“Wild birds change their season in the night.
And wail their way from cloud to cloud
Down the long wind.”
One early October morning I lay on the hard-packed ground, longing for the sun to rise. I had slept here all night long that I might see the birds at dawn. Deceived by the warmth of the previous day, I had not brought enough blankets and was therefore exceedingly uncomfortable in the cold breeze.
At the foot of the hill upon which stood my camp, there was a spring-fed pond. Dammed at one end, it comfortably filled the head of a small valley. Leading from it was a broad, grassy tidal flat that receded from the visible Long Island Sound. To shore birds this marshy place was an ideal feeding spot.
Over the dark, motionless surface of the lake there floated a fog bank, suspended about twenty feet from the surface. More vapor was slowly growing into a gigantic mushroom.
As I watched this increasing filmy mantle, I saw first one and then another gray shape pass into it and disappear, only to emerge again at some other point and vanish in the darkness of the oak-lined shore. At first I could not imagine what these ghost-like shapes were, and then, just as I had about decided that they were the result of a freakish wind playing with stray cloudlets, there came a gruff “quawk, quawk, quawk,” taken up by one and then another of the shapes until the place echoed with hoarse cries. I realized that the Black-crowned Night Heron was taking his final morning sail preparatory to going to roost in some nearby tree for the day. Like the owl, he preferred the night for his activities.
Gradually the noise subsided as the Herons settled on various branches. The mist above the pond began to disappear, and the small, shapeless clouds far up in the sky took on a suggestion of color. Now was the time to arise. In a very little while the woods would be filled with flying, feeding birds, and the best time of day for bird observation would be at hand. Yet so cold was I that it was impossible to move a limb. Several times, off to one side, a faint-voiced little White-throated Sparrow gave a feeble imitation of his beautiful spring-and-summer song. It was as though his vocal organs had become less pliant through disuse and exposure to the cold.
What a brave little singer he is, even though his efforts are not always equally repaid. I think it is partially what Hudson would call the “human note” that so endears the White-throat’s song to me. There is truly an intimate quality in the first sustained note of his song. But in the final, high and infinitely sweet tones there is a suggestion of a song that is too pure to be voiced by anything that is bound to the earth. Many have been the hot summer days when, tired and pack-weary, I have paused for a moment to rest at some bramble-covered clearing in the deep woods, and that cheery little forest voice of the Peabody bird, coming unexpectedly from some unseen branch, would refresh me as much as a drink at some cool spring. I look forward to his singing from one year to the next.
A massive white oak spread its powerful branches at least one hundred feet above my head. It was a majestic and beautiful living monument to a mighty nature. Some of the topmost limbs seemed to reach up and disappear in the sky, so perfectly did their pale gray bark blend with the early morning light. For some time I listened to the soft rustling of the wind among its myriad drying leaves. Then very subtly from the tree top there came a different sound, which impressed itself upon my consciousness as would the faint perfume of a distant flower bed slowly approached. Gradually it increased until the leafy whispering became almost inaudible, and the air was filled with an indescribable, high-pitched musical breathing. It was as though countless tiny creatures were conversing a great way off.