Songbirds

There are some Spring mornings that feel as though they’ve been set out just for noticing.

Last week offered one of those.

The air had that early-season softness — not quite warm, not quite cool — in between — the kind that carries sound a little farther than usual and lets the world arrive in layers. Across the street stood a White Dogwood in full bloom, its branches lifted and spread like open hands, each one holding those unmistakable cross-shaped blossoms that seem less like flowers and more like small, quiet declarations.

And there, settled comfortably among them, was a Cardinal, its crimson feathers glowing in the sunlight.

Not just present — but singing.

Filling the morning air with his full-throated melodies. Steady, and sure of himself, as Cardinals tend to be. The kind of song that doesn’t ask for attention so much as assuming it will be given.

On my side of the street, just ahead, stood a Red Maple — not yet committed to Spring, its branches still mostly bare, holding back just a little longer before leafing out. And from somewhere within those branches — though I could not see him at all — came the bright, quick voice of a Carolina Wren.

It is one of those things, where if you know that sound, you know it — sharp, cheerful, almost insistent, as if every note matters. Such a loud song coming from such a tiny bird.

And then something curious happened.

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Of one of my favorite birds, Henry David Thoreau wrote–

“This is the only bird whose note affects me like music. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It changes all hours to an eternal morning.”

The wood thrush’s beautiful, lyric songs echo thru deciduous forests in the eastern U.S. in spring and early summer. A bit smaller than an American Robin, the wood thrush will occasionally nest in suburban areas where there are enough large trees.

Numbers have seriously declined in the past decades due both to loss of habitat and Cowbirds laying eggs in the wood thrush nests, with the result of the thrushes raising more cowbirds than their own species. New preservation and protection zones in the Adirondacks, Smoky Mountains and Ozarks National Forest will hopefully help these beautiful singers to rebound.

Check out the BirdNote presentation to learn more and hear the song of this glorious singer→ the Wood Thrush.