Why do birds sing?

Past nights – Laying in bed – Listening to birds singing – Wondering why they sing.

I’d find myself walking distracted around Bluffton every spring at any given time of the day. Repeatedly the starting hour of my “Economic Development and the Environment” class was the sacrificial cow. Every time the weather outside was beautiful, my classmates along with my professor would know that I would be arriving 20 minutes late or 10 minutes the least.

If my University offered Bird Communication as a Bachelor of Arts, I’d be the first one to receive an Honoris Causa.

I remember walking several times through the grass looking up the sky and whistling to birds, trying to find them. Everything was growing: the trees were growing leaves, the tulips were opening, the prickly shrubs were getting more bristly, the squirrels were coming out, and the skies on them days were as blue as we could perceive them.

So I aimlessly and randomly decided to communicate with the birds. Since I like to whistle, and hum songs, why not do them with a purpose?

Every time I was outside I listened to what the birds were “singing.” And after days of listening I decided to try it on my own. Walking around campus every time a bird sang, I tried to repeat it, and wouldn’t get a response. I gave up. No more whistling.

Three weeks before school was out, I heard a bird singing, and I whistled to its tune.
I heard a response! Then I whistled again, and I heard a response! And there I was looking at the trees again and whistling and the bird was responding. After 20 seconds of our conversation (by the way I dint have a clue what I was saying), the bird flew besides me two times, and sat in a branch at a tree in front of me.

It was a red cardinal.

It was a time of quietness, awe, and surprise.

- I looked at the cardinal, and (he/she) looked back.
- Tilting and moving his/her head so he or she can
have a better view of me.
- It was two seconds that felt like five minutes.

Never had I experience so close to birds before.

I had two more experiences after that, one with another cardinal, and another with a blue jay.

This story leads me to think, perhaps if as human beings we start listening to each other closely, and try to establish communication we can get a lot of awe moments with each other.