Catherine Clover talks with the birds. At least she tries to. She still doesn’t know what they’re saying. “I don’t know if I’ve got any closer to what’s going on,“ she explains. “It’s not frustrating, I guess I’m more intrigued. They’ve not suffered with humans but learnt to live alongside and benefit from us. There are attributes of their behaviour that show they think a bit like we do.“

The Melbourne-based sound-artist is fascinated by our isle’s most recognisable birds: urban crows and seagulls. Her installation Birdbrain, at SoundFjord, explores our sometimes tricky relationship with them.

“While we admire these birds’ abilities for survival, their intelligence and ingenuity,“ says Catherine, “I think we also feel threatened by the very attributes that we share with them.

“What are they thinking?“

The installation comes in the form of a mock field guide and features recordings, spoken and written texts and a loop of Catherine’s fellow artists mimicking their winged muses.

She’s the first to admit, it’s a little ’whacky’: “Although it’s grounded in particular disciplines it could be regarded as whacky, which is fine. I don’t want it to be too heavy for people if they don’t want it to be.“

Catherine, who studied fine art painting at what is now the University of East London, became enthralled with animal sound six years ago.

“I literally just started listening to the world around me,“ she explains. “In Melbourne I was first taken by the cicadas and crickets, which drew me in with their mechanical sounds.“

Then came an incident with a crow.

"There was one bird I was listening to. It made a noise that sounded like a ’yeah’. I looked up and it looked down at me. It was quite a stare – I felt very much focused on.“

Her past works include Billing and Cooing, Pigeon Post, Calling the Birds and Coroocoo.

“I have tried to mimic and talk back to them,“ admits Catherine, “but only when there’s not many people about so they don’t think I’m nutty!“

Although it has been around for a number of decades, sound art has risen to prominence in recent years, helped in no small part by Susan Philipsz’s 2010 Turner Prize win for her sound work Lowlands.

Catherine hopes her installation will expose even more people to the fledgling field. Who knows, you too could soon be cooing about it.

“I’m hoping people will be prompted to listen a bit more,“ says Catherine. “I used to listen to a lot of music when I was younger – I don’t anymore.

“There’s always interesting sounds even in a quite a domestic situation. Even in silence you don’t hear nothing – you can hear your blood pumping and your lungs breathing.

“I’m much more attuned to the sounds around me. Once you’ve started listening, you can’t stop.“

Birdbrain is at SoundFjord, Studio 28, Lawrence Road, Tottenham until July 30. Open Wednesday to Saturday, noon to 6pm. Details: 020 8800 3024