Monday, March 16

Reflection by Daneen Akers

It is possible that birds sing because they like to sing.      

- David Rothenberg

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

- Emily Dickinson

Poets and artists have long drawn a connection between birdsong and hope and joy. The dawn chorus comes reliably every morning as the first hints of sunrise begin to show its pink tendrils on the horizon. In my spot on this planet, the dawn chorus usually begins with robins, Carolina wrens, cardinals, song sparrows, eastern bluebirds, finches, and towhees, singing open the day.

A local Asheville-based ornithologist and naturalist, Luke Cannon, teaches amateur bird enthusiasts like myself in various class settings, often out on an early morning bird walk. One of the ideas he shared with a class once has stayed with me as a powerful visual. As he points out, on our turning planet, it’s always dawn somewhere. This means that the earth is constantly bathed in light and song.

That image has been a potent one for me, especially as the happenings on this earth at the hands of humans have increasingly caused me great anxiety and grief.

And yet—and yet…somewhere it’s always the dawn. Somewhere the birds are always singing.

Relatedly, scientists have also discovered that fish sing in the early dawn hours, so even on the parts of the planet that are primarily water, creation sings and leaps in the dawn light. (It’s a myth that fish are silent—over 800 species of fish have now been documented making all kinds of sounds, but most are sounds that human ears can’t perceive, but fish—like birds—sing in the morning.)

I keep a short poem taped up by our front door from Terry Tempest Williams that reminds me of the sacred task to greet the day with joy:

 “Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

Of course, in our modern, industrial view of the world, we tend to forget that not all things must serve a purpose. Western science hasn’t traditionally had room for anything other than utilitarian views of the more-than-human world. 

That’s the dominant view of Western science that Indigenous biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer has pushed back on. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she talks about her formative experience as a new college freshman. A science professor asked her why she wanted to study botany, and she said she wanted to know why asters and golden rod look so beautiful together. He sternly informed her that beauty was not a scientific question at all, and likely she needed to switch to the art department if those were her questions. This is what she says Indigenous ways of seeing can bring to science: to not just know the name of a plant, but to know its song. “Science polishes the gift of seeing,” she writes. “Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language.”

In addition to the reasons Western science allows for birdsong, birds may also simply sing because it delights them. And in their song, we are invited to delight too. We are invited to remember that the world can still be celebrated.

A few links to keep bookmarked when you need the dawn chorus at a time other than dawn:

• Video of an hour of the dawn chorus at Teal Lake, Okanogan

• 5 minutes of Dawn Chorus video

• This song by the community song leader, Lawrence Cole, “Do You Want to Sing Open the Morning”, is a wonderful way to start the day!