Lisa Bernard, age 9, of Portland, Ore., =or her question:
What wakes up the birds in the morning?
Most birds, it is true, sleep on their leafy perches through the night and wake up with a cheerful Good Morning to welcome the new day. Sometimes they join in a glee club session and sing a few songs even before breakfast. But the old owl with his soft Who Who is awake through the night and goes to bed at sunup. And sometimes Mr. Mockingbird, the opera star of the bird world, sings an aria by moonlight in the middle of the night.
There are a few night. prowling birds like the owl. But most birds make a living, do their chores and attend their glee clubs and other activities during the daytime. Their busy day is done just before sunset and off they fly to bed.
A bird, of course, has a feathery blanket to keep him warm through the chilly night and sometimes a parent bird sleeps in a nest which we could call a bed. But as a rule, most birds sleep perched on a twig in the shelter of a leafy branch. Sometimes many birde will roost, ., on a tree, often an evergreen, and use it as roost night after night. If you discover one of these favorite bird motels, you can watch and see them come to check in at sundown in ones, twos and threes.
Each bird dives through the leafy foliage and settles himself for the night. Soon there is quiet. Each little head nods, perhaps tucked under a feathery wing, and the bright bird eyes are closed in sleep. A loud noise, a fire or other upset can waken the sleeping roost but if all goes well the little darlings will sleep safely until morning.
Scientists teach us that we should never believe a fact unless we can prove it and this is sensible. Very often they prove a fact which does not surprise us because our common sense told us this was so all the time.
It is common sense to say that the sleeping birds are awakened by the long, bright rays of the morning sun. The rooster wakes earlier, when the sun begins to drive back the darkness, even before it rides into the sky.
A bright light wakes us up from a deep sleep and it seems common sense to say that birds are awakened by the light of a new day. And in this case, science seems to agree with common sense. Experts now have enough facts to be sure that birds do a lot of things when the sun is right. We can be almost sure that the pale light of early dawn wakens the roosting birds.
Bird experts have made many tests to show that birds often use the sun as a clock, as a calendar and even as a compass. The feathery travelers may time their migrations on the seasonal position of the sun and take their bearings from its daily path over the sky.