Hearing the trill or whistle of a bird while going about daily life is well known to boost people’s mood. But a new study suggests the psychological benefits of hearing birdsong are being threatened by traffic noise.

Researchers found that even low levels of traffic noise negatively affected the benefits to wellbeing that could otherwise be derived from listening to natural sounds.

Bird song has previously been associated with psychological benefits, including stress reduction and positive mood changes, while noise from traffic has been linked to both stress and annoyance.

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[–] 1 point 1 day ago

True.

I went for a walk in the city centre yesterday because I was early for work, and I stopped to admire that a lot of urban pigeons seemed to have congregated on a little amphitheatre with a tree next to it in a city square. Not in the tree, but on the ground by the tree.

This is interesting enough, because humans were milling about and couldn't sit there like they often do, but more interesting was that the little tree (ash maybe?) was absolutely brimming with the twittering of little birds. When there were no other trees about and loads of noisy vehicles and people going past.

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