Coffee with the birds

The author stepped onto their porch at 5:45 AM with coffee and the free Merlin bird identification app running. Pocket Canyon was already alive with activity.

A Steller’s jay squawked loudly from the trees, followed by a house sparrow chirping from the neighbor’s fence and a common raven croaking deeper in the forest, creating what sounded like “a war council.”

House finches sang sweetly while a red-shouldered hawk’s whistle cut through the morning air. A lesser goldfinch produced “a jittery melody—hard to believe something so small can sound like a music box short-circuiting.”

Violet-green swallows clicked and zipped overhead through the mist, catching insects mid-flight. A California towhee fussed in the underbrush with urgent-sounding calls.

Near the back fence, a western wood-pewee’s clear, descending whistle was followed by a black-headed grosbeak’s rich jazz-like song.

A Swainson’s thrush spiraled out its song “like a ghost rising through fog” from the redwoods. A western tanager with its flame-yellow body and red face briefly appeared before vanishing into the canopy.

A black phoebe perched on a garden wire — dapper black-and-white, quietly judging — served as a reminder that nature came to find us, not the other way around.