The towering chestnut trees at the hotel terrace provide shelter to all kinds of birds: doves, sparrows, blackbirds, and many kinds of finches. All together, they make quite a racket. But blackbirds are the loudest, and by a wide margin. When one of them gets going, it is time to run away. As it ricochets between the buildings forming the terrace, the boisterous call of a blackbird is often deafening. It is perfectly clear it was not meant for such a tight spot. Which is perhaps why the call cannot be heard all that often. It is a question of economy, I guess. Why bust your lungs in a place so well protected from competition, as well as endowed with such miraculous acoustics?