Veery

Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. May 15 2020.  You know how how some people look like their dog? You’ve seen those pictures. I once met a woman who bore a striking resemblance to her poodle; lanky and a bit pointy, but I didn’t say anything. My wife’s family really liked English Bulldogs and I’m glad to say the operative word is liked not likeness. This is a rather rambling way of tackling a thought that came to me as I ate my breakfast toast: that some birds’ songs seem appropriate to their appearance. You could, in a pinch I suppose, draw a parallel between the bright boldness of a Blue Jay with its characteristic shriek or the dry wheeze of a Pine Siskin to its streaky browns. It’s a stretch I’ll admit but…

Well this morning, before anyone else was up and about, and with a big bank of wet weather making its way from the west I went birding. What else is there after all? It had been a wet night and I was not terribly optimistic but the birds absolutely have to get on with their northward migration, and damn the torpedoes. It was early, barely first light, and heavily overcast.

The birding was good, if challenging, and I learned a lot about the limits of my camera, of about fifty photos taken only two or three are keepers. New to me this year were a couple of Ovenbirds and at least two, maybe more, Veerys, which brings me back to my point about poodles and bird song.

Veery, now there’s a bird! At risk of being unoriginal, I’ll quote from my my post of June 2013. ‘Veerys aren’t often seen, they’re delicate, subtle and elegant and there’s not much in the way of visual fireworks about them, it’s mostly about their song, they seem to prefer the depths of a forest to sing their “Veer-veer-veer-vv tktktkt” song.  It starts emphatically, quickly fades and tapers as if, really, it’s a secret.  It has a rolling cadence that makes you think it might be trickling down a long, cast-iron drainpipe; it’s obviously hard to describe.  I used the adjective ethereal, one that every writer seems to fall back on; nothing else quite captures the breathless will-o-the-wisp essence of this song – a song that can stop me dead in my tracks.’

Today I watched and photographed a pair of Veerys close to me on the lawn and it struck me that their natural beauty is so understated, so ethereal too. Plain yes, but not the slightest touch of lip-gloss, blush or eyeliner needed. Birds of the Day – so far anyway. The rain has stopped and I’m going back out, damn the torpedoes.