Inside the egg, the chick can see nothing. It is folded tight against the shell, blind and deaf for most of its development, sealed off from the desert glare and the colony’s racket. And yet, somehow, in the final days before it breaks out, it is listening. A fast, high, stuttering song presses through the shell, repeated over and over by the parent crouched on top of New! Sign up for our email newsletter on Substack.