As the weeks and summer past the song remained almost unchanged except for the slightest chip and chirp that would introduce or end his signature tune. The blackbird's song returned the next spring to the open air that surrounds my home, only now his song was more, it spread with the twists and turns of longer life. Those months of winter, the struggle for food, the cold and rain changed his world. One morning I heard that song once more, distant but clear.

I find it valuable listening to these moments from my world, side by side. After hearing the blackbird in isolation you might make out that same blackbird in the cacophony of sounds in the first chorus. In recognizing individual birds one begins to gain a sense of a larger community. That each bird is familiar with their neighbours, and that they are as much a part of this place as those more dominant and insistent features of my landscape. This in turn spurs me on to consider those who we might easily forget, yet sing so well and close...