Morning Orchestra

It was still half an hour before actual sunrise but the lime yellow glow on the eastern horizon had the morning orchestra tuning up.

A dozen gray feathered geese, trumpeting out in turn one after another, paraded single file from the south end of the pond to the north; their black necks punctuated by white slashes at their chins giving them the appearance of a tuxedoed horn section filing into the orchestra pit.

From the surrounding trees crows called out raspy, non harmonious notes. Between caws they flew from branch to branch in interrupted upward spirals as though in hopes the discovery of just the right perch might allow their shrieks to come out on key.

A flock of seagulls circled overhead, screeching out high pitched counterpoints to the deep, throaty trumpets of the geese.

All at once, as though an unseen conductor had tapped a podium with a baton, the cacophany rose three octaves as the geese broke into pre-liftoff run, the crows rose like a shadow from the tree tops, and the gulls broke from a tight group into ragged formation.

In a matter of seconds all were gone.

The remaining silence was louder than the echoing bang of a gong.