The music of birdsong percolates through my life—urban, rural, suburban and vacation. The familiar songs are like a sweet melody I never tire of.
When I visit faraway places, new birdsongs really get my attention. If I had cat ears, they would be swiveling at the tantalizing sounds. My human ears are asking: Who? What? Where?
In warm coastal climates, hearing new bird songs is one of my favorite parts of traveling. When I got off the plane in Florida for the first time—mockingbirds! This year, in Kauai, I was having coffee on the lanai on the first day there. The fragrant breeze whispered to itself for a while. But as the sky lightened, groups of mynas competed with the roosters for space in the dense tropical world of sound. They announced the sunrise with a sudden, splashing chorus of chirps. The first time I heard their song, I instantly came to 100% attention. After that, it was a bracing, familiar sound bouquet, arriving punctually between 6:30 and 6:45 daily.
Here in Denver, it’s early July and a pair of house finches is nesting on my front porch. I can tell by sound alone just where things are in the gestational journey. It begins with the intermittent chirping and whistling of the male and the female, as they converse about the suitability of the nest location and the possibility of taking up residence there.
This particular spot has been used by finches for decades. It has had about a 50% successful hatch rate. Sometimes villainous blue jays find and eat the eggs; sometimes the female gets too nervous about the frequent comings and goings of humans (although we try to detour out the back door as much as possible); sometimes the kids just get too rambunctious and fall out before they get their flight feathers. But most years, we see at least one successful hatch from the snug little spot between the porch supports and the roof.
The female built the current nest a few days ago, using materials from the front and side yards. While she did her work, the male kept watch a few yards away and sang his territorial song – an up-and-down scale of about six notes with a little “whee” at the end. This nest is especially artistic with its use of honeysuckle vines. They were bright green when she brought them in and now they are golden brown but still gracefully curly.
She’s setting her eggs now, and when she’s on the nest, the male sings nearby with amazing energy, volume and perseverance. He’s doing his job at letting me and everyone else know to stay away. When travel on and off the front porch is necessary, I duck my head and crouch down so she doesn’t get too flustered.
In a few weeks, the porch will echo the sound of babies yelling for food. They get louder and louder, while both parents work hard to keep them fed. Eventually their heads appear above the nest, then their shoulders, then their flappy little wings as they tune up the muscles and prepare the flight feathers. Soon after that—silence. I used to worry about this sudden peace descending, thinking something awful had happened. Since then, dozens of young finches have come and gone, but I’ve never actually witnessed their flight from the nest. The whole thing happens very quickly and quietly when we’re not around.
On the larger end of the species scale, the great horned owl gives voice to a powerful, sacred-sounding call. They are also occasional visitors, stopping off in our big backyard elm, usually in the winter. I can almost see the sound waves traveling as low, resonant hoots roll through the cold predawn air.
I was treated to a variation on this experience one recent August, in a campground just east of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, near the top of Rabbit Ears Pass. Several owls were in different lodgepole pines around the campground, calling to one another about an hour after sunset. The hoots’ sound waves seemed to gently and powerfully bump up against each other, converging from a wide circle and creating soft, heavy ripples of sound. This area also plays host to a large frog population, which may have attracted these owls. The frogs’ own chorus just before sunset was another happy, familiar refrain.
A few weeks ago, I was treated to a beautiful cuckoo’s song in Nepal. These notes floated into my awareness through the miracle of technology, specifically Zoom. But a number of things were quite magical about this. First, the song seemed like something out of a story. I knew what a cuckoo sounds like, but hearing a real one for the first time elicited the same feeling I’ve had when visiting an art museum and seeing a famous work that I had previously seen only in a book. Wow! My next thought was: If I had that bird singing to me every morning, I would feel so infinitely grateful to be woken up that way. That’s how different, how rich and how melodious the real-time song sounded to me.
Finally, the cuckoo’s notes coincided exactly with a very important part of the Zoom lesson. They spoke of openness and freedom: an unfolding flower, a fledgling taking flight. What a precious moment that was—a teaching in and of itself. On the website Khandro.net, I found this story to give me even more to think about: “In Tibetan tradition, the cuckoo was considered the king of birds and magical powers were attributed to it. For example, they say the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara manifested in the form of a cuckoo to teach the Buddha’s dharma to the birds of the Himalayas.”
And there is this quote by Zen master Shunryu Suzuki: “I don’t know anything about consciousness. I just try to teach my students how to hear the birds sing.”
Thank you, my two ears. May you always be open!
