Choristers

While a few birds such as Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, crows and gulls have been steady contributors to our sonic theater all through the winter, extraordinary singers are just now coming to prominence. Of course the luxury of their sound is spilling forth because it's procreation time.

Tufted Titmouse

The titmouse's insistent "Me, me, me" seems to oscillate with a come-hither "We, we, we." Its refrain of piercing hoots from within the tree canopy is a gateway to May.

Brown Thrasher

Certainly the most operatic voice belongs to the male Brown Thrasher. Normally a secretive bird of dense thickets, it ascends to high perches for broadcasting sweet soliloquies.

Observers have distinguished over 3,000 song types from a Thrasher. This is by far the largest repertoire of any North American bird species. It delivers these in a stream of non-sequitur couplets that strikes me as an endless experiment in questions and comments: Chr, chr. You too? Look at that. Whup, whup. I'll be darned. Jeremy, Jeremy....

Northern Mockingbird

Mockingbirds likewise pick promontories to recapitulate other birds' songs, cricket calls, dogs barking and mechanical noises like squeaky hinges and squealing tires.

Usually it repeats these sounds three to six or more times before switching to another 'song.' The reprise may go on experimentally for minutes on end.

Grey Catbird

Catbirds mutter modestly punctuated by catlike mews. Their rapid strings of syllables mostly swiped from other birds are sometimes disparaged as babble by listeners who value sharp elocution. I find them the most endearing of the local mimids.

Many is the time I have been drawn out of an absent-minded ramble on Halibut Point to smile at an in-breaking song from these other creatures' business.