Song

I wonder if anyone has ever gone crazy listening to the song of the white-throated sparrow. From the first accented note of its soaring whistle follows a singsong that cascades down in pitch for several bars. As I listen I realize how privileged I am to have the time and the ability to anchor in this remote bay where their song predominates.

I begin to pick out individuals. Some songs are higher, some lower; some have more cadences, some less; some are up beat, some down. Listening to them makes me want to whistle, a skill I have never mastered. If I could only see them but I am floating a hundred feet off shore and they are in the dense forest that clings to the granite islands that litter the North Channel. There are a few more sounds: gulls, terns, warblers, crows and the occasional out board, but they are a mere backdrop.

The day before I shared Whitney Bay, MI with a family of loons. Now that is a sound. At first I did not want to believe it. I kept trying to convince myself that it must be something else. It was not. Their song is eerily compelling. I will not begin to describe it. Go to YouTube and listen for yourself. My only advice is, if you are alone leave the lights on.

Then there is the buzz. It began late one night while I was reading with the ceiling light on over my head. I turned to look out the rear window of the pilothouse and there, through the screen, was a mass of needles with wings. They were testing the boats defenses. Alien has nothing on a North Country mosquito. So far I have kept the upper hand, but I am not getting cocky. Even though it is three days away from the Fourth of July it is still early in the North and this year has been a particularly wet and cool. I have been advised that the worst is yet to come.

Mostly though, it is the lack of sound that is impressionable. At home I live under one of O’Hare’s flight paths. I get concerned if an airliner hasn’t come or gone in a couple of minutes. And when I am moored at Montrose Harbor in Chicago it is rare if an ambulance or fire engine has not raced by in a half hour. Here in the North Channel it is generally quiet but not tonight.

Tonight it is Canada Day and their way of celebrating is the same as the rest of the world since the Chinese invented fireworks. Amidst the plop of the wavelets striking the bow, I can hear the muffled thunder of sparkling lights in the sky. Later in the night the rumble comes from approaching thunderstorms. This gets me thinking: did I anchor far enough away from the rock-strewn shore and is the anchor properly set.

Then there is the song of Rosie the dinghy. Rosie was my early spring project. The kit arrived at my doorstep off the back of a friend’s humongous red pickup truck. Little of the flat elongated package belied her future shape. She is all curves and floats in a few inches of water. I thought this would make her skittish but her designer gave her a long deep keel and a couple of skegs either side. This gives her the odd characteristic of tracking true (straight) and also spinning on a dime.

But let me get back to the song. Rosie is made of exotic marine plywood, and has two hollow chambers, one forward and one aft. This makes her resonant. I’m no musician but she has a clear tone that any percussionist would be proud of. The sound is most evident as she swings from Carrie Rose, the mother ship, in a short chop.

The wavelets hit a flat region about a quarter back from the bow and it is here that she sings her song — a surprisingly sonorous song. So loud at times does she sing that the here-to-for mentioned white-throated sparrows are drowned out.

I experiment with multiple positions to lessen the volume: hanging her far aft, pulling her bow up on a fender resting on the swim platform and banishing her to as close to Carrie Rose’s bow as possible. All my efforts are in vain. Her song still soars. Finally, I reverse steps and pull her out of the water. She hangs limply off the back of the boat, quiet.

So, my own question is answered except in the reverse. I went crazy by not listening to the song of the white-throated sparrow. It made for a couple of interesting days while floating in this archipelago of deep green granite islands and dark clear water.