From a letter to an old friend:
So, you asked a wonderful question, which was whether one of the reasons I care so much for birds was their mating rituals. And the answer is, yes, that is absolutely one of the things I like the most about birds. But it's (of course) not just that. The more I thought about it, the more I realized, it's two things:
1. Birds are the most visible creatures in the world. Because they fly (instead of scurrying around under leaves, for example) you can see them living their lives.
2. Birds are the most beautiful creatures in the world. They just are.
Birds are lovely beyond all description. They can fly! And with only a few exceptions, it's beautiful to watch them do it. In other words, it is not just the courtship rituals, it's everything. We can see hawks fall in love, which is a wonder, but we can also see them eat, and idle, and fight, and learn. One day near Chicago, I watched two hawks teach their juvenile offspring how to fly, and it was marvelous. They circled as far up in the air as you could see with the naked eye, and then they spun down again so close you could see their eye turn to look at you from fifty feet in the air.
Other courtships? One night I heard nighthawks above the building where we lived wheel down into dives that they broke just at the rooftop, and the buzz in their wings made a sound like a kid drawing his breath in to make a sound like a motorcycle. I've watched woodcocks go straight up into the moon and then tumble down, making a strange whistling sound that is jumbly and lovely, and you can barely see them unless the moon is full.
As for eating, I saw an eagle one-foot a fish out of a Nebraska lake, and it was stunning. Ospreys are more likely to smash into the water and come out with something. I saw a Shrike-Tit in Australia masticate a tree branch to get at what it wanted. In Australia I saw something like 40 or 50 species of birds -- and not a single mammal outside a zoo, the ENTIRE TRIP. I heard some on a rooftop one night, but never did see one.
So, the thing about birds, is that they display perfect beauty. They fly. They are grace incarnate, whatever that means to humans, inedible (at least now -- practically anything was considered edible 200 years ago) and lovely beyond all reach. We cannot be like them. We do not think like them; we do not look like them; we lack feathers and colors and the lovely voices they use to add a tonal fabric to our days outdoors like nothing else in the world.
When I was in Hyde Park, in London, about two years ago, I heard a brown creeper in the morning, and I knew what I heard the instant it called, a reedy soft whisper I had never heard in England. There is nothing like birds but birds. They are the most beautiful of the creatures on the earth. They will outlive me and you, and they predated us, and they will never know their own beauty. They just are, simply, perfect.