This morning I slept lazily late. The clock said 8:00 am when I opened my eyes. The morning was softly cloudy and gray, and I had already slept well past the early morning bird chorus and sunrise. I closed my eyes again and pulled up the covers, feeling so deeply at peace that I didn\u2019t want to move. Sometimes these waking moments \u2013 when there\u2019s no appointment and no pressure, and when worries seem briefly far away \u2013 can hold the sweetest and most peaceful moments of the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My eyes still closed, the pillows soft and the covers cool, I heard the brightly shining song of a Carolina Wren outside my open window. A Red-bellied Woodpecker purred its musical, springtime quurrr<\/em>. In the background a Tufted Titmouse sang its plainer peter-peter-peter<\/em>. An Eastern Phoebe lisped its sibilant song. A House Finch added a pretty tune from somewhere in the distance. A Downy Woodpecker rattled in a silvery cascade of notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crackling, chucking calls of what sounded like a pretty large flock of blackbirds began like a rumor in the south and became louder and louder as the flock approached like a big gossiping cloud, and flowed over our house and yard. They seemed mostly to be Common Grackles \u2013 their creaking calls stand out \u2013 but maybe other blackbirds, too. I turned my head, but didn\u2019t open my eyes or get up yet. Just listened. It sounded like the flock was settling in trees and on the ground around the house, but not for long. The birds kept flowing in wave after wave, and within a few minutes they had all moved on. And left a quiet, cool, cloudy morning in their wake.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning I slept lazily late. The clock said 8:00 am when I opened my eyes. The morning was softly cloudy and gray, and I had already slept well past the early morning bird chorus and sunrise. I closed my eyes again and pulled up the covers, feeling so deeply at peace that I didn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}