My Guide

Day 134: We have this in common, my little guide and I: we have a song to sing, but we prefer to remain unseen as we give it voice. Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus) is adept at staying out of sight, concealing himself in piles of brush so well that all anyone passing may see is a flash of motion in the corner of their eye. His song is long and varied, more music in his breast than one would think a small bird could hold, unless of course one understands the physiology of the syrinx which permits it. As we try to spot him in the dark places of the forest, we look vainly (there...no, there...or there, perhaps?) as his talent for ventriloquy deceives us. And then the melody falls upon us from immediately aside in a cascade of tinkling trills and arpeggios and, if fortunate, we catch a glimpse of drab, brown agitation, gone again in an instant. Where least expected, the song rises again repeatedly amid the stillness of the trees, acknowledging the interloper in the territory of the singer.