Our relationship with other creatures is more than cultural and goes way back to the evolution of human nature Though the first human birdwatchers may have been acutely observant of bird behaviour because it announced approaching predators bad weather and the availability of food and also offered a supernatural link to the world of their dreams there is more to it When we ask why birds are so important to us we are also asking what it is to be us Flight song freedom  our fascination envy and emulation of the avian world is surely a measure of our own identity against that of the wildness of nature Some might dismiss these feelings as vestigial attachments useful to us in an earlier phase of our evolution irrelevant now But like the appendix and wisdom teeth theyre still very much part of us and losing them is traumatic