This is Bird Note.

As a flight of tundra swans passes overhead on a winter day, their voices swell in a kind of wild music.

You might want to call it a swan song.

The term swan song has an old and intriguing lineage.

The ancient Greeks believe that swans remain silent most of their lives,

singing an exquisite heart-rending lament only at the moment of their death.

Even the great classical philosopher Plato believed the tale.

For the Greeks, the one familiar swan would have been the species called mute swan.

Although the mute swan is not as silent as its name suggests,

its voice is limited to an assortment of unmusical grunts and hisses.

The swan song tale is truly legendary, based on a fallacy, but one so endearing that it has survived for centuries.

The terminal swan song recurs from Avid to Aesip to Tennyson.

In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Portia says,

let music sound while he doth make his choice.

Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, fading in music.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.