Twitter of Wren, Flutter of Wing, Riffle of Page

 You can hear quiet things you don't ordinarily hear if you sit outside silently enough, still enough, long enough, and near enough to the place where the sounds are made. Even if you can't predict what you'll hear ahead of time. Wing-flutter for instance.

I've been on the backyard swing most of the morning, fully engaged in a fiction writing project as well as "House Wren Nestwatch, 2019." The wrens are in the copper-roofed birdhouse across the yard from the swing, the same house that has fledged bluebird families in past years. The fiction is in my laptop, a project unrelated to the house wrens.

Like all bird pairs I've watched, the house wrens inspire me for their fierce protection and diligent feeding of their young, and in the case of the house wren, for the father's perpetual bubbly song. I marvel at the length of his twitter when he's protecting his family. Or is he simply so proud he can't contain himself? You wouldn't think a bird that tiny could get enough air in his lungs to sustain his seconds-long song.

Then came the unexpected pleasure I've come to expect when sitting outside. I was revising a passage about a certain bookish character's snores sounding like the pages of a book riffling through her fingers, when amazingly, I heard the actual sound I was describing.  At first I thought I was so lost in story that I imagined the hearing.

But no. The sound came again and again. Turned out to be a cardinal pair on the top bar of the swing above my head. By their consistent landings and takings off, they must surely be feeding young nearby, as the house wrens are, but I haven't been able to discern the location of their nest.
They're clever that way.
  

Like most people, I've noticed the characteristic squeaky wing-flap of mourning doves, or a robin's whinny as it flaps, and I've written a past blogpost about the click of a male bluebird's wings when chasing a squirrel from his nest, but I'm not sure I've ever heard the simple and common flutter of a cardinal's wings before today. Both in the coming and going, the rush of air through the feathers sounded like the riffle of the pages of a book, only slower and louder. Almost a clacking sound, as if the feathers are brittle, but not exactly.

So I guess this is why I don't often write about things I hear.  Not that I don't hear as well as see more things when paying attention, just that sound is harder to describe. A cardinal's wing-flutter, for instance, despite how common, is beyond my ability to capture in words—for its breathtaking grandeur.

Until next sound takes me by surprise, dkm