Up early and what a racket!

Sunday morning. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)

One of the ways life changes with age is the diminishing capacity for sleep. (Note: I am not saying need for sleep, just capacity. Big difference.) That diminishing capacity means wakefulness during hours, that, in youth, I would have been thoughtlessly enjoying sleep. That diminishing capacity also means that, that same wakefulness blesses me with the gradual noise of early mornings.

The 3 a.m. quiet, with cat sitting at an open window. Me at my laptop, checking email and newspapers. Then an increasing racketing of bird song, so that by 5 a.m.-ish the world outside is a symphony of chirps and calls. (Cat has abandoned window by this point and is snoozing in his basket.)

It's prime bird time and I would not be alive to it were it not for the fact that I can't sleep. I think there is some irony involved here. Birds are wide awake, but that's because it's their job.

Anyway, I love the before-dawn chorus. It really is a racket, and I can hear layers of songs, some close, others a bit farther away.

As an aside, one night last week I watched swallows dipping and diving in the 5 p.m.-ish sky, near my Mom's house, chasing after bugs for their evening meal. They are pretty birds. Glad I noticed, but could not help but wonder what a small number of them were flitting about.

Pretty sky in Pittsburgh this morning, too.