Here’s something I’ve learned recently: herons are tricky birds to classify.
I understand that classifying birds isn’t something that 99.8% of people think about on a regular basis, but in taxonomy circles it’s a bit of a source of drama. What I find especially confusing is that some herons aren’t even herons; they’re egrets. Or bitterns.
According to the New World Encyclopedia:
“The classification of the individual heron/egret species is fraught with difficulty, and there is still no clear consensus about the correct placement of many species into either of two of the major genera, Ardea and Egretta. Similarly, the relationship of the genera in the family is not completely resolved. For example, the boat-billed heron is sometimes classified as a heron, and sometimes it given its own family Cochlearidae; nowadays, it is usually retained in the Ardeidae.”
newworldencyclopedia.org
Unresolved genera relationships! No clear consensus! Intense stuff, right?
No matter what you call them, if you’ve ever seen one take off – especially one that you didn’t know was there – you know that they are pretty majestic creatures. When walking, they’re about as gracious as a gangly teenager who hasn’t grown into their limbs yet…but when they get up in the air it’s a sight for sore ears.
British musician and producer Bibio makes music which, like the noble heron, is tricky to classify. Some of his work is ambient, some is lo-fi hip hop, some is soul…you might say that trying to slot Bibio into a genre is “fraught with difficulty.”
Of course, dividing music into genres is probably an even more hopeless endeavor than classifying animals. With Bibio, what matters is that when his songs hit their stride, when they, like the heron, take off…it’s a sound for sore ears.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The acoustic guitar could be straight off a 1960s folk album.
2. The fiddle that comes in after a minute gives the song a nearly Irish feel.
3. While that fiddle zips around overhead, a lower string part quietly steps with gangly strides down below, like a heron. Or an egret. Or a bittern.
Recommended listening activity:
Standing in shin-deep water.