As we walked along the bank of the Au Sable River in Michigan, we heard a bird song in the distance that simply stopped us in our tracks. It was an evening in early June, and Keith Oakes and I were searching for a secluded spot to fish. Thousands of mayflies called Brown Drakes would soon swarm over the river, mate recklessly, and fall onto the surface of the river, spent and dying. If all this happened as planned, big trout would feast on the dead bugs, and we would be there to take advantage of the situation.
But back to the bird song…
After years of apathy bordering on outright stubbornness, Keith had finally become interested in the birds, which was helpful because in years past he’d be too hyper to actually stop for 30 seconds to figure out what was going on in the natural world around us. After all, stopping for half a minute would mean we’d fish for only 2 hours, 59 and a half minutes instead of three full hours. When Keith gets focused on fishing, nothing else matters. No, it’s worse than that – nothing else exists.
At least that’s the way it used to be. But now he’ll actually consent to stop and look and listen, not merely to stop my whining but because he’s genuinely interested. It’s a change I thought I’d never witness. He’s beginning to slow down and notice things, which I consider to be a good thing, one of the few benefits of growing old. For most of us, our pace begins to slow sometime while we are busy raising our kids. We just get worn down by the soccer games, swim meets, and church Christmas pageants. It’s like the trench warfare of World War One – you are gradually defeated by attrition. Or maybe we just realize that raising our kids properly requires that we stop and explain things to them. We don’t want them to grow up ignorant, so on family vacations Dad begins stopping the car at all those historical markers on the side of the road. Stopping to read historical markers. Pausing to listen to a bird. Two signs that a new chapter in life has begun.
So Keith and I stopped when we heard the song of the Veery; although, at the time we didn’t know the name of the bird. In fact, I didn’t get around to figuring out what bird belonged to that other-worldly sound until about six weeks later when I was walking high (about 5,000 feet) on the Hyatt Ridge trail in the Smokies near dusk. Once again I heard that very distinctive song: a repetitive, four-part, downward-spiraling song.
I’ve never actually seen a Veery – a reclusive, brown, nondescript bird – but his song is otherworldly and pretty much indescribable. Peterson’s Guide describes it as “liquid, breezy, ethereal, wheeling downward.” See, the experts have difficulty describing it. To my ear, it sounds like he says, “Wheel, Wheel, Wheel, Wheel.” Each Wheel sounds like he’s groaning into a hollow pipe. No, wait. Not groaning. Humming. Humming into a hollow pipe. No, maybe it sounds like he’s in a bottle, which gives his song a hollow, echoing… okay, I give up. I guess the amateurs can’t describe it either. Nevertheless, I think this is the most fascinating bird song in the Smokies.
It’s also a song Southerners hear only in the mountains because the Veery spends his winter in South America and his summer in the deep forests of Canada (and Michigan). Luckily, our Southern Appalachian mountains are high and cool enough that a few Veerys will spend their summers here. Now that’s my kind of bird – one that flies several thousand miles, arrives in the Smokies, and says, “You guys go ahead. I’m gonna stop now. Why fly all the way to Canada when we could stay here in these mountains?” His avian legacy demands that he keep going, but he just doesn’t see the point. So he shirks responsibility, flaunts instinct, and cuts the road trip short, just to see what a summer in the Southern Appalachians is like. Maybe next year he’ll make it all the way to Canada, but not now.
Maybe we humans aren’t the only ones who learn, as the years pass, to pause and appreciate the beauty of the natural world at our doorstep, or by the roadside, or by a trout stream in Michigan. Humankind could learn a thing or two from a Smoky Mountain Veery.
But back to the bird song…
After years of apathy bordering on outright stubbornness, Keith had finally become interested in the birds, which was helpful because in years past he’d be too hyper to actually stop for 30 seconds to figure out what was going on in the natural world around us. After all, stopping for half a minute would mean we’d fish for only 2 hours, 59 and a half minutes instead of three full hours. When Keith gets focused on fishing, nothing else matters. No, it’s worse than that – nothing else exists.
At least that’s the way it used to be. But now he’ll actually consent to stop and look and listen, not merely to stop my whining but because he’s genuinely interested. It’s a change I thought I’d never witness. He’s beginning to slow down and notice things, which I consider to be a good thing, one of the few benefits of growing old. For most of us, our pace begins to slow sometime while we are busy raising our kids. We just get worn down by the soccer games, swim meets, and church Christmas pageants. It’s like the trench warfare of World War One – you are gradually defeated by attrition. Or maybe we just realize that raising our kids properly requires that we stop and explain things to them. We don’t want them to grow up ignorant, so on family vacations Dad begins stopping the car at all those historical markers on the side of the road. Stopping to read historical markers. Pausing to listen to a bird. Two signs that a new chapter in life has begun.
So Keith and I stopped when we heard the song of the Veery; although, at the time we didn’t know the name of the bird. In fact, I didn’t get around to figuring out what bird belonged to that other-worldly sound until about six weeks later when I was walking high (about 5,000 feet) on the Hyatt Ridge trail in the Smokies near dusk. Once again I heard that very distinctive song: a repetitive, four-part, downward-spiraling song.
I’ve never actually seen a Veery – a reclusive, brown, nondescript bird – but his song is otherworldly and pretty much indescribable. Peterson’s Guide describes it as “liquid, breezy, ethereal, wheeling downward.” See, the experts have difficulty describing it. To my ear, it sounds like he says, “Wheel, Wheel, Wheel, Wheel.” Each Wheel sounds like he’s groaning into a hollow pipe. No, wait. Not groaning. Humming. Humming into a hollow pipe. No, maybe it sounds like he’s in a bottle, which gives his song a hollow, echoing… okay, I give up. I guess the amateurs can’t describe it either. Nevertheless, I think this is the most fascinating bird song in the Smokies.
It’s also a song Southerners hear only in the mountains because the Veery spends his winter in South America and his summer in the deep forests of Canada (and Michigan). Luckily, our Southern Appalachian mountains are high and cool enough that a few Veerys will spend their summers here. Now that’s my kind of bird – one that flies several thousand miles, arrives in the Smokies, and says, “You guys go ahead. I’m gonna stop now. Why fly all the way to Canada when we could stay here in these mountains?” His avian legacy demands that he keep going, but he just doesn’t see the point. So he shirks responsibility, flaunts instinct, and cuts the road trip short, just to see what a summer in the Southern Appalachians is like. Maybe next year he’ll make it all the way to Canada, but not now.
Maybe we humans aren’t the only ones who learn, as the years pass, to pause and appreciate the beauty of the natural world at our doorstep, or by the roadside, or by a trout stream in Michigan. Humankind could learn a thing or two from a Smoky Mountain Veery.
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