What does summer sound like to you? In Middlebury, the soundscape is as distinct as the season itself; it’s as if the entire ecosystem has awoken from its long winter’s nap.
The day’s symphony begins as the sun rises, with open windows serving as speakers for the awakening world. I hear the songbirds long before I open my eyes; their melodies become as much a part of dawn’s auditory background as a beeping delivery truck is in a Brooklyn alleyway.
I don’t know much about birds. I can admire the martial bearing and precision of a hawk—
nature’s predator drone—conducting surveillance, and I delight at the sight of an oriole or a cardinal or any other brightly colored feathered creature. And sure, I know a jay or a bobwhite when I hear one; but for years I had no idea what was singing to me each summer morning. “Robins. Warblers. Hermit thrush,” a friend told me. I turned to Google and quickly identified the hermit thrush as one of my frequent serenaders. The state bird of Vermont, the hermit thrush has been called the “Mozart of the bird world.” Refined taste I have in birdsong.
The notes of the hermit thrush give way to the peals emanating from Mead Chapel’s bell tower each Friday afternoon. This summer marks the 31st season of the College’s annual carillon series, an event that brings musicians from around the world to perform on Middlebury’s carillon—one of only two in Vermont. George Matthew Jr., the College’s carillonneur for the past 30-plus years, has the August schedule to himself, and his performances are not to be missed.
Of course, if I’m honest, the sounds of summer are not always kind to the ear. As I write next to an open window on a pleasant June afternoon, a jackhammer does battle with some concrete down the street. And soon, the mowers will arrive for their weekly incursion, the growl of their engines linking up with the dat-dat-dat-dat of the jackhammer to form a particularly noxious duet. But no matter, evening will quiet things down, and then the hermit thrush will return to start the day anew.