A simple whistle, ascending at the end, easy to imitate. It's the hour when the light departs, converting the trees into silhouettes, and the evening blue leaves the slopes of the Cerro Islá. The months of study crystallize in an instant and I'm almost running, the whistle calling me onwards, passing the milpa and the nopales, the starfruit and the cempasúchil, the beloved garden of grandfather Teo, passing the mangos, entering the jungle. The crickets are the voice of the approaching night, this whistle the mystery of the twilight.

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This is a story of the birds of the evening, of sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. From the bird life at the edge of a milpa—a traditional Mexican system of growing food in biologically diverse, small-scale plots—to the massive wheat fields of Montana and memories of an orchard from my childhood, this story invites us to consider how our food systems can support or harm the ecosystems we love.

Most of the ambient sounds in this story are ones I recorded in Oaxaca, Mexico in December 2024: crickets in the night, a thicket tinamou (Crypturellus cinnamomeus), Middle American screech-owl (Megascops guatemalae), collared forest-falcon (Micrastur semitorquatus), mottled owl (Strix virgata), and common pauraque (Nyctidromus albicollis). From Montana, USA, I share a recording I made in April 2024 of a pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus).

If you’d like to delve more into sustainable agriculture and biodiversity, I’ve shared several links with the written form of the story. In particular, I recommend Lorna Milne’s poignant and deeply personal essay “Losing Ty” (https://www.lornamilne.com/losing-ty), and Luke Hingtgen’s review of the inspiring book The Third Plate (https://edgeeffects.net/third-plate/).

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You can find the written, illustrated version of this story here: https://wildwithnature.com/2025/01/01/mystery-of-the-twilight/