Hello, Wil Hershberger here. One of my favorite times of day is dawn. From first light through sun-up, as the world awakens and song returns to the earth I get a feeling of renewal, of rebirth. I feel invigorated for the rest of the day.

A particularly magical morning occurred last summer near my home at a large pasture along a lonely country road. There were American toads singing from a pond in the distance and grassland birds were singing from the field. Not far to the right was a copse of trees that supported a variety of open habitat birds. It was still well before sunrise when I started this recording. Grasshopper sparrows were the most vocal and evident species. Spring field crickets, American robins, tufted titmouse, American crows, red-bellied woodpeckers, American toads and green frogs can all be heard in the background, along with cows mooing near the end. I particularly enjoyed the counter singing of the grasshopper sparrows as these males vie for mates and sing to the world that this spot in the pasture is theirs.

Grasshopper sparrows in pasture. Berkeley County, WV. May 23, 2010. ©Wil Hershberger.

What do you think? Are the grasshopper sparrows too loud? Is the presence of cows a turn off or do you like them? This is the time of the year when farmers separate the calves from their mothers and I don’t think that she was very happy with this situation! I was really impressed that I was able to record for nearly 20 minutes without a jet, car, truck or dog contaminating the aural beauty.