Whistling Birdsong with Andrew Bird

BirdNote® 
Whistling Birdsong with Andrew Bird 
Written by Mark Bramhill

This is BirdNote.

Musician Andrew Bird is known as a songwriter, violinist, and, like his namesake, a virtuoso whistler. When he was about six, he learned to whistle from his grandmother.

Andrew Bird: This is when I was doing Suzuki violin and you have your like repertoire that you repeat and play it over and over and over and over again. So there's those neural pathways being formed. So when I wasn't playing the violin, I was usually whistling the repertoire, whether it was a folk song or Bach or Mozart. And, yeah, the only time I wasn't whistling was when I was eating or sleeping, I guess.

Growing up, Andrew spent lots of time in natural areas rich with bird life.

Andrew Bird: My mom tells it that I would go out there age six and try to imitate or communicate with the birds. Um, my mom tends to embellish her stories quite a bit. So I don't know. It sounds a little too cute to me, but apparently that's what happened.

Embellished or not, when Andrew was asked in 2020 to contribute to a musical anthology about birdsong, he found himself reaching for these same skills. He researched recordings of birds that have gone extinct, and was struck by the story of the Kaua‘i ‘O‘o.

        [Kaua‘i ‘O‘o song]

Andrew Bird: They captured the song of the last male of the species, like a mating call, but obviously falling on deaf ears because there were no females left. What I picked up from it was like this [whistles song of Kaua‘i ‘O‘o] Which, listening back to it is like, it's vaguely like that. I wasn't meticulous about it. And so I was just whistling that mixed with the Mourning Dove… [whistles Mourning Dove song] …kind of as the bed underneath. And then I would go [whistles song of Kaua‘i ‘O‘o] over the top of this groove.

        [🎵Rare Birds by Andrew Bird]

By whistling melodies of birds both living and extinct, mixed with this violin groove, Andrew creates a kind of otherworldly natural soundscape in his song, Rare Birds.

Andrew Bird: And I don't know, there's something very joyous about that. It's not in time. And it's just kind of like a call from the forest canopy, you know? And somehow it really works.

        [🎵Rare Birds by Andrew Bird]

For BirdNote, I’m Mark Bramhill.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Kaua‘i ‘O‘o ML228099 recorded by Jim Jacobi.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote July 2025
Narrator: Mark Bramhill

ID# BirdA-01-2025-7-15    BirdA-01