct in birds, segmented and coiled in mammals.īird and mammal brains also took divergent evolutionary tracks. Their descendants, birds and mammals, each independently evolved ears adapted to air. Our common ancestors, amphibian-like creatures of swampy Paleozoic forests, had ears adapted to water. For at least 300 million years, mammals and birds have been on separate evolutionary paths. In their modulations of pitch, amplitude, and timbre we hear the vitality of their blood, muscle, and nerve.īut we do not hear as they do. Birds are quick-fingered jewelers of air, crafting dozens of ornamented gems every second. This sound is sculpted by precise tugs and tweaks from muscle and bone, on a timescale of milliseconds. As the exhale flows through, the syrinx’s lips squeeze and membranes tremble, imparting song to air. The muscles are among the fastest known, capable of contracting up to 200 times per second. Into this tiny space are interwoven a dozen rings of bone and two dozen muscles, all connected to membranes and lips of soft flesh. This syrinx is only the size of a lentil or bean. ![]() There, at the confluence of windpipes, sitting directly over the heart, sits a sound-making organ of unique and marvelous design. Song spills from open beaks, flowing from the birds’ chests. We’ve made ourselves a lonely place, so quiet. We wall them out with bricks that keep us indoors, inside self-made worlds, and with presuppositions, closely guarded vaults of the mind. Our inattention further muffles their language. Birds inhabit flesh profoundly different from our own. But it is hard to discern what is meant in this speech of our winged cousins. ![]() We are drawn across boundaries into other places, other times. In the voices of birds, we hear augury, portent, prophesy. News of the human world was carried into the divine ear by the speech of Norse Odin’s ravens and the bluebirds of the Taoist Queen of the West. Job exhorts us to hear the wisdom of the fowls of the air. In the Qur’an, Solomon received a bounty and blessing when he was given the language of birds. Haskell enters the intricate and generative soundscape of the world of birds, inviting us to join in a practice of cross-species listening as a bridge to kinship.įor millennia, the language of birds has called us to cross divides. We strive to be the hub of your families resources with ongoing communication at all times. The financial experience we have is in ALL Investments, Insurance, Real Estate, Taxes, Health Plans, Retirement plans, Businesses, succession planning, estate planning, & Long Term Care planning. We work towards making it easier for you to handle all of your life's necessities. Good changes Happen, When you are ready to resume taking on all of your responsibilities you were doing before, we celebrate this. Careful consideration and constant monitoring is a continuing commitment. We will require several in person meetings to learn about you, and how you want everything handled. We welcome you to hand over the reins for us to handle everything, all at once, it's what we do. You can be as specific as to what you need and only have us as a Fiduciary in the area you need. We are glad to be your Advanced healthcare directive, or any form of a limited power of attorney under your trust, and Living will. We look forward to learning from them as much as possible.Our 40 years experience and our resources are yours to benefit by.We can serve you as an Agent, an Advocate, a Fiduciary under a power of attorney, or as your Trustee. A Licensed Professional Fiduciary is never opposed to you keeping your current relationship with your trusted advisors. A Fiduciary holds the highest degree of trust you can achieve.
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