A screech owl adds its quaver to the minimal dawn chorus: mourning dove coos, finch and sparrow chirps. Snow and highway noise on the wind.
mourning doves
Sunday morning rain is different; it’s quieter. The distant rumble I take at first for traffic on the interstate turns out to be thunder.
Right after a mourning dove’s song, a screech owl trills at the very same pitch. The sun floats free of the horizon and into the bluest sky.
A dozen doves take flight all at once—a confusion of flutes. From the almost-finished house a quarter mile away, the scream of a power saw.
Somewhere in the fog, a red-winged blackbird, a pair of mourning doves, a robin, a flock of finches. Half an hour later, nothing but rain.
Easter Sunday dawns clear and cold. The yard is stippled with fresh tracks. Quiet except for a mourning dove and a red-bellied woodpecker.
Rose-tinged feathers puffed out against the fresh snow, the mourning doves look delicious! Their wingbeats are a marriage of fife and drum.