182 animal, vegetable, miraclesaved caterpillars I pulled off my garden so I could throw them into the
chicken yard and watch Mr. Doodle run to snatch up each one, cock his
head in judgment, and dole one out to each of six hens in turn before he
started the next round. Any number of caterpillars not evenly divisible by
six would set him into angst; he hated to play favorites.
But that was the ideal husband. The guys we had now were No- Second-
Date. They’re still young, we allowed. Even a dreamboat has to start some-
where, getting chased into the boxwood a time or two before fi nding his
inner gentleman. We’d be watching our boys closely now as they played a
real game of Survivor. All but one would end up on our table, and we
couldn’t get soft- hearted. Keeping multiple roosters is no kindness. They
inevitably engage in a well- known sport that’s illegal in forty- eight states.
Who would get to stay? The criteria are strict and varied: good alarm
calls, unselfish instincts for foraging and roosting, and a decent demeanor
toward humans. Sometimes an otherwise fine rooster will start attacking
kids, a capital crime in our barnyard. And finally, our winner would need a
good singing voice. We’d be hearing his particular cock- a-doodle for more
than a thousand mornings. Chanticleers, as the storybooks call them, are
as diversely skilled as opera singers. We wanted a Pavarotti. Crowing skills
are mostly genetic, arriving with developing male hormones. So far we’d
heard nothing resembling a crow.
And then, one morning, we did. It was in July, soon after my summer-
time ritual of moving our bedroom outside onto the screened sleeping
porch. The summer nights are balmy and marvelous, though it’s hard to
sleep with so much going on after dark: crickets, katydids, and fi refl ies fi ll
every visible and aural space. Screech owls send out their love calls. Deer
sometimes startle us at close range with the strange nasal whiffle of their
alarm call. And in the early hours of one morning, as I watched the for-
ested hillside color itself in slow motion from gray to green, I heard what I
thought must be a new Virginian species of frog: “Cro- oak!”
I woke Steven, as wives wake husbands everywhere, to ask: “What’s
that sound?”
I knew he wouldn’t be annoyed, because this was no tedious burglary
suspect—it was wildlife. He sat up, attentive. His research interest is
bioacoustics: birdsong and other animal communication. He can identify