Do You Hear What I Hear?

I miss songbirds.  I had canaries when I was a kid, German rollers.  My Aunt Hilda had a large, walk-in aviary filled with canaries, as well as parakeets, cockatiels, and one large cockatoo, Joe.  In southern California, meadowlarks, mockingbirds, and other birds whose names escape me sang all the time.  Up here, the sky and trees are filled with birds of all shapes and sizes.  They are prodigious noisemakers.  The local birds caw, coo, cheep, crow, yell for Rod-ri-go, gobble, squawk, and twitter, but not one sings.  I had a moment of hope the other morning on my walkabout when I heard an honest-to-God "tweet."  It was the first real tweet I've heard up here, but I couldn't see the bird, and it was just the one morning, and no song was forthcoming.  I've heard that altitude has an effect on musical instruments; guitars and banjos need retuning, drums need tightening (or maybe it's loosening), etc.  I wonder if songbirds don't travel to the foothills, or if they're around and their voices have been affected.  I'd get a canary for the house, but it wouldn't be fair to the bird or to Frank and Pearl.  They get enough treats as it is.

Like a reservation confirmation for Dolly's visit, the rain has arrived.  Overcast skies in the morning didn't open up until I was down in the barn, hatless.  It then drizzled off and on all day, but rain didn't really begin in earnest until last night.  Opening the door for the cats to go out in the dark this morning, I did hear singing.  It took just the one night of rain to bring out the frog chorus and they were singing in stereophonic sound, sopranos and basso profondos competing for center stage.  Ah, well.  You take what you get and be glad that you got it.