Country Music

This time of the year around here, when you walk around outside at night, you can always count on hearing the very distinctive riffs of whippoorwills. They may be miles away, or they might be as close as somewhere not far up on the hillside, across the creek. The distance doesn't matter. It's all equally beautiful.

I have never seen a whippoorwill close up, but once, years ago, one chanced to light on the roof of our house's first floor, which, due to the way the house is built, begins its slope halfway up the rear, north wall of the bedroom on the second floor. And from there, through the small back windows set into that wall, the song of that bird was really, really loud. Sadly, that performance was brief and has never been repeated.

Among the local birdsongs I usually put the calls of hoot owls at the top of my list, but maybe that ranking is based on the season when I make it, and now that I think more about it, I would place hoot owls in a tie with whippoorwills.

But that may not be the whole truth either, because also at this time of the year I hear quite a few other trills and riffs as our small, feathered, hidden neighbors welcome the sunrise, and generally their music is also out of this world. It's just that I don't know the names of the artists. I've thought of buying an audio tape to help me with that but have never gotten around to it. Maybe it strikes me as being a little too ...organized, and you know, we can't have that.