Third Week Prompt Of Nature
Waking up to the Songs of Peacocks and Blue Jays
Evocative and therapeutic — the power of birdsong
“Discovering Joy in the Chirping Birds” — Third Week Prompt Of Nature
Sometimes, waking up isn’t hard to do
Opening your eyes at 4:30 a.m. is glorious if one wakes up to peacocks calling. It was how I awoke on the four days I spent on my uncle’s coffee farm in India three months back.
As a teen growing up in Mumbai, the crows nesting in the wild fig tree opposite my apartment building served as my 4 a.m. (whether I liked it or not) morning alarm. The corvid choir opened with what seemed like a solitary singer spacing out their caws a minute or two apart. But as the sky went from grey-pink to gold, the choir grew increasingly full-throated — until it was overtaken by the cheeping of sparrows and the twittering of bulbuls and mynahs.
These days, in my home in Texas, the blue jays squawk me into wakefulness. Give us this day our daily breakfast. Our peanuts-in-the-shell.
When I step out in the morning to scatter these nuts in my backyard, an avian scout perched in my neighbor’s crape myrtle sends out a vociferous…
