Do you hear what music is thundering in the forest?
Hearing it, one may think that all beasts, birds and bugs were born musicians and singers.
Maybe that is how things are: everybody loves music, and everybody wants to sing. Only, not everybody got the voice for it.
Now hear, in what manner, and how, the voiceless sing.
The Frogs in the lake started since the night.
They filled the bubbles behind their "ears", put their heads out of the water, half-opened their mouths.
"Ribbit!.." all that air left all of them as one.
In the village, a Stork heard them, and rejoiced.
"A whole chorus! I'll get a meal there!"
And flew to the lake for breakfast.
He landed and stood on the shore. He mused and thought:
"Am I inferior to the frogs? They sing without any voices of their own. I shall try as well."
He pointed upwards his long beak, and began to knock, to crack the upper part against the lower - quieter and louder, less and more often: a wooden rattle, plain and simple!
He got so carried away, that he forgot all about breakfast.
And in the lakeside reeds stood a Bittern on one leg, she listened and thought:
"I am such a voiceless heron! But then again, the Stork is no songbird, but hear him go!"
And she had an idea:
"I'll make music with water!"
She stuck her beak into lake, filled it completely with water, and blew it all out! A loud noise went through the lake:
"Mooo!" as if a bull would bellow.
"That's some song!" thought the Woodpecker, as he heard the bittern in his forest. "And I got tools to match it as well: why can't a tree be a drum, and my beak - a drumstick?"
He angled his tail against the trunk, leaned back, swung his head - and began his beak against the branch!
He produced regular drumbeats as well.
The Longhorn beetle emerged from the tree.
He began to twirl his head, his stiff neck began to creak - it produced a very quiet squeak.
The Beetle squeaks - but all in vain: no one can hear him. He wore his neck out, but was pleased with his song all the same.
And lower down, out of his nest among the tree roots, emerged the Bumblebee and flew off to sing over the meadow.
He circles around the meadow flowers, buzzes with his sinewy stiff wings, resonating like a guitar string.
The Bumblebee's song woke up the green Locust in the grass.
The Locust began to set up her fiddles. Her fiddles were located on her wings, and for fiddlesticks she used her long rear legs with the backwards-pointing knees. Her wings were notched, and her long rear legs had barbs to fit into those notches.
The Locust rubber her legs against her sides, rubbed the barbs against the notched - and made music.
The Locust was not alone in the meadow; there was a whole fiddle orchestra in fact.
"Ach," thought the long-beaked Snipe under a tussock, "I ought to sing as well. But how? My throat will not do, nor the nose, the neck, the wings, the legs... Ach! What do I have to lose - I'll fly, I'll try, and in some way somehow I'll cry!"
He jumped from under the tussock, and went up - all the way to the clouds. He spread his tail like a fan, straightened out the wings, tipped the nose towards the ground and fell, turning from side to side, as a piece of wood thrown down from up high. He cleaved the air with his head, and wind shivered the narrow thin feathers in his tail.
And you could hear from the ground: it was as if a sheep sang/bleated in the sky.