Soundscape – Oak Titmouse

Diminutive, unassuming
flitting along branches looking for insects
Drab in its gray
only a small jaunty triangular crown to distinguish it
Its loud call nonetheless draws attention

Returning from the woods this morning
It stops me with a 

Ts-e-e			Ts-e-e
	    twt			     twt


Repetitive, insistent, rapidly sung and more 
percussive than melodic
Three short higher notes followed by one lower

This ‘TSEET’ song as birders call it looks something like this in my recording


Perhaps similar to a recording of much greater fidelity in Cornell’s Macaulay Library


In both spectrograms a kind of sideways T shape
initial repeated notes followed by a raspier single note of multiple pitch 
that comes to the ear more in the downward register.

As a symbol spectogram, something like this:

So it sings, this tiny bird of mighty voice
Calling out to the world
In alarm, in joy, in camaraderie
Perched in its tree, claiming its existence
As clear as the sunlight of morning

14
XI
21

Coffee-berry Hill
Clear morning, days after storm