I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. – Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1712
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. – Henry David Thoreau
Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. – Izaak Walton
Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers – a living prismatic gem…. it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description. – W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions
The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. – Eric Berne
God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest. – J.G. Holland
One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Seagulls… slim yachts of the element. – Robinson Jeffers
Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window, except that the birds might eat them. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. – Jacques Deval, Afin de vivre bel et bien
Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. – Author unknown, quoted in The Ladies Repository: A Monthly Periodical, Devoted t
“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.” – Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal entry
When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast. – John Burroughs
We like to praise birds for flying. But how much of it is actually flying, and how much of it is just sort of coasting from the previous flap? – Jack Handey, Deeper Thoughts: All New, All Crispy
The crow in his purity I believe is seen and heard only in the North. Before you reach the Potomac there is an infusion of a weaker element, the fish-crow, whose helpless feminine call contrasts strongly with the hearty masculine caw of the original Simon. – John Burroughs, “Winter Sunshine”
A flock of geese leave their lake and take wing, turning to poems in the sky. – Dr.SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com
Autumn birds speak cheerful poetry from their berry-stained beaks. – Terri Guillemets
Birds of a feather flock together and crap on your car. – Author Unknown
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away. – Henry Ward Beecher
The little owls call to each other with tremulous, quavering voices throughout the livelong night, as they sit in the creaking trees. – Theodore Roosevelt
