Birds enter a room, made to the keeper’s
measure, and join a lived landscape of things.
Accommodating these little visitors, one day
to the next, the keeper observes the birds’
song, trying to decipher their desires.

During the light night-time hours a Greenfinch
makes its song of two totally different types:
one, as it circles a bouquet of flowers, an
unmusical, frizzling or wheezy 'dschrüüüüuh'
repeated with long pauses; the other, amplified
in the cavity of the bowl on which it has
alighted, a pleasing, Canary-type song
consisting of trills and fast runs of whistles
and twitters, ‘jüpp-jüpp-jüpp jürrrrrrrr
tut-tuy-tuy-tuy-tuy juit chipp-chipp-
chipp-chipp-chipp dürdürdürdür jürrrrrrr’.

The inquisitive House Sparrow favours a high
perch from which to court its environment,
delivering a long series of well-spaced chirps
slightly varied throughout, ‘chill chev chill
chelp chürp’, the voice unmistakable in its soft
melody and jaunty rhythm. The bird sings to the
room and its contents, watched and admired by
the keeper. It descends to pick at food laid out
for it on a ceramic stand, silently sips water
from its upper tier, before letting go a loud,
upcurled ‘jut’ and a rattling ‘cher’r’r’r’r’r’.