October Dawn

At seven o’clock this morning, the day was barely light, the sky pearl-gray, the trees still shaped by night. I opened a bedroom window and felt very chilled air – in the 40s for the first time this year, and it felt so good! A few crickets chirped, but mostly the shrubs and yard lay still and quiet. Then a Mockingbird sang a few notes – it’s been singing off and on for several days and is usually one of the first birds I hear in the morning now. Then a Cardinal peeped, and over the next half hour or so, I very gradually heard the calls of an Eastern Towhee, the trilling and fussing of a Carolina Wren, the distant caws of Crows, the teeur calls of a Brown Thrasher, the chatter of a Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, and White-breasted Nuthatch, and the cries of a Blue Jay. An Eastern Phoebe called tsup a few times, and then began to sing. I think it was after sunrise before I heard the chuck-chucking calls of a Red-bellied Woodpecker and the whinny of a Downy.

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