Dawn Light by Diane Ackerman

Author:Diane Ackerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

THE SOLSTICE BIRD

BIG CLUMPS OF CLOUDS ARE staggering across the night sky—giant lakes on the move. As the sky whitens to a talcy mask, the exquisite monotony of birdcalls thins to an insistent boy soprano fading into the distance. A gentle flurry of magnolia leaves guides me to where a Carolina wren, small and perfect as a Christmas ornament, begins a lavish appeal to its mate. Soon another petal flurry and she answers with the usual reply—a fluffy quiver of folded wings to melt a suitor’s heart. The petal dance may not be accidental but the wren version of a fan dance; the ground beneath the tree is strewn with pink and white petals. Legend has it that Cleopatra once received Mark Antony in a bedroom a foot deep in petals.

The first long streaks of sun paint the white-barked aspens with fire, as one wren dives into a begonia pot near the front door. She and her mate have thatched a hut-shaped nest inside the hanging pot. I’ve read they’ll roost anywhere, even in the shirt pockets of laundry on a clothesline, but I’m still startled to find the nest with four speckled cream-colored eggs one day while watering. What must the sitting wren make of the regular deluges from my watering can? Or perhaps she’s used to such a weathered life. These are beautiful dawn visitors, whatever small mischief they’re up to: rusty-backed, chestnut-breasted, white-throated birds with a long white eyebrow stripe. Whenever a jay or titmouse threatens, the wrens make a sound human throats can’t—of a wire brush rasped across the sidewalk. Loud songster male Carolina wrens often dominate the airwaves, singing LIB-er-ty!, CHE-wortel!, cho-WE! while the females buzz like cicadas, a quieter and less versatile chatter. But whereas females are born with their buzz-rattle, males practice for months to memorize their song, and then they must build a repertoire. At first, they just babble nonsensical pieces of song.

Loud, insistent rasping draws me to the kitchen window to watch a strange scene unfolding. Two tufted titmice settle near the hanging begonia in the cherry tree, despite the presence of the wrens, one of which is hopping from branch to branch with a worm in its mouth, trying to get safely into the basket and feed its hours-old hatchlings. But the titmice interfere, blocking the wren’s moves in what looks like a game of three-dimensional chess. All the while the other parent wren loudly rasps its wire-scratch warning. The titmice, larger gray birds with white belly and a pointed helmet-like crest of the sort soldiers often wear (presumably to look taller)—move silently, threateningly, until the wren with the worm ends up aflutter in midair, making false starts in several directions, unable to land anywhere near her young, flying at last, tired, to a high tree branch.

Then one of the titmice hops close to the basket and the other wren dives down to chase it away—mainly by startling and harassing it. For half an hour this scene plays and replays,

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