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One of the salient things about being back in my own room at the top of the house is the tremendous amount of birdsong I get up here. It's only a second story--I think it's a second story even for you Europeans, because there's a five-foor above-ground basement--but the five-foot basement, the high ceilings on the first floor, and the big space between the floors, means I sit over twenty feet off the ground and well into the birds' territory. One of my windows is a full-size sliding door (it really ought to have a porch out there). I keep it open at least a little bit except when it's very cold (which happens in this season sometimes). The air in my room is tree-flavored and actively bird-noisy. The view from my windows and skylights is rooftops, trees, and sky.
My neighborhood has a lot of trees in it. A hundred and more years ago, when maybe half the houses were built, it was kind of a suburban area (downtown being all of ten blocks away), with a certain amount of truck farming in it and people having a bit of livestock. So there's a legacy of fruit trees (largely plums, apples, lemons, figs, loquats,and avocados, as well as walnuts and even some olives even though we are not nearly warm enough in the summer to make a winning proposition of those). You can tell the old ones because they're bigger types. Dwarfing of productive trees is not new, but it has been increasing. And then also, each generation that lives here has had its own idea of the proper type of ornamental tree, and has planted these new trees without often removing the old ones. As to "trash" trees-- the fast-growing, self-planting urban trees that appear without welcome, my neighborhood seems to have a great tolerance for them (I have myself had two of them removed in the last month or so: one was pretending to be a root sprout of my almond tree and the over was pretending to be a root sprout of my lemon tree). My neighborhood also borders on a wetlands preserve. Altogether, despite the close-set houses and the apartment buildings and all the pet and feral cats, it's a great neighborhood for birds. Birders come specifically to Neary Lagoon, in fact.
And now it's over. It's eight-thirty now, and I guess it's been over for half an hour? There's still bird noise out there, but it's not dramatic and steady any more, except for the mourning dove who never seems to shut up. Fortnately for me, I like the mounring dove sound. I can see how it might drive some people batty after a few days, though, until they learned not to hear it.
I could get into birding from my window. It would act quite well as a blind since the trees close by are full of birds carrying on their normal business. Yesterday I watched a crow patrolling the eaves of Zack's little house, standing right on the edge of the roof and leaning over to catch something. I need to learn the names of the little fat birds that hop around on the trees in my yard: there are several varieties, and I only know the names of the most obvious. Just now I went to some effort to learn the name of the black phoebe. WhatBird is useless for flycatcher type birds, apparently.
One of my brothers-in-law is a master birder, and Emma is getting into it somewhat (though she has no time for anything now). So I have people I can ask. What I really ought to get is one of those sets of recordings of birdsong, so I can learn who is saying what out there, besides the mourning doves.
Is my impression correct that the rhythm of the mourning doves speeds up as the mornign progresses?
My neighborhood has a lot of trees in it. A hundred and more years ago, when maybe half the houses were built, it was kind of a suburban area (downtown being all of ten blocks away), with a certain amount of truck farming in it and people having a bit of livestock. So there's a legacy of fruit trees (largely plums, apples, lemons, figs, loquats,and avocados, as well as walnuts and even some olives even though we are not nearly warm enough in the summer to make a winning proposition of those). You can tell the old ones because they're bigger types. Dwarfing of productive trees is not new, but it has been increasing. And then also, each generation that lives here has had its own idea of the proper type of ornamental tree, and has planted these new trees without often removing the old ones. As to "trash" trees-- the fast-growing, self-planting urban trees that appear without welcome, my neighborhood seems to have a great tolerance for them (I have myself had two of them removed in the last month or so: one was pretending to be a root sprout of my almond tree and the over was pretending to be a root sprout of my lemon tree). My neighborhood also borders on a wetlands preserve. Altogether, despite the close-set houses and the apartment buildings and all the pet and feral cats, it's a great neighborhood for birds. Birders come specifically to Neary Lagoon, in fact.
And now it's over. It's eight-thirty now, and I guess it's been over for half an hour? There's still bird noise out there, but it's not dramatic and steady any more, except for the mourning dove who never seems to shut up. Fortnately for me, I like the mounring dove sound. I can see how it might drive some people batty after a few days, though, until they learned not to hear it.
I could get into birding from my window. It would act quite well as a blind since the trees close by are full of birds carrying on their normal business. Yesterday I watched a crow patrolling the eaves of Zack's little house, standing right on the edge of the roof and leaning over to catch something. I need to learn the names of the little fat birds that hop around on the trees in my yard: there are several varieties, and I only know the names of the most obvious. Just now I went to some effort to learn the name of the black phoebe. WhatBird is useless for flycatcher type birds, apparently.
One of my brothers-in-law is a master birder, and Emma is getting into it somewhat (though she has no time for anything now). So I have people I can ask. What I really ought to get is one of those sets of recordings of birdsong, so I can learn who is saying what out there, besides the mourning doves.
Is my impression correct that the rhythm of the mourning doves speeds up as the mornign progresses?