Birds to Wake Me in the Morning

If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.


Charles Lindbergh

As I write this, it’s early in the morning on what is going to be an abnormally hot day. I love to wake up shortly after dawn and hear the birds singing songs so full of beauty with each proclaiming, “This is my home”. While I dread the heat and the stench of campfires from the evening tourists’ fires that will keep me from having my windows open tonight and the rest of the weekend, birds have no knowledge of this. They simply live in the moment. I sometimes envy them with their ability to fly and their lives uncluttered by the complexities that we experience in our lives.

We have so many more birds than we did when I first returned ten years ago. Adding shrubs for nesting sites has encouraged them to stay nearby. When I lived in suburbs, I usually awakened to the sound of house sparrows scratching in the roof gutters for bits of grit. Simple sightings of as common a bird as a chickadee, could be sometimes as much as two years apart. Now, I enjoy so many beautiful birds. There’s a special joy of living in a rural area that cannot be replaced by material possessions.

I hear a cardinal loudly proclaiming “What cheer, what cheer, wheet, wheet, wheet.”

Yesterday, I wanted to sit on the swing and enjoy my morning cup of coffee. This was not to be. The blackberry patch is close, and a wise catbird has placed her nest in the area. Both parents sat on tree limbs on either side of the pergola aggressively and frantically trying to distract me from the area. There are obviously young ones in the nest.

Now, how can I convince them to eat just the insects and not the berries!

The song sparrows have built a nest on the bank nearby, and they too were flitting about worried that I would bother their precious little ones.                                                                                                  Once, while we were gone for several days, a song sparrow built a nest near the outside door that we use the most. Sadly, our constant coming and going made her desert her nest. I’ll return to my favorite spot when their little ones have grown. For now, I’ll drink my coffee elsewhere.

Several days ago, I saw their nest carefully

tucked away on the ground.

It takes about two weeks for the eggs to hatch, and the baby birds will leave in another two.

Song sparrows frequently learn their songs from other birds that have neighboring territories and will choose a territory close to or even one replacing the birds they have learned from. They are able to distinguish their neighbors from strangers by these songs. It has even been shown that females are able to distinguish and prefer the songs of their mates. With an average repertoire of 6-12 songs, they are truly amazing birds.

The robins have much lesss fear of us. They make a nest above the garage door nearly every year. While the eggs are in the nest, the bird will hunker down so that we will not see her. 

Apparently hatching eggs is not as easy a job as it seems. The birds must regulate the heat to incubate the eggs to about 96.8 to 104.9. The females of many songbirds will incubate the eggs alone. While the male goldfinch will bring food to his mate, most females in most species have to leave the nest to find food further complicating the regulation of the heat. For the hummingbird, that means leaving the nest as many as 140 times a day.

Supposedly robins eat worms for breakfast but prefer berries later in the day. We humans, also, have our own separate breakfast routines

      

Even though they have 2-3 broods a year, sadly, only 25% will live to reach November. They live an average of 6 years but can live as long as 14.

The robin is one of the early morning birds that I hear. Like many other species, the male sings to advertise his territory and to attract a mate. The male supposedly sings louder when he has little ones in the nest. Is it because of pride or to proclaim his territory? Scientists would say the latter, but I prefer to think it’s pride.

 Birds make life special like flowers and raindrops and sunny days. I can’t imagine a world without them.