As I turned the ignition key of my car one evening last week. a cardinal (not the church variety) dove down to the roadway just ahead, dabbed at a small branch lying there, and then just as quickly ascended back to its perch.

You may not consider this news significant, gerontologically, politically or otherwise; but this sighting offered my first-ever view of a cardinal up close. Unlike some of my friends and relatives, I do not bird. I admire, but do not imitate, the enthusiasts who flock to Mount Auburn Cemetery at dawn in search of rare migrants and lifetime firsts. This glorious red creature is a free, unearned gift to me and my neighbors.

And a magnificent gift it is. Even the patron saint of birders, John James Audubon, was carried away by cardinals. Back in the early 19th century, he wrote: “In richness of plumage, elegance of motion, and strength of song, this species surpasses all its kindred in the United States.”

One of my birding relatives points out that cardinals are not particularly unusual in these parts. They are backyard birds, and they mark out their territory in the early spring with a characteristic song.  Only male cardinals are red (perhaps because of the carotenoid pigment in their food), and females are brown and inconspicuous. This system may be useful to the species, but we members of another species may well find it unfair.

Our own cardinal has been entertaining our neighborhood all summer, usually at a safe distance from local cats and squirrels. At intervals of less than a minute, he repeats his vigorous melody over and over, and we crane our necks to find him. Often I spy him sitting on a high wire, animated by his own brand of electricity. From there, he often flies to a branch of a tall tree nearby from which to send the same song.

The cardinal may claim pride of place with his high-wire act, but he faces almost daily musical competition. Emily R, next door, is a mezzo-soprano, and her songs are even more glorious than his: Bach cantatas for the Swedenborg Chapel, or light-hearted hymns like “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”   The music pours forth through the open window, and the cardinal is not at all shy about singing along. He provides the same service, or challenge, for Emily’s voice students, as they practice Elgar’s Sea Songs or a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song.

This informal polyphony may be one of the reasons why the cardinal has chosen our street. In deciding to summer here, he must have flown over more elegant neighborhoods, and some with more graceful trees. Perhaps, discerningly, he judges wealth by the richness of local music, or even by the shouts of children as they play in their front yards or careen down the street on small bikes.

How far did he fly to get here and how long did it take him? Did this eight-inch creature elude major threats to his well-being along the way? Did he migrate from Florida, like snowbirds of our own species? Or did he tough it out through the long New England winter?

You have to be a bit of a nut to ask these questions, of course. Normal people content themselves with what is, rather than wondering about future possibilities and alternative scenarios. But later life affords the luxury of raising issues not normally part of one’s mental universe.

I write on a rainy day but the change of weather does not deter our cardinal.

The windows of our house are open, and his song mingles with “Morning pro Musica” and the latest news from Washington. We can even hear him over more forbidding noises. Only a few feet away from his wire, workmen are blasting air-powered nails into wooden beams, constructing a stylish addition to an old house for a young family.

It is impossible not to feel heartened at the sound of this intrepid music. It is true that it certainly provides no cure for the bad news pouring out of the radio each morning: the slaughter and starvation in Darfur, the Americans and Iraqis trapped in violence, the new frisking policies on the MBTA, and the truly depressing expenses and low blows of the current presidential campaigns. No birdsong, however sweet, can make this aging neighbor forget these events.

At the same time, the song is there, as well as the courage and energy that make it possible. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins found ecstatic delight in the flight of a falcon on a windy morning: “My heart in hiding/Stirred for a bird,–the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!”

I am glad for our own bird, and for the daily melody it shares with us.

Richard Griffin