BEAUTIFUL BIRD BALLADS

      Some bird ballads in southeastern Pennsylvania in summer are beautiful beyond words.  Songs of male birds proclaim territory, repulse other males of the same kind and attract females of each species to the males' territories to raise young.  And those same bird ballads make times outdoors more enjoyable and inspiring for us.  Following are some of my favorite bird songs in southeastern Pennsylvania.  These species are adaptable and common, which benefits them and us.

     The short, soft warbles of male eastern bluebirds are lovely, and soothing to hear.  One can hear their pretty notes and admire their strikingly blue and rusty feathering, as they look for nesting cavities in abandoned woodpecker holes, or other tree hollows, or nesting boxes erected for them, in which to raise young.  These bluebirds prefer weedy habitats in farm country in which to raise offspring.  I first heard and saw these lovely birds searching for tree holes when I was a boy living in farmland.

     Several years ago, I left home for work every morning at 5:00 am.  And every morning in April and May I was greeted by an inspiring chorus of several American robin voices sliding musically down from trees in our middle-aged suburban area.  And what a beautiful concert it was, thrilling me every morning, and making me eager to hear that same chorus the next early morning.  

     As a pre-teen, I spent a week in Camp Nawawka in Adams County, Pennsylvania, each year for a couple of years.  My favorite daily activity was going to vespers on top of a hill after supper.  I enjoyed walking through the woods, seeing the sunset and the distant, green mountains, and hearing the sweet, clear, double-noted solos of a male indigo bunting singing from that same hilltop during vespers.  Since then, I've heard, and saw, several indigo males along country hedgerows and roadsides where they sing beautifully through each day.  Well-named male indigos have indigo-colored feathering.

     I first heard the delightful trilling of male field sparrows in weedy fields in Valley Forge National Park.  Each of their renditions starts with a few slow notes, followed by a quick acceleration of notes into a musical, beautiful trill.  This species nests in weedy pastures.  

     One May morning, I walked in the wooded hills of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to watch and listen for migrating songbirds in the trees.  All was quiet, until a hermit thrush suddenly burst into heart-rending song in those woods.  His songs were sweet, flute-like and other-worldly.  His ethereal songs began with three or four long notes at different pitches that filled the otherwise still woods with audio beauty, and filled my soul with joy and excitement from this creature of the wild.

     But the beautiful, flute-like notes of wood thrushes and the lovely, dreamy whistling of eastern wood pewees, in woodland habitats, together create emotion-rending duets each summer evening into mid-July.  Their evening concerts are truly heart-tugging and inspiring. 

     The thrushes' notes seem to say "aa-o-leeeee" or "ee-o-laaaaay".  Meanwhile, pewees repeatedly seem to say "peee-a-weeee".  Together, their concerts are truly beautiful through sunset, twilight and into the inevitable darkness.   

     These wonderful bird ballads are some of the most joyous happenings in nature.  When outside, listen carefully for the delightful music of birds in their nesting territories.