There is a morning thing that happens around here. Sometime around 5:00 (this is mid-June, so the sky is beginning to lighten just a bit) the birds awaken. They sing and whistle and chirp their sweet bird songs. Then.
Then.
Today, it happened at 5:47. The magpies wake. Those bullies start screeching and screaming. And guess what. All the sweet birdsong evaporates from the air and the squalking alarm of magpies overtakes everything (and I wake up). For a good 15 minutes, sometimes longer, the magpies scream and scare the feathers off the cute smaller birds.
But now, it’s 6:10, and the skies are lightening a little more. Not quite shadow-producing yet, but you can definitely see everything. And the bully magpies have gone quiet, but it’s not silent out there. A gentle song, a musical song is lifting out of the trees. They’re taking back the morning.
Go, little birds. Let your voices ring.