Earlier this morning when I stepped outside to carry the recycling to the curb, I heard cicadas singing from the trees and a chickadee chattering from the shrubs, the two sounds roughly equal in volume. “This is the soundtrack to July,” I thought. In June, the birds are louder than the insects; in July, the birds and insects compete in volume and persistence; and in August, the insects clearly win.
Later in the morning, however, while I was meditating, I heard a chickadee whistling his spring song right outside the open window: “Sweet, sweet.” It’s a song I haven’t heard since May, when the chickadees were courting; recently, given the demands of nesting and chick-rearing, the chickadees have been calling and chattering, but not singing. I wondered what inspired this spontaneous outburst of song: a surge of territorial ardor, a wave of vernal nostalgia, or an avian earworm hearkening back to younger, more carefree days?
I don’t know, but I sat up on my meditation cushion, jostled into awareness. What if the neighborhood chickadees have been singing–not just calling–all along, and I simply haven’t been awake to notice?
Jul 11, 2012 at 1:17 am
Is it too early for the chicks to have left the nest? Maybe the parents are expressing joy at rediscovering their independence!
I miss insect sounds. We have no insects here to speak of, at least not in the city.
Jul 12, 2012 at 11:39 am
A little research reveals how little I know about chickadees! First, I learned that some pairs produce two broods of young in a summer, so these chickadees could be between nests. But more interestingly, male chickadees sing a softer version of their spring song when they approach the nest to feed their mate or their young. (I guess it serves as a way of saying, “Honey, I’m home…and I brought take-out!”)
So apparently I’ve been living alongside chickadees all these years without knowing much about them. I guess that means I’m an oblivious neighbor!
Jul 13, 2012 at 1:23 am
Birds sing all the time. If only we could deny the self and hear them.