One of the joys in my life is walking three miles in the dark before I head to teach high school English. If I time the morning ramble right, I can hear both night and morning birds before I return home to let out our Rhode Island Red chickens.
This morning, for example, while walking up our driveway I heard a barred owl on our creek bottom and the quaverings of a screech owl on the edge of our clearcut. A little while later, I harked to the hoots of a great-horned owl. I was hoping for the fourth member of the morning quartet to chime in - a chuck-wills-widow, but he was silent this morning.
On the way home as dawn began to break, I heard a towhee singing, though instead of his usual "drink your teaaaaa," he only made it to "drink your" before stopping. It is, afterall, August, far past prime singing time. Following the towhee were the usual suspects: Carolina wrens, catbirds, brown thrashers, cardinals, and robins.
As I walked down the driveway, I heard our rooster Don crowing - all was right with the world.
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