LAUNDRY WITH LUDWIG

Out there in the noon-plus sunshine just now getting in some of the dried laundry, one arm filling with sox and underwear, I heard the manic warbler up in one of the cedars fiddling with his old standard (he's so used to it year-to-year he just trills da-DA-da, da-DA-da until he runs out of breath) and when he got into a riffy groove he thought was good, he took off on the da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da extended riff that Beethoven sampled in Pastorale. 

The composer, however, went on to do a few other things with the riff in the human fashion, trilling it this way and that, filigreeing here and there to create a composition worthy of the symphonic pantheon, but in the present case the warbler just went on and on da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-ing until he was breathless, which is anticlimactic even for a Beethoven fan gathering laundry.

So when the warbler started up again, I unconsciously joined in whistling, and at the right place couldn't help but segue into Ludwig’s delightful version, which I won't romanize here - we all know it - but I tell you, the warbler suddenly stopped short, as if listening to this new and startling version of his anciently popular and splendid melody. 

When I stopped whistling, having gathered all the laundry (the mundane plays a key part in artistic creation; just ask Ludwig’s housekeeper), warbler did a chirpy thing that I can't replicate in mere alphabetics, but to my ear was the avian equivalent of “Wow! That was really something!” It led me to think that he might even be about to alter his repertoire to include a few Pow! additions by Ludwig, which would really be something!

I listened carefully as I sorted the laundry indoors. The silence was pregnant. The feathered master began... sounded great... when he hit the part where Beethoven lifts off into creation, the bird went on exactly as before, right to the end of breath. It was a bit of a letdown, but I wasn't really expecting any more than last time, when I tried to get him to cover just a couple bars of John Lee Hooker.

Like Beethoven, John Lee or any other world-class artist, vonWarbler has his own priorities.       

  Way up there tiny warbler sings a whole sky full

LISTEN RIGHT NOW

Today a fine sunny blue-skyed early Spring day up here on the mountain, me outside at last in late afternoon after wrestling to a draw with words up in the loft for the noonly hours...

Fine to be outside at last, full of ambition and tools in hand, here amidst the breath of trees beneath the calls of spiraling hawks to do some essential next year's firewood work. Just got started when I stopped at a sudden song from way up in the big oak tree, an intense and passionate riff with a special finish to it, repeated over and over with variations here and there and in the curlicue ending; it was a young early warbler, trying out a new Spring repertoire for all he was worth, adding what he felt to the old stuff.

He was bouncing around up there all alone like something of major importance was going on, as in fact it was. It clearly meant the world to him, and I got to share in that bit of joy. These early samplings of Spring swell the buds in us all, carry that ancient urgency right to our hearts from far before we ever were. His song carried all that too, made me stop my next year's work and listen right now to what's deeply going on.

TRY THAT, MERE HUMAN!

I was out in the garden this morning adding some kitchen garbage to the compost pile under the cherry tree when the warbler began his dawn concert, to which I always delight in whistle-responding as best I can; I suspect we featherless bipeds all have a bit of warbler in us somewhere.

Although I am a good whistler (frugal traveler entertainment) and love to take part in warbler performances - in a kind of duet, extended roundels, syncopation or whatever strikes my fancy - on occasion I have the feeling that the warbler involved finds it irritating. He often seems to sing more insistently, like a parent might talk louder over a noisy child. Or he tries something more complicated. Which is understandable; the warbler is the pro here, no question about that-- but still...

Sometimes with just a simple basic warbler riff I can fool the wee bird into thinking there's another male about, at least for a while, which can be fun with a warbler new to the neighborhood, as he bounces here and there singing irritably while looking for the upstart intruder, only to find that there's nothing around but one of those wingless, songless humans...

This time though, as soon as I repeated the warbler’s standard initial riff, he departed from the old songlist and performed a completely new number, a flashy and soaring glissando composition that had just arrived in warbler world, and it was a doozy. No way I could imitate that one, that was way beyond my ballpark, that was out among the stars somewhere. What a solo performance-- it just went on and on! I've never heard anything like it; I was struck dumb, whistlewise. If I could have seen that maestro, I suspect there might have been the hint of a smile on his beak at shutting me up so effectively, but it was worth every note to be so wonderfully humbled.

Warblers are evolving fast up here; got to get to work on my repertoire.

Warbler on the wire
asks what we're doing
to everything

THE OPPOSITE OF COMPLAINING

Heard the first warbler this sunny so-called winter morning, never used to hear warblers around here in January till a couple years ago... The first warbler used break the silence with that liquid honeysound sometime in February, when the uplands were beginning to clear of snow. Snow?

This warblerfellow was singing like he was in Miami or something, probably wearing shorts and an aloha shirt. I expect some pink flamingos might be migrating this way if this weather keeps up, though as some folks maintain, this warmth isn't really warming per se; nor, as others hold, is it global in reach.

Folks do love to debate things don't they, when they have time and the weather is good. All that hot air could be seriously affecting the environment though, adding to whatever problems there already are. Not that I mind from where I am, since I have a warbler doing the opposite of complaining in my vicinity, so it's hard for me to complain, if a complaint should ever happen to come to mind while a warbler is performing.

An enthusiastic warbler is infinitely better than whatever the opposite is.

JOHN LEE WARBLER

I'd finished prepping the next spinach plot and was sitting on the deck sipping coffee as an early evening thunderstorm approached, when Warbler all of a sudden, out of the depths of one of the big cedars close by the deck, commenced at top volume right in my ear his usual late afternoon declamation as to the general condition of his pre-eminent life and the state of his extensive territorial possessions.

As he announced to all and sundry on the mountainside the usual long list of splendid stuff in that amazing way he has, I responded to each item by whistling in my crude Warblerese a few of my favorite blues riffs (I can be such a pain, birdwise), each of which W pointedly ignored, continuing in his usual manner, at least until I did a few bars from Boogie, Chillun by the eminent John Lee Hooker.

Upon hearing that, Warbler paused, whether in awe or some degree of self-doubt it's hard to say. He then resumed in what seemed like halfhearted confusion, as though certain of his territory was not so vast after all. He made no attempt, though, to fit even a bit of John Lee into the warbly repertoire, which would be neat beyond belief, and news around the world, but what do warblers care for fame. After a few tries to regain his composure he flew off to another corner of his realm and began again in the old way.

Some forms of life are more conservative than others, but it's always worth a try.

JOHNNY RAY AND THE WARBLERIANS

Yesterday evening, in the deep silence that can grow beneath looming clouds after a heavy rain, the warbler who controls this territory - and who happened to be in either the chestnut tree or one of the cedars near my window - chose to perform his usual sunset medley of old Warbler favorites, which is basically a bar or two of one melody that loops back into itself over and over, but he does miracles with it, like 'Trane with a sax, occupying the air with splendor.

So he began, his honey-and-cream voice filling up the hungry silence with lyrical magnificence, the very same daDada, daDada, daDada, daDada, daDadaDadadada that Ludwig used to such joyous effect in his Pastorale, where it segues into that birdflight melody conveying the sweet and timeless serenity to be found in rural oases, but which in the actual warbler's case traditionally only curls back into its own beginning in repetitive loops, to which nothing much has been added over the eons.

As though the warbler had recognized this very fact, this lack of change since way long ago, all of a sudden the beauty stopped and a kind of sadness fell upon the silence as everything just hung there waiting for more, the warbler now and then doodling vocally as though trying to regain his chops while pondering something profound for a warbler... After about 30 seconds of this, a long duration in warbler time, he began to sing again, only now in what must be the Warblerian equivalent to - in our own time - Johnny Ray, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Elvis Presley et al.

He began right off with a riff I've never heard before, completely violating the Warblerian canon, going off completely on his own, winging it into tuneville, and it was quite a show for a minute or two, when he seemed to come to his senses, shake his head and return to himself and his ways, his culture, who he was up there in that tree and what his duties and obligations were to his kind, his task of declaring whatever it was he'd been declaring as an official representative of the Warblerians, and he picked up once more the tune Ludwig had made such wonderful human use of, resuming it perhaps with a tear in his eye at what might have been; but the seed had been planted in the young Warbler ears around.

As for me, I was suddenly nostalgic for the 50s...

THE BIRDS

There are a lot of interesting birds around here. I don't mean interesting species, but interesting birds. Individuals. Real characters. Some of them are complete mysteries. When you live where this great a variety of birds actually do their thing, you get to see that they have character, for example the manic warbler, and the crazy bird I’ve never spotted that shouts "What the hell?" over and over at every Spring sunrise, then there's Dr. Crow of course, couldn't go without mentioning mister dark wisdom himself, much referenced in these ethereal pages-- or the hawks, the swallows, the pheasant in lust or the ducks in love--

For recent example - this afternoon in fact - there's a certain bird, the screaming blur that hangs around here and is highly secretive about his true identity (I suspect it may be a brown-eared bulbul, but I've never spotted him in well-lit stillness), he blends in so well with the gray lower branches of the cedars where he mainly seems to hang out cloaked in the darkling invisibility he prefers, all in perfect keeping with his gothic mood, because although he's very territorial, he's also extremely paranoid at all times of year (which for a bird is really extreme), so whenever I go outside in this leafless time and that bird is within 50 yards of the house he spots my sinister movement and screams "Look out everybirdy! The monster just came out of that unnatural structure there and it's coming for us, it's moving this way with giant claws, it has two legs but no feathers! Fly for your lives! FLYY! FLYYYY! FLYYYYY!" And he keeps that racket up until everybirdy within 100 yards has flown to safety in fear of their lives, he himself taking off at the last minute, still screaming for all he's worth, leaving behind only a dancing branch just before I can grab him with my long giant claws and devour him whole. Interesting bird. Don't really know him; just a gray blur streaking off screaming into the dusk of the trees.

Then there are the frantic tiny feeders who come by once or twice a year in large numbers and scour every inch of every tree for insects and whatever they can find in the way of avian fast food. Some weeks ago Echo put up a pretty realistic sort of 3D sticker butterfly high up on the big glass doors by the weeping cherry for when the grandgirls came over the holidays, and when a few days ago those birds arrived to scour the tree, every five minutes during bird-party time one of them would spot the delectable butterfly hovering right there midair in delicious stillness (talk about out-of-season but who cares, it's like caviar in NYC) and dive for it before any other bird could get it, hit the glass BONG!, flutter stunned to the deck below and stand there wobbly for a few minutes looking up, trying to figure out the meaning of glass and what the hell was that butterfly, then it would fly back to the tree and give another of its fellows a crack at the inviting delicacy.

This went on for a goodly time (Bong! Bong!) until a couple dozen birds had gone for the big bright snack and hit the deck, by which time I suspect some of them were sitting there in the cherry tree chuckling to each other, chirping "Psst: There goes Harry: Look: He spotted the 'butterfly.' Go for it, Harry, Grab that baby! Go get it, Harry, it's all yours! HA HA HAA!"

There's also the thrush that collided once with our big kitchen windowpane, and no thrush ever since has done so.

Like I said, when you get to be really neighbors with them, not watchers or hunters or simply-passing-byers and whatnot, bird personalities can be pretty surprising, anthropomorphically speaking. No doubt just as surprising as I am to them, aviomorphically speaking.

EARLY BIRD, NO WORM

Yesterday morning I heard a warbler out in the leafless woods singing - if I can call it that - "What the..." "Where is..." "How in..." "What time..." "Is this March?" "What's today?" "How the..." and suchlike fragments, never quite completing his trilly sentences, the beauty of his dyschronic song all the odder for its disjointed quality.

No doubt the warbler was confused by the absolute lack of snow and the springlike temperatures we've been having so far around here for the first time in memory, and he with his inborn ancientness was all ready to go as per temperature, the fragrance of Spring in the air, but to his clear puzzlement there was no action out there, nothing happening, nobirdy else around to verify his reasonable expectations, and boy was he surprised.

In a way, I know just how he felt because yesterday morning I woke up in the 3:30 dark and figured I'd just semidoze until a lighter 5:00 or so, then get up and have breakfast before heading off for work in the city, but for some reason my body acquires a deep capability for staying in bed on days when I have to go to the office, so at some point later I abruptly sat up from a fine, fine dream and looked at the clock, which said in an eye-fuzzy way: 6:50 (I have to leave the house by 7:15) so I jumped up, got dressed saying "What the..." "How did..." "Where in..." "What time..." "is this Wednesday..." "When..." and suchlike fragments.

Then when I pounded downstairs 10 minutes later I looked at the clock down there and it said 7:17! Up and downstairs were suddenly in different time zones... or was it all me? No time-- later gotta check those clocks and this brain. Bike keys, no time tie shoes, forget helmet -- took off still saying "What the..." "How did..." "Where is..." "What time..." "Is this Wednesday..." much like a Warbler in January.

Fortunately for my speedneed there was no ice on the road, just managed to do a pretty good speedslip onto the train, at the end of the line wondered in a new way: "What city is this?"

WARBLER HEARS CONCRETE BLONDE

Out airing the sheets and pillow covers over the deck rail in the full sun of the cool morning, I was trading songs with an early warbler who was in splendid voice, broadcasting his aria from a downmountain tree out of sight behind the nearly full-leafed plum. Since he couldn't see me, I whistled his very own medley and he responded eagerly, even aggressively. I was being a territorial competitor.

Then after a few exchanges, for a bit of variation from polytonic monotony I decided to be an eccentric competitor, and began to whistle his song exactly, but with the last note off-key. He responded as before, but with what sounded to me like a bit of impatience, a sort of correctional emphasis on the last note.

It could be me, but I swear it sounded like he was either trying to correct me or to find out if I was an impostor. Maybe it's just my governmental conditioning, but his tone seemed challengingly inquisitive. This went on for several bars, until I was going in to get the futon and decided to throw discretion to the wind, see what happened.

So I whistled the entire pattern as before, but using a patch from the melody of Still in Hollywood by Concrete Blonde. There was a kind of shocked pause in the distance, then a discreet kind of birdy cough, followed by implacable silence. I stood there whistling and listening, but not a peep further.

Either the warbler doesn't like Concrete Blonde (which is ridiculous--he's in the music business) or he's never heard them before-- more likely the latter, living out here up on the mountain, playing only one song for who knows how many millennia. In any case it must have been quite a shock for that professional, heritor to generations of songcraft, to be trading riffs with a clearly amateur competitor only to have the tyro come back with a clip of great music the pro never heard of. Probably took his breath away.

Nature can be cruel sometimes. But if the warbler hangs around here for the summer, he's sure to pick up some more great sounds from my open windows. Then a hundred or a thousand years hence someone will hear a melodic birdsong, and say: Isn't that a song from Surfer Rosa?

Thus do cultures blend.