"And even the sun in dawn chorus sings,
a celestial melody to the earth below."
-- Tjaden
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| Robin and branches (cut paper) 8-15-15 |
"The best time to hear bird song is at dawn.
The dawn chorus is one of the marvels of nature."
-- Gareth Huw Davies, "Bird Songs," PBS.org
"And the songbirds are singing,
like they know the score."
-- Fleetwood Mac, "Songbird"
My bed is in the basement.
Which is great for keeping my erratic sleep habits, torrential tossing and night-time wanderings from waking the rest of the sleepers in the house.
It's a good environment for sleep.
It's very cool down there. It's very dark down there. It's very quiet down there.
And if a tornado hits, I'm good to go.
However, there are drawbacks.
The only windows in the basement are two tiny high-up ones resting at the top of the cinder block basement walls, at the foundation of the house.
They don't let in much daylight. They don't open.
They're sealed shut, kind of like prison windows, except without the bars.
I don't mind not seeing much from my basement bedroom. What I do mind, however, is not hearing much. Since I set up camp there a year or so ago, I've seriously missed falling asleep to the sounds of night -- rain, storms, distant train whistles.
Mostly, though, I've missed the early morning wake-up call of songbirds in the treetops.
It's called the dawn chorus.
It starts out simply. One bird calls. Another answers. A few more get in on the conversation, and pretty soon it's a cacophony of bird sound heralding the dawn of another new day.
The whole thing only lasts a few minutes, but it's beautiful, and it's the sound I've missed the most since I went underground.
My husband wasn't home last night, so there was no risk of waking him with my sheet-tangling "crocodile death roll" (as he calls it). So I slept in the big bed in the upstairs bedroom with both windows flung open wide.
This morning I heard it.
If I knew the bird call for "it sounded good," I'd tweet it.
And for all of you sleepers-in ...
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Time for a One Good Thing "How to hear the dawn chorus without having to wake up at the ass crack of dawn" bonus sound clip.
