the dawn chorus
I love to sit on the cool dark porch just before dawn, listening as birds twitter and sing at such volume I imagine their banditries and bevies and breasts crowding the limbs of the trees with jumpy, sometimes swoopy chaos. There comes a disembodied tuning, the calls and responses not unlike the huddled collaborations of orchestral chairs, the rhythmic tap of woodpecker’s beak against bark and trunk. Meanwhile, the assembly remains hidden as the real music begins, cloaked in darkness, and even peering carefully out past the screen of the porch, I can find no discernible arc of flight, nor outline of wing nor triumvirate of toes, though the pear tree just a few yards in front of me, with its bulbous flame of foliage, must be nearly bursting.
I pause, listening, laying my pen down to be still, cradling a steamy mug of coffee in one hand and wondering over the excitement of creation at break of day. I have always been fascinated by birds, the creatures who, neither sowing nor reaping nor storing away, simply receive their daily bread from the hand of God. I fill pages, I realize, glancing down at the journal splayed open now on my lap, in defiance against the temptation to spend my time on self-provisioning, to store up treasure that will only disappear. The prophet Habakkuk warned that we humans exhaust ourselves for nothing, and Jesus urged, look at the birds, upholding them as a natural reminder to trust in the God who cares for us. So, nearly every morning I begin with this listening, this realignment of my thoughts, my heart, my body toward God, expecting Him to look after my hunger.
So many natural reminders written into creation by the grace of God clearly make known, as the apostle Paul said, the invisible qualities of God, his eternal power and divine nature, that we human beings are left without excuse for our failure to glorify Him and give thanks to Him.
Somewhere upstairs, deep in the house, sits a shoe box turned treasure box wherein I have stored the yellowing evidence of short but frequent exchanges I once had with my grandfather—my Papa, when long ago we shared our mutual curiosity about the birds and the thought that they seem inclined to make speeches. Papa often wrote his letters in shaky-handed rhyme, like songs, and as I read them with childish eyes, I felt his smile, hearing in his words a frank and affectionate amusement. Together, we looked at the birds, and through our discussions of them began an early unraveling of the knots inherent in life and love. That interaction, which I’ve stored up among the lasting things, seems only now to have pointed to the wisdom of the ages.
“I wonder why the birds sing louder in the dark?” Kevin now softly interjects, chiming in as only he could, as though he has overheard what I have been pondering in my mind and means only to continue the conversation.
Maybe it’s the waking, the revival from the helpless Sabbath of sleep, and the recognition that many of our neighbors are, undoubtedly, still resting, but we, in sharp contrast to the birds, face the still darkness of the early morning talking in low, careful tones. If only in fleeting thought, I wonder who else might be awake around us and listening, who else might be sitting with God at this early hour, if all our prayers, audibly appreciated, neighbor by neighbor, might amount to a similarly fine-tuned sound of worship rising.
And what if, like the birds, the crescendo of our human chorus booms louder from humble obscurity than it ever could from any public platform? What if we could truly grow to love singing from our hiddenness in Christ?
When Christ who is your life appears, the apostle Paul once wrote, then you will appear with him in glory. I think of the sun soon rising, tinting the sky warm rose, finally revealing bits of feathery color, the quick jolt of elegant flight, the tiny shadow of a watchman perched at the uppermost edge of my neighbor’s chimney.
Sufficiently curious, I Google Kevin’s question. Why do birds sing louder in the dark?
The AI generated response, culled lightning fast from the wisdom of the world, is not at all what I expect. This phenomenon, which is not that birds sing louder in the dark but that they sing louder at dawn, is called The Dawn Chorus.
“Wow. Wait, did you know? There’s actually a name for it,” I say to Kevin, still running down rabbit trails on my phone.
“A name for what?”
“The birds—the loud singing. It’s called the dawn chorus.”
“Huh.” He’s rocking, looking out like me and listening, waiting for the light. “Well, that seems appropriate. All creation sings its praises.”
“All hail,” I quietly agree, scanning an article on the web. “They say that it’s believed that the birds sing louder and more frequently just before dawn because ‘the early morning hours provide optimal conditions for sound transmission, with calmer air and less competition from other sounds.’ Of course, theories also suggest that, with their singing, the males are just trying to attract the ladies. And telling the other guys to get lost.”
Kevin glances at me and grins. “Right, of course.”
But there was David, hiding in a cave with his harp, singing to God at first light, awake, my soul! I will awaken the dawn; David singing, the whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders, where morning dawns, you call forth praise. The prophet Isaiah described the coming of Christ as the brilliant arrival of the light of dawn, healing a land lost in darkness, and it was with the dawn, Mary urgently plodding through the dark to the garden tomb, that an angel proclaimed Christ’s resurrection to her. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.
So maybe the birds also sing for dawn, for the hope of light coming. Maybe the dawn chorus is nature’s daily doxology, born of an expectation demanding vibrancy, calling forth waking songs of praise. Look at the birds, He said, and so, let’s crowd the branches, all our nervous, waiting selves, and sing to awaken the dawn.
All hail, the Light comes.
