Bird Songs

One of the things that I love about where I live is amount of birds that visit my yard.  (Especially now that Kino has, for the most part, stopped chasing them out of the yard.)  Listening to their chirping and singing is something that I get to enjoy almost every day.

Last weekend, I had a funny bird experience. I was in the house cooking, the backdoor was open, and I had the music cranked up.  Suddenly, I became aware of a bird singing in the yard.  It was singing so loudly that I could hear it over the music.  Imagine that you have two radios blaring in two different rooms of the house, playing two different stations . . . it will start to give you a headache.

Turning my music off, I went into the backyard in search of the singing bird.  I could still hear him but I couldn't see him anywhere.  The singing continued so I grabbed my phone and made a video to capture the sound.  I was really curious what type of bird made this beautiful sound but since I couldn't see it, I knew I was going to have to identify it by it's song.

I sent the video to my dad and asked him if he had any thoughts.  He suggested a whippoorwill so I found a recording of a whippoorwill on the internet but it didn't match.  Then I sent it to one of my best friends and asked her if she recognized the bird but she didn't.  I stood outside for a while again, searching the trees for the bird but still couldn't find him.

About an hour later, I got a text from my friend with a video . . . and it was the same bird singing away in her yard about 6 hours north of me.  Well, it wasn't the SAME bird - LOL - but clearly one of his relatives.  She couldn't see the bird in her yard either. Now we both really felt driven to figure out what bird this was.

I sent the recording to my cousin because her husband knows a lot about birds but felt I needed to keep trying to figure it out so back to the internet I went.  I listened to more bird recordings that night than I ever thought I would. I did every kind of search I could think of . . . and finally I found one that was close.  It wasn't the exact song, but it was close.  That was when I realized the bird in my yard (and my friend's yard) did a 3 note song so I started searching for birds that have 3 note songs.  I went to bed defeated that night though.

The next day, I was sitting the backyard drinking my coffee and I heard him again.  I texted my friend and she wrote back immediately and said she heard it in her yard too.  Now we were starting to feel there had to be a reason for it - maybe a message for us so I felt inspired to try again . . . and finally several hours later I figured it out!

We were being serenaded by a Golden Crowned Sparrow!  I was so excited to figure it out!  I immediately emailed my friend and my dad and let them know the good news.  I giggled when I read that they are the masters of camouflage - that must have been the reason we could never SEE the bird singing in our yards. Later that night, I emailed my cousin to tell her she could ignore my previous plea for help, as I had figured it out.

Once I had basked in the joy of figuring out what the bird was, I looked into what it means when a sparrow shows up and makes itself known.  One source said "The sparrow is small, but it has big meaning and lessons.  The first is to enjoy the little things in life and happily embrace simplicity."  The article also said, "She beckons us to keep our burdens light as we can in order to avoid a heavy heart."

My friend and I felt the message was fitting for both of us right now and we were glad we paid attention.

A couple days later, I found a text message from my cousin when I got up and it said "I hear the bird outside my window right now!"

It seems that all three of us needed to get the message of the sparrow.