Ode to Phoebe

Our feathered alarm clock

(Fair warning: The sole purpose of this post is to sing the praises of a particular bird. Nothing deeper or more complicated than that. Because often naturelove is about the details … like a small bird with a big voice.)

He starts right at dawn.

I’ve already been up – somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. -- serving my boss the cat, who demands a meal and other gestures of adoration at that ungodly hour, pretty much every morning.

So when daylight starts to break over the mountaintops outside our bedroom window, I’m back in dreamland, trying to snatch a few more minutes of sleep before the alarm goes off.

And then ….. I hear it: an ear-splitting, loud — SOOO loud! — bird call.

Judging from the decibel level, it sounds like this wannabe rooster must be perched right here on the foot rail of our bed. Or maybe it’s at the pillow next to my head?

The song is deafening, and relentless.

“FEE-bee!”

“FEE-bee!”

“FEEbeeFEEbeeFEEbee!”

My brain swims up to the surface – groggy, confused, a little pissed off. Who needs an alarm when you have a crazed bird outside your window auditioning for the Three Tenors?

Finally my brain boots up, the cognitive filing system clicks into place, and I remember: Oh, yeah …. this same thing happened yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that.

Behold! the Eastern phoebe who lives in the woods surrounding our house – and makes it his personal business to shock us awake every morning. Let me tell you, this little six-inch dynamo can raise a serious ruckus.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Because we really do like our resident Sayornis phoebe. He’s filling a void in our lives.

What a beautiful image of a phoebe! This moment was captured by my talented friend Lisa Richardson. If you want to see more of her nature photography and you’re in upstate South Carolina, stop by the Art Gallery on the Square in Pendleton. Or e-mail Lisa at Ljrich60@gmail.com.

We used to live in suburbia, where our yard was just below the back porch. We sat out there, morning and evening, and watched a bevy of birds. We set up feeders, we bought bird books, we kept a list of all the different species who came to visit.

Then we moved to the country.

Here, our homestead is surrounded by a wilderness of forested game lands. There’s a lot of room --- tens of thousands of acres -- for birds and other creatures to roam. Which means that we don’t see them very often.

We know there are deer and bear living in our woods. A pair of pileated woodpeckers. Possum. Turkey. (Also, unfortunately, coyotes and wild hogs.) But they’re all phantoms, as are the birds. I see our avian neighbors only in the distance, flitting from one treetop to another, too far away to identify. Even the Carolina wrens, which are normally sociable, seem scarce.

Phoebe is an exception. A glorious, cacophonous exception.

He has three favored spots on our property.

Most mornings, he’s there on the porch rail outside our bedroom window – the perfect place from which to perform his morning reveille. I swear he looks pleased with himself, black head tilted to the sky and the plump white chest inflating with each note of his song, like the bag on a bagpipe.

Sometimes he chooses a different perch: the beech tree at the edge of our woods. His squared brown tail twitches up and down as he trumpets the day’s start.

Here’s what it sounds like (and if you listen carefully, you’ll also hear our neighbor’s rooster, at 00:13.)

(By the way, I’m assuming he is a he because from what I read, it’s the male phoebe who makes most of the noise, usually to mark and defend his territory against other phoebes. With our guy’s vocal prowess, there probably aren’t any other phoebes for miles around.)

Phoebe’s favorite spot by far is the chimney on our house. It must make him feel like the ruler of the universe, sitting way up high at the peak of the roof. That’s where he really gets going with the “FEE-bee! FEE-bee!”

Here’s a typical morning. We’re in the living room with our coffee and tea, mainlining caffeine to help us recover from the raucous wake-up call. Suddenly Phoebe’s voice — big, bold, impossible to ignore — comes echoing down the flue. It sounds as if he himself will tumble into the fireplace any second, a soot-streaked kamikaze pilot with an impressive shriek.

Does he know we moved from the bedroom to the living room? Is he stalking us? Does he want some kind of validation for his efforts? Do we need to go out there and applaud? Cheer? Offer a prize of mealworms?

Not my house, not by a long shot. And not our phoebe. But you get the idea. (Photo by Vasilis Caraviti on Unsplash )

Eastern phoebes are solitary birds, I’m told. The male and female don’t hang out together much, and sometimes the male has two mates. Instead of deep forest, they prefer woodland edges and semi-open yards, especially if there’s water nearby. Which makes me very happy that we have a creek on our land — the phoebe welcome mat.

When it comes to co-existing with humans, these little flycatchers are amiable neighbors. They often build their nests in fabricated structures: under bridges and culverts, in barns, or hanging from the eaves of a house.

My big, colorful Crossley ID Guide of Eastern Birds (thank you, April C. — what a wonderful gift!) describes phoebes as “not shy.” No kidding!

So maybe Phoebe is glad we showed up. We’re a captive audience for his daily concerts. We appreciate his visibility, his nearness. And best of all, we’re somebodies he can wake up every morning.

“FEE-bee! FEE-bee! FEE-bee!”