Trill

I didn't want to say anything about it at first, but for a while I'd been worried about the absence of birds. The winter woods were silent here except for the occasional soft speech of a chickadee or sharp lonesome caw of a distant crow. 

I put black sunflower seeds in the feeders and nourished eight local gray squirrels, but the birds did not arrive. A crazy nut hatch, the stalwart year round chickadee or two, but no more. 

Today, I heard other bird voices behind the house. I saw five different types during the course of the day. None of the brightly colored ones. They seem to belong to another time here. But there was some hope out there, some measure of surviving biodiversity, as they continue to cut the trees down to build solar farms and Mc Mansion cul-de-sacs all around us.