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| credit: Kenneth Cole Schneider |
Sixty different species of birds regularly visit our farm. Each species sings a unique song (or two...or a thousand).
The Red-eyed Vireo sings 20,000 different songs -- every day!
In contrast, the Song Sparrow, despite the connotations of its name, has a meagre repertoire of just ten songs.
The Dark-eyed Junko is a minimalist, abandoning the frivolity of singing for the utility of morse code, tapping out his calls in snappy clicks.
The Swainson’s Thrush climbs the ladder of her song two rungs at a time, swinging like a trapeze artist from each rung as she goes.
The Barred owl’s daytime call is an escalating shrill so piercing you’d swear he was running his talons across a little blackboard tucked beneath his wing. But you forgive him his spine-tingling alarm when at night the full O of his breathy hoot comes drifting out of the dark like a verbal smoke ring.
The Winter Wren sings as if his life depended on it. Looking like a puff of brown cotton and weighing about as much, ounce for ounce he belts out his song with ten times the power of a crowing rooster.
It’s enough to break your heart.
And mend it.
Who is singing out your window?
2 comments:
My favorite is the Swaison's thrush! I like the way the way you described it! We also like the "cheeseburger" bird. It's call sounds like "CHEESE-bur-ger." It's also known as the black-capped chickadee. :-P We also enjoy the northern flicker. And yes the sounds of birds is healing, and reminds us that we cared for by the same God who cares for the birds.
NB. Winter Wren name changed to Pacific Wren
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