He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.
1999, Gina Berriault, The Great Petrowski, Counterpoint (1999), →ISBN, page 21:
A soprano, her voice was birdsweet and passionate, and she possessed her own lustrous reputation.