The hidden benefits of birdsong
Imagine you’re walking across rolling hills that stretch for miles, with warm sunshine and the chirping of birds all around.
This peaceful and serene scene is an increasingly rare one in the modern world.
Our natural soundscapes are falling silent as bird populations decline. Humans are interacting less with nature, in what is sometimes referred to as an “extinction of experience”. This has been linked to deteriorating public health and wellbeing.
Birds are often colourful and their song provides the soundtrack to our outdoor activities. Listening to a dawn chorus should be like listening to a full orchestra, with strings, woodwind, brass and percussion impressing with their volume and complexity. But if the only ones who turn up are the bass drum and a trumpeter, the music would be underwhelming, if not boring.
Our study explores the link between birdsong and people, specifically on English vineyards, as viticulture is the UK’s fastest growing agricultural industry. It is also strongly embedded in tourism through vineyard tours and wine-tasting events.
We surveyed bird communities on 21 vineyards and measured the characteristics of their soundscapes using acoustic indices, which are metrics that capture complexity and volume of sound. Our results showed that vineyards with more bird species had louder and more complex soundscapes.
This is not surprising: a vineyard with robins, blackbirds, swifts, finches and tits is expected to sound more acoustically diverse and loud than a vineyard with just a few pigeons, crows and pheasants.
But does the silencing of our soundscapes matter to us? The short answer is yes. There is growing evidence about the health benefits of spending time in nature, including reducing risks of heart disease, diabetes and anxiety. Yet while the general benefits of being outside in nature may seem intuitive, the contributions of natural sounds to this are less understood.
So as part of our research, we explored the experience of 186 wine-tour participants across three vineyards with varying soundscapes. We also enhanced some vineyard soundscapes with hidden speakers, which played the songs of five additional bird species. This was designed to see how participants’ engagement with nature would be affected by increasing the diversity of birds and songs, as well as the overall volume.
Surprising soundscapes
The results were fascinating. Paul Harrison, the manager at Saffron Grange, a vineyard in Essex, summarised: “What was surprising was the significant impact that birdsong has on people.”
Visitors who experienced louder and more complex sounds – whether on vineyards with naturally richer soundscapes or on those we had enhanced – reported that they had enjoyed the sounds more. They also felt more connected to nature and more satisfied with their tour. With richer soundscapes, they felt more mindful and positive during the tours, reporting that they felt freer from work, routine and responsibility. They said they felt “engrossed by the sounds” and found them “appealing”.
We harness nature’s benefits subconsciously, which means, as Harrison pointed out, that it’s easy to take them for granted: “We all benefit from the soundscape of the vineyard daily and maybe when it is so frequent we don’t fully realise how that positively impacts wellbeing compared to other work settings.”
Our study is a clear demonstration of the direct effect that birdsong has on our wellbeing. It shows that bird conservation could simultaneously enhance our experience of spending time in nature and elicit positive emotions.
The world we experience today is unlike what our grandparents experienced. We are increasingly disconnected from nature, and nature’s benefits on our wellbeing are lessening as a result. What is most concerning is that these changes are accepted as the new norm, a concept termed “shifting baseline syndrome”.
We hope our findings lead to more people thinking like Harrison, who concluded:
It goes to show how important nature is for humanity on so many levels and hopefully a study like this supports more investment and help in retaining as well as improving our natural soundscapes.
Our study presents a strong, albeit selfish, argument for protecting natural soundscapes. We showed that even an hour’s exposure to diverse and loud birdsong can lead to feelings of optimism and relaxation. So, we hope businesses and people will be inspired to invest in conservation and promote nature engagement in creative settings, such as workplace courtyards or restaurants with outdoor seating.
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Natalia Zielonka received funding from The UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (grant code BB/M011216/1).
Simon Butler receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).