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.

Dreaming and perceiving

The scarlet tanager is an otherworldly bird. "Scarlet" is far too tepid a word to describe the male's plumage. You can stare as long as you like at him, but your mind still flails trying to decide how to perceive the hue, how to categorize it. It is a color rare anywhere, in nature or the manufactured world. Only having seen scarlet tanagers in birding books, it was a dream of mine to see one in real life. I don't think they're all that rare, but rather hard to spot because they are a bit secretive up there in the foliage.

It seems implausible that such an outlandishly tropical-looking animal would ever exist here, even in the summer . . . but they do wise up in winter and go to South America.

The other night, a scarlet tanager came to me in a dream, joining a gaggle of the fantasy birds that occasionally rise up from my unconscious in my sleep. Next morning, I was in a small patch of oaks and pines, looking for birds. I was with an uncannily intuitive birder who, having no idea about my dream, mentioned what joy it would be to find a scarlet tanager here. Thirty seconds or so later, a bird gave a beautiful call. And there he was, a male scarlet tanager, in all his vermilion glory. I couldn't even call myself a novice birdwatcher at that point: I was just an awestruck person who happened to have a pair of binoculars in my hands.

On an ordinary day, spotting birds involves exercising facets of human perception that we often don't have a chance to use in modern life: judging depth, distance, speed, height, subtle markings, minute color variations and patterns, the way that sound travels, the optical effects and illusions different types of light create. We have a vast array of talents for looking and hearing; this, though, was perception of a whole other order. Unconscious perceptiveness. There must be so much we know without even realizing that we do.


I wish I took the picture on this blog posting. Instead, I searched the net and found this spectacular one. But despite some digging, I couldn't find out who took it so I could ask permission. Whoever you are, it's a beautiful picture, and I hope you don't mind that I used it.