The Birds are Speaking To Us
A weird but true story from Tucson
This is a completely true story.
I’m spending a chunk of this year on the road interviewing people about birds for my forthcoming book on state birds. When I’m interviewing people out in the field, meaning that we’re walking and talking, I record our interview with my phone so I don’t have to take notes.
Then, when I get back to the hotel each night, I upload those recordings to Evernote, the software I use to keep track of all my research. Evernote has a shiny new feature that will transcribe the audio recording into a text file with a quite impressive level of accuracy. Just for the sake of finishing the task, I’ll usually generate the transcription right then, add a few notes and details of my own, and call that a solid day’s work.
But when I was in Tucson, something strange happened.
I’d been traipsing about in the desert with a local bird expert to talk about, and hopefully see, Arizona’s state bird, the cactus wren. We spent about an hour in a regional park where cactus wrens and lots of other birds tend to hang out. I didn’t record for the entire hour—I just sort of hit record now and then when our wide-ranging conversation turned back to the subject I was there to interview him about. As a result, I had about six shorter recordings on my phone to download.
The transcription feature worked beautifully for all of them except one. For whatever reason, the transcript for this one recording kept coming out in Japanese.
This was frustrating, but not unheard of: I searched around on Evernote’s support pages and found plenty of reports of audio transcriptions coming out in other languages, most notably Welsh. This seemed to be caused by some glitch in the language settings, but whether those settings were in Evernote, on my computer, on my phone, in my browser, in the voice recorder app—who knows? I spent a frustrating hour searching all of them and finding nothing amiss.
Finally, it occurred to me to actually listen to the recording to find out if it was in any way different from the others.
Reader, there was nothing on the recording. I had just hit record accidentally while we were walking around in silence, looking at birds.
All you could hear was the crunch of our footsteps and lots of birdsong.
That’s when I realized: The computer thinks the birds are speaking Japanese.
It took a minute for that to really sink in. I looked at the transcript again, a jumble of unrecognizable Japanese characters, and saw a pattern. It seemed to be transcribing the same couple of lines, over and over again.
What did the computer think the birds were saying?
So…I copied the Japanese text into Google translate and found out.
Apparently the birds were saying this, over and over again:
There is nothing more I could possibly add to this story.
The End.
Movie: Mickey 17
If you’re a fan of Bong Joon Ho’s film PARASITE, or if you are a fan of Robert Pattison or Mark Ruffalo, or if you think you’d enjoy an oddball sci-fi space thriller that is weirdly prescient (but in a good way) about the moment we’re in right now, even though filming wrapped three years ago, or if the trailer just looks good to you, then by all means go to the theater and buy some popcorn and watch Mickey 17. I’m not saying this movie is for everyone, but I am saying that I worry about a world in which a director of Bong Joon Ho’s creativity, dark humor, and social commentary can’t turn out a profitable movie after having just won almost every single Oscar. It’s up to us to keep some semblance of an interesting culture alive, and we do that by buying tickets and showing up.
Also, one of the joys of keeping a visual diary: I hadn’t realized, until I tried in a very casual and haphazard way to copy the typeface from the movie poster, that the designer had very cleverly fractured the letters in two, just like what happened to Mickey. Movie poster designer, I see you.
Supporters are drawing the world around them
Whether you want to keep a visual diary, be the artist-in-residence of your own life, fill a sketchbook with your travels, or record strange doings among the birds, we are into it! For just a few bucks a month, you’ll have access to an extensive archive of art tutorials and encouragement, and a new one every week. Join us!
Seattle, Columbus, LA—I’m heading your way!
Seattle! I’ll be in Tacoma on April 16 (tickets here) and at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island April 17. Tickets available right here.
Columbus, OH! I’m coming to see you at the Bexley Public Library on April 23. Get your tickets here.
Los Angeles! I’ll be speaking at the Southern California Horticultural Society on May 9. Tickets available right here.
The Bit at the End
Order signed copies of my new book, The Tree Collectors, from Broadway Books here in Portland.
Come find me on Instagram, or see paintings for sale- Right here
Order signed copies of some of my books from my husband’s bookstore, or order my books and many books I love at Bookshop.org
Take one of my online writing or art classes here
Leave a comment! I love to hear from you!
I’m going to be mulling over your profound birding experience forever.
Birds are magic. Thank you so much for this story. ❤️