In a recent conversation with our daughter about surviving the lockdown she told me that the birds are waking her most mornings with the dawn chorus. It reminded me about this piece which I wrote one Sunday morning when I came home from Church. One of the hymns sung in the service was …
Morning has broken…
I was awake and out of bed before 5 am. It was still dark and there was just a sliver of light on the horizon. Then a bird made a sound, not yet a song, more of a single note like a throat clearing. The cats who had raised their heads when I came into the Orangery and sat near them, were now fully alert. But they were no longer interested in me.
Another bird tried another note and then another bird and another. The cats had moved to sit before the glass doors, not looking to go out but fully attentive to what was happening outside. Within seconds more birds joined in and now the sound was definite singing.
The cats and I were all caught up in this music. Individually I could make out voices of different birds but together the avian choir was singing a chorus of welcome to the dawn. It was as if the power of their voices was raising the sun above the horizon. There was no movement yet within the garden. Each bird on its perch was singing its welcome to the new day and the sounds joined to make an amazingly loud dawn chorus.
How was it possible that this did not waken the human world each morning? It seemed to me that the chorus increased in volume by the minute. How had I slept through this on previous mornings? As the volume had increased so it now started to decrease and the light grew stronger. I could make out the shape of the trees and shrubs.
Within too short a time the birdsong was tapering off and I was sorry to hear it diminish. I had been caught up in the sound. The rational part of me knew that each bird was proclaiming their survival to the new day, warning off any rivals not to wander into their territory and the volume of their song was a show of ‘look how strong I am’ and ‘don’t mess with me’.
The emotional and spiritual side of me had been caught up in the welcome of creation of a new day . I experienced the sense of wonder and amazement at the miracle and my senses had shared the song with the birds. As the day became light the birds stopped their song and were making their normal busy sounds as they started to fly around.
The cats lost interest and stretched and returned to their beds. I too stood up and stretched and also returned to my bed, but felt blessed to have been part of the creation of that morning.