No two performances were the same. One morning I spent a half hour listening to a pair of calling sunbitterns—squat but delicate birds, like a cross between a heron and a hen, who paced along the shore with hypnotic smoothness, swiveling their striped bodies and unfurling golden wing feathers when they flew. Their song was equally beautiful and odd: a set of hollow notes that ascended by quarter tones, so airy and diffuse that they seemed to come from everywhere. As the sun broke through the canopy, they were joined by a bird I couldn’t place, singing a descending countermelody in the same
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