Driving home from work today I wandered down some back roads, like I to do most days when I'm looking for a slower lane in life. I found that slow lane crawling through quiet villages and farming communities, passing school kids playing carefree in schoolyards rejoicing in springtime weather resplendent in sunshine and puddles, the banner out front of the local church announcing the spring talent show softly undulating in the breeze, a matronly village lady leaning in to a hushed conversation with the town mechanic frowning at whatever is under that aged and shiny hood. Oh, the slow and steady pace of life, like a comforting pulse that flows throughout this world, connecting us to whatever we may have lost but hope to find again. Hmmmm...And then a sudden flash of brown and white slashed across my windshield. I had just enough time to recognize a mourning dove racing inches ahead of a hawk as they both sped from safety to danger from orchard to open field; such is the wild life around us. As gay and trouble free a bird's life appears to be as they sit contentedly on a telegraph wire, it's actually fraught with food foraging and predator avoidance. A constant metabolic fight for survival at all costs, in all weathers and conditions. So much for a slow lane in life.
I've had the privilege and pleasure to have witnessed many different species of birds on canoe trips, doing whatever birds do in their bird lives, while we human troublemakers push through their habitat. Observed eagle nests from below, the chicks safely above within the stick and twiggy fortress while parents screamed aloft on thermals, loon Moms and Dads ferrying chicks tucked on their backs as they scull expertly across deep dark lakes, panicked grouse bursting from cover on portage paths setting our heartbeats racing, osprey gliding above our placid summer lake keeping a keen eye on our travel, and a school marm merganser with fluffy bobbing brood in tow just beyond our bow and just within the safety of the protective shoreline. There have been so many dull and dreary days of path and paddle travel awakened by bill and feather, birds making sudden entrances and departures as we slide through their extraordinary world. A flash and hurry of a hummer coming and going as fast as a thrashing summer thunderstorm on a trail, the brilliance of iridescent glory in it's finest resplendent array, here and gone in a glance. On one trip we tried to paddle closer to a drifting loon, as many people do, only to see it spook and disappear under the black glass of that northern lake. One lake later while we sat quietly admiring the view and up popped another loon right beside us! Thankfully I didn't need to whisper to the kids hush. We sat transfixed as an angry piercing eye froze our human world with fearful wonderment. And when finally the primordial creature plunged beneath the surface with a smooth ploop, we sat quiet and still for some long moments drinking it all in and soaking it all up. The distance between beautifully wild and our tame selves can be measured in the blink of an eye and the depth of time. And then sometimes that distance is spanned not by our own reach but by the grace and strength of wild wizened judgement, as we've enjoyed the raiding antics of grey jays and chickadees feeding from our hands and straight from our fry pans. Wild species made tamer by learned behaviour perhaps, but nonetheless adapted to changing environments. I'd rather a Jay pick at my larder than a black bear. We don't seek to handle or harass any wild creatures on our canoe trips, big or small, timid or terrible. Ferrets, beavers, mice and moose have all wandered through our trips from time to time, but the bird life has visited in quaint and dainty ways; quiet pine siskins perched above scattering seeds into our cooking while they foraged, gothly looking ravens croaking warnings across the campsite from us giving us the chills, nuthatches scratching along tree trunks just safely at the edge of paths, and flotillas of ducks keeping a steady eye on our awkward debarkment from canoe to portage comically quacking their amusement at our human foibles.
But just when some trips become too quiet and lonely, and hours of solitude have shrouded us in a silent cloak, a bird shows up to remind us that we're not alone. We are merely passing visitors in their home, tripping tourists in a wilder world, and I like that. I need reminding sometimes, when I'm feeling comfortably lonely in the slow lane of my life, that there's more to our world than what I can touch and grasp, hold and conquer, see and assume; there's a bird's life beyond me.
Any bird life memories touch your trips?
I've had the privilege and pleasure to have witnessed many different species of birds on canoe trips, doing whatever birds do in their bird lives, while we human troublemakers push through their habitat. Observed eagle nests from below, the chicks safely above within the stick and twiggy fortress while parents screamed aloft on thermals, loon Moms and Dads ferrying chicks tucked on their backs as they scull expertly across deep dark lakes, panicked grouse bursting from cover on portage paths setting our heartbeats racing, osprey gliding above our placid summer lake keeping a keen eye on our travel, and a school marm merganser with fluffy bobbing brood in tow just beyond our bow and just within the safety of the protective shoreline. There have been so many dull and dreary days of path and paddle travel awakened by bill and feather, birds making sudden entrances and departures as we slide through their extraordinary world. A flash and hurry of a hummer coming and going as fast as a thrashing summer thunderstorm on a trail, the brilliance of iridescent glory in it's finest resplendent array, here and gone in a glance. On one trip we tried to paddle closer to a drifting loon, as many people do, only to see it spook and disappear under the black glass of that northern lake. One lake later while we sat quietly admiring the view and up popped another loon right beside us! Thankfully I didn't need to whisper to the kids hush. We sat transfixed as an angry piercing eye froze our human world with fearful wonderment. And when finally the primordial creature plunged beneath the surface with a smooth ploop, we sat quiet and still for some long moments drinking it all in and soaking it all up. The distance between beautifully wild and our tame selves can be measured in the blink of an eye and the depth of time. And then sometimes that distance is spanned not by our own reach but by the grace and strength of wild wizened judgement, as we've enjoyed the raiding antics of grey jays and chickadees feeding from our hands and straight from our fry pans. Wild species made tamer by learned behaviour perhaps, but nonetheless adapted to changing environments. I'd rather a Jay pick at my larder than a black bear. We don't seek to handle or harass any wild creatures on our canoe trips, big or small, timid or terrible. Ferrets, beavers, mice and moose have all wandered through our trips from time to time, but the bird life has visited in quaint and dainty ways; quiet pine siskins perched above scattering seeds into our cooking while they foraged, gothly looking ravens croaking warnings across the campsite from us giving us the chills, nuthatches scratching along tree trunks just safely at the edge of paths, and flotillas of ducks keeping a steady eye on our awkward debarkment from canoe to portage comically quacking their amusement at our human foibles.
But just when some trips become too quiet and lonely, and hours of solitude have shrouded us in a silent cloak, a bird shows up to remind us that we're not alone. We are merely passing visitors in their home, tripping tourists in a wilder world, and I like that. I need reminding sometimes, when I'm feeling comfortably lonely in the slow lane of my life, that there's more to our world than what I can touch and grasp, hold and conquer, see and assume; there's a bird's life beyond me.
Any bird life memories touch your trips?
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