Bird Songs

One of the things about our country walks is the changes that light makes on the paths. The view changes every time we go out. Sometimes overcast and gray-blue, sometimes sunlight streaming through the woods and lighting up places you've never noticed before.

The sound of birds' songs also changes. It's the eeriest thing to go for a walk in the woods and not hear one single chirp. But it happens often. All is silent. It's one for the est files.

Other times it's quiet, but not silent. You might run into a wren trying to throw us off of the path to her nest; or another bird, invisible, up in the trees that calls out as if it was his particular job to notify nature that we are present.

Sometimes there is so much bird song that it's like a symphony of different instruments tuning up. I think the first noise is the scree of an eagle or a hawk leaving their nest and crossing the fields to a different hunting ground. Then a few little birds pipe up. Then it's as if every bird realizes the threat of being eaten by a raptor is gone for a while and they join in like the munchkins singing, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead."

There are some bird songs that I've come to recognize - like that pileated woodpecker, who is around quite often now. And the chip of chickadees is familiar. I think my favorite is still the robin's voice. There's a flock of them now down at the thicket where our driveway begins. And there's lots of geese and ducks migrating and making noise you can hear long before their vee-shape flight pattern appears.

And then there's those mystery birds that I have gotten used to hearing, but never identified. There is The Auk, a huge bird that screams out a loud "auk, auk" as it flies over the woods. And there's The Telephone Birdwho lives in the thicket and sounds so much like a telephone ringing that I've run to answer my own phone forgetting he's around. There's a bird that "meows" just like a kitten. I've never seen him. I have seen in some bird books the calls are sounded out - but that's such an individual thing that I have to hear them first, before I can read them.

On another note (pun intended)today my head song has been Woody Guthrie's "Git Along Little Doggies".

Whoopie-Ky-Yie-Yo, Git along Little Doggies, It's your misfortune and none of my own. Whoopie Ky-Yie-Yo, Git along Little Doggies, and know that Wyoming will be your new home.