Urban Birds

It was clear by half-time, when we left our local beer garden, that Germany would beat Australia. A friend of ours who was returning to Albania for his summer vacation had left his big flat screen high-def TV in our keeping because he was worried about thieves. Fleeing the unseasonable chill in the air, we invited our friends home.

We stopped at the Turkish bakery where they were selling Italian ice cream and ebullient with World Cup fever. Every small business in our Kiez was still open—with families and neighbors gathered around screens of all sizes, the old huddled in blankets and the children with Germany's red, black and yellow painted on their faces. Even the dogs were decked out in the tricolors. Sometimes living in the city drives me crazy, but at times like these I can't imagine returning to the isolating, indifference of life in my native habitat—suburban California, and I think I'm slowly adapting.

After the game, my husband and the guys retired to the kitchen with a bottle and their tobacco, and I fell asleep in front of the new mesmerizing god that dominates the bedroom. At dawn we were aroused by a racket on the pitch of the giant chestnut tree outside our window. Crows were challenging the home team of magpies. Scientists from the Netherlands and the U.K. have published studies revealing that some species of city birds are changing their songs to adapt to the rise of noise pollution from traffic, trains and planes. The researchers said birds have developed shorter, more varied, higher frequency sounds to make themselves heard. Male birds use their song to mark territory and attract mates but “If their song is not heard by the targeted audience they have to physically fight off intruders, and attracting females may be difficult.”