Savannah sparrow.
Years ago, when I lived in a place near water, I got familiar with the song of a male song sparrow who took up residence in a thicket nearby and was quick to sing each spring. What I mean is: I got familiar with this sparrow’s particular song—its particular combination of trills and chimes. I knew it by heart, and I smiled to hear the same song each spring on the sparrow’s return. Until one year, when the sparrow singing from the nearby thicket delivered its chimes and trills in a completely different pattern. The revelation hit me in the heart. My old familiar sparrow was gone, and some new whippersnapper had taken its place in local the scheme of things.
Alder flycatcher.
A little thing, but somehow momentous to me.
Lately, while hiking the Beech Hill trails with Jack, I’ve been listening to the song of a hermit thrush down in the lower wooded trail. Again, I mean the song of a particular, individual thrush. It has a couple of sweet, distinctive phrases—so sweet and distinctive, in fact, that I’ve written down the notes with the crazy thought of modeling a musical composition after them. (Today, I even recorded them with my camera’s microphone.) I suppose this means I don’t just hear the typical, generic voices of the birds I encounter but their specific quirks and whimsies.
As a young man, I aspired to be a musician, a writer of songs. Although it never happened, I still entertain certain secret dreams. I’ve imagined writing a symphony based on the simple, two-note spring song of the black-capped chickadee—fee-bee! And there’s not much that thrills me more than the distinctive call of the long-tailed duck in winter, an upward-moving series of three notes that essentially describe a major chord.
One long-ago spring I heard the song of a white-throated sparrow—the “Old Sam Peabody-peabody-peabody-peabody” bird—whose voice began in the appropriate range but soon took off into the upper stratosphere of sound. Crazy. And kind of sad, to think the bird would win no mate with such an aberrant song. Still, it was lovely to listen to.
American red squirrel.
And now I’ve grown obsessed with a particular little hermit thrush. I’ve never even seen the bird, but—who knows—maybe I’ll immortalize it someday in a symphony.
(A mostly foggy day today. Highlights: one of my fastest bike rides of the year; while hiking with Jack late in the day, I heard the croak of a raven.)
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Gray catbird (v)
2. American goldfinch* (v)
3. Black-capped chickadee (v)
4. Red-eyed vireo (v)
5. Eastern towhee (v)
6. Cedar waxwing
7. Common yellowthroat
8. American crow*
9. Alder flycatcher
10. Hermit thrush (v)
11. Song sparrow*
12. Savannah sparrow
13. Black-throated green warbler (v)
14. Common raven (v)
15. Eastern wood-pewee (v)
Elsewhere
16. Herring gull
17. House sparrow
18. Osprey (v)
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, black-throated green warbler, Cedar waxwing, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house sparrow, osprey, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow
