The best time of day is in the early morning when sunlight is freshly caressing the awakening trees and shrubs. It was such a day recently along the path through Blue Oak Meadow that meanders away into "Tobey's Hollow." That is backwoods language for a woodsy ravine. Arlo Tobey should have some name claim on that particular hollow since he has included it in his morning walk for years. I followed Tobey on the narrow path as we headed for his little cottage across the meadow, when the sharp notes of a singing bird drifted our way. "What is that bird?" I asked. We stopped, and then another recognizable outburst indicated a mockingbird was also greeting the morning.

There was no mistaking the curious song collection of the mockingbird. That gray mimic seems to never be content with custom songs but sings on and on in many tones and variations. American mockingbirds, like England's nightingales, tend to sing wildly sometimes even in the night.

Maybe a nest was hidden in some low tree. (Was it "singing to the wide world/ and she to her nest/ in the nice ear of nature/ which song is the best?") Or was it advertising for a mate? Questions. If I spent a day watching, I might locate that well-hidden structure or discover the rest of the story. But in passing, we see very little of the bird's life history, or the many nests of other birds that must be hidden in those brushy woods. The whole complex of jays, sparrows, and towhees were in the thick tangle of Tobey's Hollow somewhere, carrying on their daily lives, all actively searching the habitat for insects, seeds, and nest sites as well as singing.

To really observe, you watch all day, as did researcher M.M. Nice in l943, when she counted a song sparrow singing about 1500 songs!

So, what is it with the birds and songs? Just as flowers do not really bloom solely to please the human eye, birds supposedly do not sing only to thrill the human senses. But is it to advertise for a mate, define a territory, or just for the joy of singing?

Although bird sounds can be heard throughout the day, the morning hours seem the most lively. Naturalist Donald Culross Peattie once said: "The time to hear bird music is between four and six in the morning. Seven o'clock is not too late, but by eight the fine rapture is over, due, I suspect, to the contentment of the inner man that comes with breakfast; a poet should always be hungry or have a lost love." Notice that Peattie calls it bird music, which leads me to wonder just how did mankind develop the sense of music connected to the written musical note, pianos, and the whole gamut of instruments? Maybe the first human musician watched a bird sing.

In a book I recently re-discovered after reading it in l965--WILD HERITAGE, by Sally Callrighar--it is further stated that an unmated pied flycatcher was noted as singing 3600 songs a day (The only way we have acquired information is by watching), but a mated neighbor less than a third as many. California's brown towhee is said to cease singing once he is mated. So much for singing to the wide world while his mate is on the nest! When it comes to birds, you cannot say "This is the way it is," because exceptions are always being encountered even though the general habits are consistent. Maybe the possibility of the unexpected is the lure that attracts birders.

Who would guess that a robin has over 50 different songs? Female birds also sing, usually on a lower key; in fact, it is sometimes referred to as a "whispering song."

Some hotshot Audubon birders become whizzes at identifying bird song. No doubt it takes good hearing, and although my audio appendages have lost much juice, I bought a "bionic ear;" a battery device that magnifies sound even beyond what you ordinarily hear. Still, it takes a lot of study to separate different calls. Modern gadgetry extends your range, but binoculars, telescopes, recorders, parabolic reflectors, and a bag full of other "necessities"--not to mention camera and lens--soon creates a load.

One of the most famous bird song stories was about "The Hummingbird of the Sierras," by John Muir. He was referring to the American dipper, or once called water ouzel. Muir noted a trait about the stream lover that I have also noticed--it loves to sing for no apparent reason other than expressing a joy of the wild. In wild torrents it will sit on a rock and warble a crescendo as melodious as the stream itself.

Muir stated: "Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings,--none so unfailingly. For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells."... "The voices of most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the ouzel sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm."

"In a gentle way his music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized."..."The ouzel never sings in chorus with other birds." ... "He MUST sing though the heavens fall...the spontaneous, irrepressible gladness of the ouzel, who could no more help exhaling sweet song than a rose sweet fragrance."

The hummingbird story was John Muir's first published magazine article in l872. The article suggests that a love of bird song has reverberated down through the ages from the time of man's first awareness of feathered creatures. Blessed be the singing birds! - May 5, 2001