June-soundways |  Nest & Egg | Bird-Blind

I showed her Secrets – Morning’s Nest -, c. 1862 (Fr346A)

According to the Snell meteorological record, in June 1864 the temperatures averaged in the mid-to-high 60s, but rose briefly into the 90s. And while the first half of the month was dominated by fair days with occasional showers on June 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, and 12, the second half of the month was hotter, with many days marked as dry, dusty, smoky. The end of the month was afflicted by severe drought. While the largest number of days—June 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30—were quiet, with no perceptible weather sounds, a cold wind on June 10 was followed by frost the next day, and wind, this time a drought wind, came again on June 27. Stratus clouds were most often in the sky.

Bird species in the scatterplot for June number just over 100, with losses of almost a third from the high count of May.

:00

The dawn choruses that arose in May reach a pitch by the summer solstice, when the earth attains its most extreme tilt toward the sun to give us the longest day of the year. 

At the opening of June, the listener has taken their place in a bird-blind deep in the wood just before Robins and Thrushes sing open the pre-dawn hours. At first light, others come to join them: Warblers, Sparrows, Finches, Bluebirds, Chickadees, Orioles, Flycatchers, Tanagers, Swallows, Grosbeaks, Phoebes, Cuckoos, Catbirds, Swifts, Buntings, Veeries, Bobolinks…

:20

The waves of migration largely over, now the birds are on their nests, protecting their eggs or feeding their young. 

The soundscape of aeries is a tensile net of knots and aperatures.

:27

Concealed in the blind, the listener is beside a nest of Wrens. Their begging sounds hissing close to their ear.

1:16

Something that is not one of them has entered the wood. 

An axe rings out everywhere at once, turning the quiet cradle world into a site of alarm.