No cycling without birds. They chirp you on, laugh at you, tell you stories you never understand. Sparrows bicker from the hedges, complaining about you disturbing their daily business. Which is no business at all of course. Sparrows live in flocks, communities that care for each other. But humans always tend to see competition and fighting where there isn’t any. So maybe we get the life of birds all wrong because we think they are like us. But they aren’t.

Playfulness is a very bird-like attitude. Goldfinches always fly ahead of me while cycling down some minor road. They alight like twelve metres away, look at me, wave their tail and fly on another ten metres. And again, and again, before they wing over walls or into shrubbery or up some branch of a tree and stare delighted at me cycling past.

Around the next bend common redstarts watch me from the higher branches, politely keeping their distance, maybe wondering what bizarre business I am up to on my bicycle. Probably they tweet and tell each other about us humans, joke about our strange behaviour from a bird’s perspective. Redstarts definitely observe me, but don’t tend to get in the way as goldfinches do.

Today we cycled up to Barngates in the Lake District and the wondrous Drunken Duck. It’s another kind of bird and as you might guess quite a rare species. A waylaying bird for sure like some faerie that lures you into its circle where you keep cycling round and round for weeks, months or years while the world keeps turning on. But where you are is a never ending Krankenhaus Festival, where so many colourful birds and other creatures sing from the fell side.

But sitting outside that lovely pub at the crossroads somewhere between Ambleside and Coniston we watched the swallows winging and diving all around us, curving recklessly and turning in midair, flying elegently around buildings and trees. As the day was winding down they were talkative, calling and communicating to each other, excited about every detail, twittering endlessly and making up simple but captive sounds and tunes.

Music never stops. In October 2021 I cycled from Leeds to York one day to see British Sea Power at The Crescent. It was a golden and warm autumn day. I arrived at the venue quite early to catch Hector Gannet supporting that night. Only a few sounds and notes washed me deep into the North Sea. It was like a deep resonating noise from some far away sea creature in foreign oceans that was only a heartbeat away. I picked up their first album at the merch after their eponymous gig. Aaron their mastermind and singer gave me a RSPB pin of a Gannet. Never heard about that sea bird before he told me about it.

Last night hundreds of crows and jackdaws circled over Kirkby Stephen where we pitched up for the night. They made quite a racket in the dusk, cawed and croaked about their eventful day. It sounded like a crowded pub full of birds sharing gossip and news and of course directions of good feeding places. A murder of crows and jackdaws isn’t murderous at all, it’s brimming life full of jokes and songs. You only have to listen. You might not understand the meaning of all that commotion, talking and chatting. But you can feel the vibrant sound of another community that couldn’t be that different to ours. It’s all about sharing sounds and echos of sense.

Today we followed a bridleway along a beautiful and remote valley. Cycling was easy until we passed the last farm and the narrow road turned into a rough and steep track. We had to walk the bikes. It was a tough ascend, a hard scramble uphill, a tiresome hike the bike. But once up there a raven called and cawed its raucous song across the hills, its majestic wings sprawled in the wind above us. There is always some magic where birds are and it gets to you eventually if only you listen. Like you grow feathers and spread some wings yourself. A heavenly ascend from even the deepest misery. A life on a wing.

Christoph x