Hooting like an owl - easy peasy. Squawking like a parrot...a doddle. But the sounds some birds make are a little more complicated.
Enter Scarborough-based artist Adrian Riley who, since he was a kid, has been fascinated by birds and their songs.
'As a youngster one of my prized possessions was an old Observer Book of Birds. It had these lovely watercolour illustrations in it - it hooked me completely. Later, what really interested me was breaking down the sounds of the different bird calls phonetically in an attempt to translate them into English. I'd sit for ages saying sounds out loud, trying different pronunciations of this 'foreign' language.'
Fast forward 30+ years and news reached Adrian that RSPB Bempton Cliffs was looking to produce a piece of art to celebrate the opening of the new Seabird Centre. So he offered up an idea. He'd recently created an artwork for a festival in Leeds - a kind of bird box vending machine that issued little tickets printed with chaffinch bird song sounds. He called it the Acme "Tweet-o-Matic". Adrian felt he could take this a stage further at Bempton Cliffs by including more species.
The original concept was to have the song, along with flight patterns, etched into paving stones in a courtyard. But the timescale of the construction work prevented this option taking shape. An alternative was agreed after chatting with the team on the nature reserve about their desire to encourage visitors to appreciate the wide variety of species, both seabirds and land birds, across the site. What was settled on was on a series of individual metal panels with cut-out words. If possible, these would be placed in locations where you were most likely to hear the sound and spot the bird.
Adrian has also attempted to convey aspects of the sound in the way each word is written:
'Part of the challenge I set myself was to use typefaces that I felt communicated the sound. I considered a lot of different fonts - repeating the bird calls over and over to see if the shape of the letters reflected the shape of the spoken words. For example, a seabird's raucous call might be set in spiky, large lettering whereas an owl's hoot would be suited to something softer and more rounded. I also chose the panel colours just as carefully - many of these reference colours in the birds' plumage or beak.'
The reaction from the public has been very positive. Some visitors discover the signs by chance, others almost follow them like a trail. Either way, few people can resist attempting to make the sounds - some more successfully than others. And. like all art, it's a great talking point.