Tree Music

Black-throated "Green" Warbler
(Pic by Dan  Pancamo)

About a month ago, there was a profusion of birds in my favorite park. There were four Scarlet Tanagers hanging around on their way to wherever they go to nest. There was a Bay-breasted Warbler, a seemingly bottomless supply of Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black-and-White Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, even a Yellow-breasted Chat. There were so many Black-throated Yellow Warblers (I know they're Black-throated Greens, but really...green?) doing their little song that reminds me of when I had to do the cha cha at ballroom dancing classes at school when I was 12 -- cha-cha, cha-cha-cha. I imagined them up in the tree tops dancing with little maracas. (I had just been to see Rio that week.) And there were vireos.

Most of the migrant songbirds blew through, stopping for just a day or two to refuel on the bugs in the park. But two Red-eyed Vireos have stayed. They sing nonstop. Really, nonstop. This is one of them, doing a duet with a train in the distance.



Every morning I would hear them -- one at one end of the park, another at the other end. "Hello...How are you? I'm fine...what're doin'?" over and over and over. I assumed they just sung like this in the morning. So I went in at lunchtime. "I don't know...How are you? I'm fine...what're doin'?" Still going. I went mid-morning. Afternoon another day. Early evening the next. Still going. When do they find time to eat? Exactly how many bugs do you have to eat to fuel all that singing and hopping along branches? Please tell me they don't do it at night.

At first it was a little maddening that I could hear this beautiful music yet so rarely see them. I would be standing under their trees and see just this --

Singing leaves!

Today was a day of nonstop thunderstorms and torrential rain, one cell rolling in after another, and this evening as the sun was setting and the thunder was still rumbling in the distance I was in the park for five minutes, and all I could hear was a Red-winged Blackbird. Part of me went "Ha ha! See, you can't sing all the time!" Most of me went "Oh. You can't sing all the time." Then just as I was about to leave, there it was, ringing out "Hello, how are you..." Truly, nothing stops these birds.

The sound is so loud and clear when I stand beneath one of their trees. I crane my neck. Surely the bird must be right there...no, just leaves. I do catch a glimpse of them every now and then, but mostly what I have come to love is the moment when I walk through the park entrance, hit the trail, and yes, they are still there, calling their hearts out.

In praise of the ordinary

Planning is overrated. I had plans to go out this weekend with my new little audio recorder to try to capture the sound of spring: the first Red-winged Blackbird that has returned to Milford harbor and has been down there in the reeds calling, calling, calling. He'd come back to crystal blue skies and gradually warming days, and his calls had filled me with such joy because they mean change and growth and color will be here any day now.

So of course when I planned to go out and try to record him, we were slammed with a wall of weather: 36 hours of unrelenting rain and brutal gales that left a few people dead, their cars crushed by trees. I would give you a listen to what the tempest sounded like from my porch, except that I can't get this damn thing to upload the file. Imagine the inside of Mawson's hut in Antarctica.

I finally ventured out this afternoon when it had calmed, but all the birds had very wisely cleared out. Except a pair of Mallards--there's always a pair of Mallards. Oh, and a shrubful of House Sparrows--there'll be House Sparrows at Armageddon.

Bored after being cooped up so long, I went for a drive to West Haven--and there they were, the birds. (Suddenly the name of the place made sense.) It wasn't the kind of birding that takes your breath away because you see something rare. It was just all the usual suspects there, as far as I could tell.

Except for a funny-looking goose. My point-and-shoot camera doesn't do this lovely goose justice. It was just majestic looking, to my eye. I watched it for ages, mesmerized by the soft caramel-colored patterns on its neck, the white blush on its face and rings around its eyes. This was no goose I had seen before . . . but no, it wasn't some rare find. It was a hybrid. A mishmash. A mixture of a Canada goose (they mostly inspire a yawn or a curse but little else) and just a plain old domestic goose, I'm guessing.

But to me it was just gorgeous, as astounding as any rare or noteworthy goose I might have hoped to find with my binoculars. Just the product of ordinary goose genes. Just an ordinary goose. Long live the ordinary!