Euphonia

I was looking for the right word for a phenomenon I've encountered. Being a relative newcomer to this whole birding pursuit, I'm thinking there's got to be one for it...

The phenomenon: coming upon moments-- almost patches of time and space-- where suddenly your in the midst of a full-on birdsong moment. Not talking about the solo singer here, more when there's a group and suddenly they've got it going on. I've paid attention to time to see if it's a certain time in the morning. Of course there's daybreak. In Honduras that's when I was first exposed to the full-on racket-- cacophony-- associated with the birds in town prior to dawn. And then half an hour past dawn, it was suddenly quiet. As if none of that craziness had just gone down.

But what I'm talking about is not that specific time when birds are just getting going and launching into their morning song, but instead sometime later-- midmorning at time, or mid to late afternoon. Patchwork times. But when you walk into one you know.

The other morning-- Sunday April 7th-- it was in Bear Creak Lake State Park. I'd dropped down from Morrison Road above along a small creek draining towards the lake. Same way I ski in the winter, more or less. Meadowlarks and Red Wings on the way. Then along with north and east side of the lake to where I could cross Bear Creek itself via a single, shaky, downed cottonwood. And back west more or less along the creek, to the north of the big meadow and just within the trees near the creek. A Great Horned in there at times. Red Tailed perched above scouting. American Kestrel occasionally.

There's a good section in there for a bit with pretty much natural forest conditions (seems to me, anyway). With some downed trees and brush and cottonwoods. In there I saw my first American Goldfinch that was turning yellow... halfway, it seemed. By himself. Then suddenly nearby there was a quick courtship between two Northern Flickers, about 2.8 seconds of mating, and then they were just perched nonchalantly next to each other. I was looking for the Great Horned I'd seen there weeks back but with no luck.

Further to the west I was able to cross back to the north side of the creek and head back east. It was here that it happened. I became aware of the concentrated song in just one or two trees there. Coming into focus, I realized it was the American Goldfinch again, but this time plenty of them. I could see five at once but there were more. And they had it going on. So I just sat down to listen, had a look as well and spotted one that seemed to be almost 3/4 yellow-- yellowing from the top down.

So, these are the moments I'm talking about. I've had them with Robins, Blackbirds, Finches and Juncos. They're unique in whatever way-- stand-out-ish. Just, if you're paying attention, you've realized they've just really tucked into it. And how long do they last? 10 minutes? 30? not sure...

I've wanted to call them Euphonia moments.

Euphonious is defined as "pleasing to the ear"--

Euphonia is defined as "a tanager of the genus tanagra"--

Euphony is defined as "the acoustic effect produced by words so formed or combined as to please the ear"

Though in my mind words would be putting us off the scent. Words are not necessary here. It's about the notes and phrasing but also about the fact that this is done in company, not just alone. Not that the solo-singing is great as well... Just a different phenomenon. 

Yeah, anyway, I'm gonna use it my own way. Cause euphonia sounds related to euphoria as well, which captures some of the mood for me, for sure. 

So that's what i'm talking about from here on, cause I expect it'll be coming back up...