The start of warmer weather in late Spring/early Summer heralds the arrival on The Ridge of one of our noisiest feathered friends, the Whippoorwill.

The “song” of this bird is distinctive and familiar, calling its own name over and over and over and over and over again.  It can be soothing or irritating, depending on your own mood or need for sleep.  Its voice is the sound of the beginning of a Summer evening, it can often be heard intermittently through the night and it blends its notes for a few minutes with the earliest bird risers at the first light of dawn.

I don’t know if it’s the same bird who visits us around the house on Runaway Ridge but its punctuality makes me think it is.  He/She “clocks in” a little before 9:00 in the evening.  The voice can be heard longingly calling for a mate from various locations all over the property.  Sometimes there are even multiple birds singing to each other.  It can sound like a deranged avian game of “Marco Polo”.  Between 5-5:30 am, this same bird (?) sings out its plaintive, weary call letting us know that its work is done for the night and it’s “clocking out” to go get some well deserved rest.

So many visitors to Runaway Ridge have tried, in vain, to see this vocal visitor.  There are often internet searches done, as we sit around the campfire or on the screen porch, to bring up images of what the bird actually looks like.  Here are a few illustrations and pictures of these heard but rarely seen birds.

Deeper than the Holler - Written by Paul Overstreet & Don Schlitz

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"

Well I've heard those city singers singin 'bout how they can love

Deeper than the oceans, higher than the stars above

Well I come from the country and I know I ain't seen it all

But I heard that ocean's salty and the stars they sometimes fall

And that would not do justice to the way I feel for you

So I have to sing a song about all the things I knew

My love is deeper than the holler, stronger than the river

Higher than the pine trees growin' tall upon the hill

My love is purer than the snowflakes that fall in late December

And honest as a robin on a springtime window sill

And longer than the song of a whippoorwill

From the backroads to the Broadway shows with a million miles between

There's a least a million love songs that people love to sing

And everyone is different and everyone's the same

An' this is just another way of sayin' the same thing

My love is deeper than the holler, stronger than the river

Higher than the pine trees growin' tall upon the hill

My love is purer than the snowflakes that fall in late December

And honest as a robin on a springtime window sill

And longer than the song of a whippoorwill

My love is deeper than the holler, stronger than the river

Higher than the pine trees growin' tall upon the hill

My love is purer than the snowflakes that fall in late December

And honest as a robin on a springtime window sill

And longer than the song of a whippoorwill

A whippoorwill

"