Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I heard the most beautiful song through the open windows. Not the loons down on Sakinaw Lake, not the barred owls, not the robins whose long ringing notes attend dusk and dawn, but something else. Luckily I had a cd of birdsong handy and quickly learned that I was hearing a western tanager. They’ve been nesting nearby this summer and we’ve seen them quite frequently, brilliant flashes of yellow and red in the pergola above the sundeck where we eat dinner. But I don’t think I’ve heard their song so clearly, on its own.
Last week, we were awoken around 4:30 to a chorus of coyotes right outside. There were at least four voices, maybe more, and they sang for several minutes, went quiet, then began again. Such mystery in it, an aubade in a language I’ll never understand.
And this morning, as I write, two pileated woodpeckers are feasting on ants behind the house. Watching them, we were reminded that a pair came last summer too, to exactly the same spot: a bench of rough cedar under a fir tree.
...Theresa Kishkan 
