Is there anything better than the persistent, pervasive and diverse cacophony of the songs on early summer mornings? Not for this writer.
Sure, the bird-song concert does start really early and gets earlier as the sunrise does. It’s not really possible to roll over and go back to sleep once the show begins, usually well before 5 a.m.
If the birds don’t wake us, the sky will. Sleeping past 5:15 a.m. feels like a lie-about. But it’s not a hardship. It’s not onerous. It’s a gift and a fleeting one at that. I wait all year for the sky and the birds to awaken me, and I relish every day of this time of year.
I savor the bird song that drifts in my windows, in particular the crystalline song of the Common Yellowthroat that local birder Pat Folsom helped me identify when it showed up for the first time last year.
This bird sleeps in a little later than the ones that start their days around 4:41 a.m. near our house. This Common Yellowthroat is located some distance from the house, but its song is so clear and beautiful that it stops me in my tracks over and over and over again as I drink coffee and sort through emails and start calling people, gathering this week’s news. If you don’t know this bird’s song, here is a link: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Yellowthroat/sounds
It's well worth the listen. But your computer or device won’t be quite as spectacular as listening live.
And when, in the evenings, the twilight lingers, I hear the owls calling and listening to their conversations echoed in the bowl of the woods around me, often until late at night.
It makes me appreciate the rural environment where I live, and the extreme morning quietude that brings that first bird call to my ears and allows the owls to wake me up at midnight. It makes me appreciate this particular revolution around the sun and the approach of the summer solstice. What a way to wake up.
What a gift from the universe.
