Poetry Friday: Warblers

Last Saturday I was sitting on my porch watching birds through my binoculars, taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. The calabash tree in the neighbors' yard was full of bananaquits, and I was having fun watching them, as they hung upside down on the branches. And there were some Antillean mango hummingbirds. But there were other birds too, birds I couldn't identify. I knew they were warblers, but which warblers? Here are the possibilities in my area:

See what I mean? So many of them are similar, just different combinations of grey and yellow. I texted my brother the birder, saying, "Enjoying the birds even if I don't know what they are." (The warbler photos are from the Cornell Lab's free birding app, Merlin. You should download it right away if you don't have it yet.)

He sent me a voice message in response, and I listened to it and then played it for my husband and then transcribed it. I loved the way his words turned my cluelessness into almost a mystical experience. Here's what he said: “The thing with warbler songs is that because of the register that they’re in, you don’t realize that you’re hearing them at all until you get your ear tuned into them. They’re so high-pitched and kind of airy that sometimes you don’t even know that you’re hearing a bird. But once you get tuned into them, you can hear them, and that is diagnostic, because they’re all very different from each other. You can identify them with their song without ever seeing them at all. So on your app you should find the warblers that appear there and see if you can listen to their songs and then see if you can hear them. Once you get tuned into them, you’re likely to hear them a lot, I’m guessing, at this time of year.”

I turned his words into a poem.

A Field Guide to Warblers

These birds you cannot see or hear
Are everywhere this time of year.
Visitors from further north
Flitting softly back and forth
In the branches of the trees.
Was that a bird, or just a breeze?
Little birds you cannot see,
Known for invisibility.
Glimpsed for a moment, then they’ve flown.
Which one was that? Answer: unknown.
Voices that you cannot hear
Until you’ve learned to tune your ear.
Each has a voice, quiet and mellow.
Lots are a mix of grey and yellow.
You may think they’re all the same,
But each, unique, has its own name.
The zebra stripey black and white,
A mix of shadow and of light,
Is easy to identify,
But for the rest, just try and try.
The birds you do not know are there
Are singing, silent in the air.
Listen, look, don’t move a muscle,
Do you hear the branches rustle?
These birds you cannot see or hear
Are everywhere this time of year.

Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

Cheriee has today's roundup.