So slow and melancholy, the call began, the first two syllables deeply felt, while the next verses were quick and playful in a folksy, nostalgic way.
There was no Google search to answer this question. Of all the billions of bits of information I could Google, this was not one.
A friend told me it was a white-throated sparrow. Sibley told me that the call goes “Old-Sam-Peabody-Peabody.” I laughed. I told myself that I now “knew” the bird. The mystery vanished. I felt I lost a companion.
But had the mystery vanished? I think not. For three months, I observed the inner workings of piping plover life, read all of the research on piping plover behavior, but I was far from knowing the plovers. Checking the white-throated sparrow off a list meant nothing. “The whistler of the North” does not sing to be greedily reduced to a checkmark, it sings for itself. To know a bird is to know the landscape where it lives, and to know a landscape is to know yourself. If anything, there were more mysteries and questions than before.
It’s important to remember during the hysteria of spring migrations and birdathons that these birds are more than checkmarks; they’re something to behold. The Canada Geese, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Killdeer may be dismissed as givens on any checklist, but they are here, living, thriving.
On Saturday Faville Grove will be hosting a number of talented birders, not including myself, for the Great Wisconsin Birdathon. According to ebird data, White-throated Sparrows passed through about a week ago, but maybe we’ll catch a straggler. If we do, my checklist will be ready, and I’m betting I’ll have more checks than Goose Pond.
Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren, Flickr Creative Commons.