Charlie Harper: Mystery of the Missing Migrants, 1990.
David and I are in Ithaca, in New York's Finger Lakes region, for most of the summer. I tend to be an early riser (the residual effect of having worked an 8-5 job for so many years) and I like to take my coffee to the front porch to watch the squirrels gamboling in the trees and listen to the birds. The first song is the haunting cry of the Mourning Dove joined later by the Scarlet Tanager and the "call and response" of the Northern Cardinal. If I look closely (squint really, as I don't wear my glasses in the morning) I can spot the male's red plumage in a tree across the street. Once in a while the sound of beating wings announces a hummingbird in the quince bush. Last to join in is a woodpecker (a rather threatening sound, to my ears). By nine thirty or so, all is quiet but for the trucks and cars zooming by on Route 79.
-- sdh
