Dawn chorus, Opus 25

A baby barred owl seen last Wednesday by Terminal Creek, near our home. These owls breed every year in the same place and the babies sit in the trees and wheeze at passers-by until their hoot-makers come in.

Today I turn 58 and In a couple of weeks I will have lived on this island for 25 years. Being here for that length of time – a duration that has long exceeded anywhere else I’ve lived – tunes one to the finer rhythms and changes of time and place. Today, the thing I’m noticing is the change in the dawn chorus year to year. The sound of the dawn chorus which begins in April really and shifts through a few movements in May and June before abruptly stopping in the summer, is like a developing symphonic piece. There are distinct movements to it that are consistent enough year after year that one can discern the mark of the composer on them. These include the constant buzzes and questioning whines of the towhees, the two note calls of the chickadees: the black-capped clear and bell-like; the chestnut-backed buzzy and wheezy. There is always a distant goose call from the bay, about 600 meters away below us to the south. Juncos chip in the garden. Flickers hammer on roofs and power poles. Crows harass whatever predator is threatening them or call to each other from the beaches down below us. From high above it all, ravens offer their occasional grumbled commentary on the state of things. Creepers and kinglets sing the hyper-soprano parts.

As the spring progresses though, the yellow-rumped warblers (affectionately named “butter-butts” by birders in these parts) and the robins take pride of place in the chorus. These will be later joined by the orange-crowned warblers. As we get into June, the black-headed grosbeaks start singing with their clear, loud phrases. White-crowned sparrows begin calling and a visiting western tanager will offer both flashes of colour and lovely ringing song. Flycatchers round out the chorus, with the western offering a whoop-dunk, the Pacific a wolf-whistle and the willow a sneeze.

But it’s also the variations that grab my attention. In 2020 we had nuthatches meeping away everywhere and then they disappeared from the chorus the next year. Pine siskins, who will migrate hundreds of kilometres east or west in search of eruptions of insect populations will almost overwhelm the chorus some years, while in others, like this year, they will be completely absent. This year western warbling vireos are everywhere and seem to be the most common mid-range voice in the choir. And little packs of bushtits move through the understory like gangs, something we don’t get every year.

This is the body of work that the land here produces. When I travel at this time of year, I notice ways in which the niches of voice are filled by other birds, but after living in a place for a quarter century one can discern the subtle movements and compositional techniques that the island, in this place, and at this time of day employs in its expression of the season. This little patch on which I have sat for 9,000 mornings has its own body of work, and every day, every season, and every year offers variations on the theme.