The birds are noisy today, enjoying a last day of sun before rain arrives for the weekend. The little critters were noisy as could be, and one particular bird filled the air with an arresting song. I searched the treetops beside the cornfield and found her out on a limb, warbling and facing the rising sun.
Too dull for a robin, too big for a sparrow, I wondered if it was a meadowlark. But they rarely perch so high. No other ideas presented themselves so when I got home, I pulled out the “Birds of Iowa” book my friend Cindy gave me. Once again I was thankful the author, Stan Tekiela, arranged the birds primarily by color, with little colored tabs for those of us in the birdwatching-for-dummies crowd that needs all the help we can get.
Halfway through the “brown” section, I found my musician, a female red-breasted grosbeak. Apparently, the females are all sedate, Iowa church ladies who, instead of flaunting red breasts as flagrantly as their husbands do, cover themselves with brown speckles for the sake of propriety.
The book said males and females sing, but the males sing louder. If that’s the case, I’ll need earplugs when the mister commences his vocalizations. But the most exciting thing about the birds is that they are the last birds to arrive in spring and the first to leave in autumn (for Mexico and Central and South America if you’re interested in going with them in the fall). If the author knows what he’s talking about, and I think he does because the bird was correctly categorized as “brown” which is pretty impressive, then spring is really and truly here.
So I’m going out on a limb with my new church lady friend and fine musician, the red-breasted grosbeak. We’re singing the duet all Iowa has been waiting to hear – it’s spring, it’s spring, it’s spring.
