In these days of Covid lockdowns and restricted movement, the simple pleasure of a stroll in nature with its symphony of birdsong has been extolled by a songster of a different kind, former Beatle Paul McCartney.
The musician said in an interview how birds especially had been an important part of his life, inspiring many of his songs, including his mega-hit Blackbird.
McCartney found solace and escape in the woods when he was growing up in the urban jungle of industrial Britain just after World War Two.
“When I was a kid I lived in a very urban situation on the edge of Liverpool but then if I took a walk for a mile or two, I could be in deep woods and countryside,’’ he said. “It was just like you fell off the edge of Liverpool, and I would see the most beautiful birdlife and nature. So I’ve always loved that. I saw it as an escape.”
He told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe he had carried this interest all his life.
“This idea you can escape in various ways from the normal humdrum life that you might be leading. That idea growing up was important. My humdrum life then was school, homework, walk. See the birds. Yes!”
“I’ve always had a deep love of that and I still feel strongly about it.”
McCartney said the image of the blackbirds he saw on his walks as a child presented a perfect metaphor for the plight of segregated African-Americans in the United States in the 1960s.
“Blackbird and a bunch of my other stuff was about freedom and escape,” he said. It built from his earliest recollections of birds and the idea of liberty and flight.
Decades after Paul McCartney discovered wildlife on his own doorstep, the joys of an escape to the country are being appreciated as never before by the public at large.
The ongoing Covid pandemic, and its lockdowns in various guises, have encouraged unprecedented numbers of people to look anew at the green spaces that surround them and the often overlooked world of nature close at hand.
Foremost in this growing interest in the fauna and flora of city and suburb are birds, simply because they are always in sight and always heard. They are our window on the great world of nature.
Mental health has become an issue during the pandemic, with lockdowns and social isolation taking a toll on people’s wellbeing.
Studies across the world are reinforcing long- held theories that exposure to not just trees and green spaces but wildlife has positive mental health benefits.
Doctors in Scotland are even recommending a walk in a park or in the countryside for good physical and mental health.
And as for the 79-year-old McCartney: birds are still giving his songs “wings”, the name of the band he formed after the break-up of the Beatles.