Dawn Chorus
Light comes early here in New England, stuck out in Atlantic like we are. When I moved from Mississippi to Connecticut, I was astounded by light creeping into the sky as early as 4:30 in the morning. And if that wasn’t jarring enough, early springtime dawns are inextricably coupled with a phenomena I’d either never known, or had blissfully forgotten:
Dawn Chorus.
Those of you who don’t live in areas with the proper wildlife for it, or who sleep with your windows closed all year may not know what I’m talking about. Dawn chorus is the deceptively whimsical name given to the ear splitting riot of bird song during breeding season.
From late March until early July, all the lusty birds of the land begin vying for the chance to send their DNA into the future the best way they know how- by vocalizing their genetic suitability at the top of their little avian lungs. And the best part (for the birds, not for me)? They begin about a half hour before daybreak.
A half hour before daybreak.
Here, it always starts with the house wren. 4 am. FOUR A.M. Nautical dawn- when the brightest of the stars are still visible, but you can also make out the faintest silhouettes of the eastern trees, emerging on the horizon like giants from darkness. It starts with a brief, deceptively short series of trills. In very early spring I usually sleep right through them. It only takes two weeks of conditioning, however, for those tentative first notes to jerk me awake, shaken from sleep by a sense of irritation and, irrationally, dread.
Once the house wren has cleared his throat and shaken the sleep from his feathers, he’s off. A short run of trills now replaced with longer and more frantic phrases. Loud, so loud, impossibly loud for such a tiny wisp of a thing.
The other birds in the area, probably also rudely awoken, always wait several minutes after the wren starts up. Maybe they’re wisely testing the waters, waiting to see if the proverbial early bird attracts the attention of any lingering foxes or fisher cats. It’s no good getting a jump on breeding if you wind up something’s breakfast before the deed is done. Once the other birds are satisfied that it’s relatively safe to begin, dawn chorus starts in earnest.
Now song is everywhere, layers of song, waves of song, song rising up from the lawn and the brambles and the lowest branches of trees and the mid branches of trees and the very crowns of trees. Song boils up from the meadow and the forest, it swells from the fields that have already been prepped, and from the fields that still sleep under winterbrown vegetation. Resentful that my sleep is at the mercy of songbird reproduction, my ears involuntarily follow individual songs as birds make a manic circuit of the backyard: linden tree to fence post, blue spruce to barn roof, dogwood to lilac and back again to linden tree. All the time singing, singing, singing with earsplitting volume and urgency.
There’s no hope of getting back to sleep at this point. The bedroom is still deepest grey, barely enough light in the sky to even call it light, too early even to tend to the chickens (the songbirds may feel safe enough to call attention to themselves, but I know there’s always a fox or raccoon who’ll delay bedtime at the prospect of an early morning chicken). It’s too dark to read my Bible, and I can’t bring myself to turn on a light and risk waking my husband, though the fact that he can sleep through the cacophony outside makes me suspect he wouldn’t even notice a lamp snapping on.
I could just admit defeat, swing my feet onto cold wooden floors and go downstairs, start the coffee and maybe glare balefully out the kitchen window. Truth be told, I’ve taken that path a number of times. But in the end, it doesn’t do anything good. The birds don’t notice me, don’t care about me, don’t shut up.
Two years ago, after full decade of life in New England, after ten years’ worth of dawn choruses woefully endured, I hit upon a better option. It started when I noticed that I was waking up with a fervent, ugly prayer in my head, “Please God, let those damn birds shut up. Please. Let them shut up let them shut up let them shut up.” Probably not the best way to start my day off with my Maker. After all, He had made those birds and designed them to do their (noisy) thing. And at least I could hear the birds. My ears worked. And my farm was fertile enough to support so(!) many(!) different species. And though I was rudely awoken, I woke up in a warm bed next to a loyal husband and we were both healthy and so were all the kids and there was a whole house full of beautiful kids who would get up several(!) hours from now and make breakfast and laugh with each other and we’d all go out and use another day gifted to us.
In light of all that, I figured I should probably rethink my opening conversation with God.
The memory of it rose slowly in my mind. A tug, a pull of my attention back to my childhood churches. First, a Congregational church in Detroit, then a Presbyterian one in a suburb of Detroit, and in both of them, the same prayer. A prayer of such beauty and simplicity that it could only be, must be, sung. The music came back to me as surely as the words, impossible to separate one from the other, and one April morning, when that dastardly house wren yanked another day into action, I rolled over onto my back and without opening my eyes, I sung the prayer in my heart:
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
The wren and the robin, the yellowthroat and the chickadee joined in. All creatures here below joined in. The whole of creation joined in, and we all praised the good God who made feather and feet and sleeping husbands and early early early mornings and a brand new day to try and do something good and true and beautiful.
It was a good way to start the day. And since then, it’s how I start every day. In the spring and summer, the songbirds wake me, and I join them in their predawn hymn to God. Come fall and right on into winter, the songbirds are quiet, either finished with mating or migrated away, then the roosters wake me. Just as jarring. A lot less lyrical. But a little bit later in the morning, so there’s that. Always it’s birds that rouse me, domestic or wild, my avian prayer partners inviting me to start the day praising God. Lifting my heart to Him in word and song.
A dawn chorus.
I have what seems like a bazillion birds in a ficus tree in my yard. My morning prayers are whispered under that tree when it finally cools down enough to start the day outside. Those birds are sometimes so loud they startle me into losing my place in my prayers! I talk to them quite often. There I sit, under the ficus, prayer book in hand, talking to the birds. Thanks be to God!
Living in the middle of a nature preserve has caused me to have the same dread of the morning chorus. I much prefer your new response to it than to my own: suffocating under a pillow and blankets.