Avian-induced claustrophobia

The first stage of spring is now done.

The apply-named spring-tails (aka snow fleas) have clustered in the melting snow ar the top of the point, bounced around, breed and now left. The two types of spiders that hunt them can no longer be seen stalking the snow - though this year I discovered the slender type has already moved to hiding on those plants that have slowly emerging above the lowering snow.

Now it is the stage two - the returning of the birds....

Sandhill cranes - who stuck me as only slightly modified dinosaurs when I first unexpectedly encountered - are now heard daily causing the lake to echo with their saurian honking croaks.

The usually reserved ravens have become bold. The mating acrobatics and nest building of 'first stage spring' have subsided, to be replaced by something unsettling. Driving away for a evening walk, I see a raven suddenly emerge from a tree to swoop toward our house - I don't like it, it seems wrong. Last week Steph was stopped by a mob of ravens on the road that would not budge until honked at. I like ravens to the point of admiration - but emboldened and en mass their large size and ebony beaks and talons take on a sinister reptilian aspect.

The few open stream now have their silent sentinels, the sword-billed herons, who sit in unnerving stillness like trip-wire traps, waiting to snap up any newly emerging aquatic life.

A bald eagle surveys the Cermillion river looking for scraps. It is a bird I first saw scavenging at dumpster, and despite their noble reputation they always have the aura of a carrion-raptor, seemingly balding on their way to vulture-hood

This gathering menagerie of avians would be unsettling but not claustrophobic without the geese. The same geese, that can look so iconic and wonderful in pairs or in honking Vs heading toward the horizon; that can look so pitiful on frozen ice waiting for ice to melt; now become a dark congested presence.

When we go to Centennial Park they are everywhere. A few the snowy field to the left, a larger grouping ahead (with a pair of confused mallards mixed in), another group to the right and a massive flock spread up and down the shore line and onto the frozen lake. Our presence triggers a cacophony of warning honks that will not die down for 15 minutes - as each goose sizes us up and complains.

As Cricket rushes toward them to send them to flight, I can perceive just how big the geese are, and just how surrounded we are. The sub-conscious part of my brain that is constantly sizing up every situation in terms of a physical conflict sends me a pop-up: "If things go sour, send Step and the older dogs back to the car, then retrieve Cricket (pick her up if necessary) and return to the car" The warning feels silly but essentially correct.

I look around the park and quickly sight my old oily-plumed nemesises (nemesi?) the cackling grackles, their flock has commandeered a large gnarled oak, opposite that a gigantic bare poplar hosts a massive raven nest so big you could hide a small child in it.

Returning home, I find no sign of that suspicious raven or what it was up to, so I head to the point to watch the geese on Grassy Lake through binoculars. Their necks are far too snake-like as they curve low to constantly bite at each other; their society is too complex for my liking - I think I can see mothers, fathers, children, cliques, loners, bullies, conformists. A 'father' seems to drive away a 'child' with bill snaps, only to corral it back in again. Another 'father' whips his neck back and lets out three sharp calls and his family immediately takes flight.

The mood feels anxious and tense as the sun and temperature drop, the forecast is -15 tonight, but my sympathy is counter-balanced by a huge influx of new arrivals, as at least 15 more geese land.

Forces of nature don't need my pity.

The whole of these thawing lands and lakes are being swamped by a tidal wave of birds. Large birds. Loud birds. Silent Birds. Suspicious Birds.

I head back from observing the geese as sun sinks below the horizon, and a robin lands in the tall poplars above me, blasting out its' stentorian staccato warble for 5 minutes then leaves - not even bothering to note my presence below.

In the distance I can hear the tom-tom beats of the grouse, and at the top of the driveway, the nocturnal woodcock begins to let out his powerful, buzzer-like peeent! peent! I race to see it - I have only seen once in my many years here - but as always it is invisible in the dusk and it quickly retreats to the forest and spends the next 10 minutes giving me a soft but pissed-off mixture of whistles and twitters.

The next morning I'm startled by the unmistakable piercing shriek of a hawk but I when I look for it, I can only see a group of european starlings. Starlings are eerie birds, their plumage manages to be drab, speckled and iridescent all at once and their strange bodies seem more far more sand-piper than song bird. Another hawk shriek! - but the starling are non-plussed. That night I read that the starlings are expert mimics and I assume one of them has mastered its' hawk imitation.

I haven't even mentioned those birds that never left (excepting the ravens), those flying rusty-hinges, the blue jays, who arrogantly roam around like a band of nobles turned bandits; the chickadee, who surely must have made a demonic pact to survive the brutality of these winters, yet seem content to spend their days in forests constantly twittering some strange digital code to each other; and other less common but perennial visitors like the grosbeaks and the red-capped finches...

The first stage of spring - the strange gathering of the snow-fleas - is done, we are now well into next stage of avian-induced claustrophobia, and there is more strange terror to come for I fear the next stage even more: the Spring Madness...