Under a Roof of Birds

    I was walking through the woods last week when I thought I saw a movement ahead of me. I stopped and peered through the trees. But wasn't that a blackened tree stump I thought had moved? I was walking through a part of the forest that had been underburned a few years ago, so burned stumps and logs are common. Then the blackened tree stump jumped up and ran up a tree—a bear cub, in the exact place I had seen him and his mom and twin sister a few weeks ago.
    "It's all right," I called. "Don't worry. I'll take another trail. Have a good day," and I turned around and walked a different direction.

    After a short walk I had cause to thank the bear cub for turning me in a different direction because on that new trail I was suddenly under a roof of birds, twittering, chattering, chirping in the trees over my head. The musical commotion held me captive. The birds weren't singing and whistling; they weren't making melodies. They were telling stories, and I was privy to their gossip. From time to time one would flit to a perch in a different tree. Another would flutter to another perch, then another bird to another tree. They chattered like girls at the Coco-Cola parties of my teenhood. Occasionally the rasping call from a distant crow or Stellar jay would add perspective to the aural experience—outside the room of birds—but nothing disturbed the gorgeous color of sound that saturated the air around me. It was like standing under a rainbow.

    Suddenly, with no discernible provocation and with a rush so loud it startled me, the whole flock whooshed out of the trees and flew northward. I was left with the silence of the forest again. 

    What a privilege it is to be in such a world.