(Wordless Wednesday) Gerald’s Spring Migration

Breakfast Club

Back on March 21, the Black-capped Chickadees and Downy Woodpeckers were emptying the feeders, and only the cedars were green.

Sometimes I can smell seasons. This morning is one of those times. On my way over to Robert and Jane’s place to catsit, I could smell Spring. The air is cool, not quite 10 (50) degrees, and damp from yesterday’s downpour; the Crabapples are in full bloom; and the maples are replacing their delicate green bobbly bits with translucent young leaves. Scent is spilling out from sidewalks as each corner grocer displays hundreds of potted plants.

For a while last week, I was afraid we were going to miss out on Spring, just as we were cheated out of Autumn. It went from too hot to snowbound in about two days’ time, and then as soon as the snow melted we were handed unseasonably warm, dry weather. We Canadians like to joke that we have two seasons, Winter and July (or Winter and Construction if you’re a driver), but I think most of us enjoy the buffers between the two extremes.

Anyway, today is a perfect Spring day. And tomorrow I will bring my binoculars! There were three types of sparrows feeding at the suet block next door when I arrived.

The White-crowned Sparrows were encouraging conversation, saying, “Speak! Speak!”

The House Sparrows chuckled, “Ju-jube!” in reply.

The White-throated Sparrows, pushing back from the feeder, sang out “O sweet Canada, Canada, Canada!”

Then an alarmist Starling started spitting, “Ca-a-at! Ca-a-at!” and the party broke up for a moment. But the sparrows were soon back. Robert and Jane’s cats don’t do fences, much less tree limbs. They were simply out for a post-breakfast sniff, to sit in the back yard and enjoy this fine morning as much as I am.

Tender

This is from a true story. I invented the names and a few details.

Jake was a gardener. He was in his early sixties, a man still strong from a lifetime of physical labour, showing decades of good care.

Between shifts of working for people such as my friends, helping their London suburb yards to look their best, Jake visited his wife. He stopped by for a few minutes just about every day, rain or shine. Taking advantage of his vocational skills, he tended her grave, weeding, planting bulbs, plucking off spent flower heads.

One day, Jake saw that the grave next to his wife’s looked a little forlorn. So he trimmed its grass, and on his next trip he brought some posies to plant on it. Over time, little by little, he tidied the neighbouring graves, until he was caring for the entire row.

Although it was in a cemetery big enough to warrant a caretaker’s house at the front gates, the labour that Jake put in did not go unnoticed. In fact, it was the caretaker’s wife herself who saw this gentle soul arrive day after day, tarry a short while, and depart quietly, leaving the grounds fairer than when he had arrived. Emma had seen many people pass through the gates; Emma knew the faithful ones from the less-so.

When a full year had passed, Emma approached Jake. She told him of her sister Robyn, 53, a widow for two years already. “I think perhaps you are lonely, like Robyn,” said Emma. And she pressed into his hand a piece of paper with Robyn’s phone number.

Two weeks later, Jake came skipping onto my friends’ property, whistling as he tied off the morning glory strings and singing little snatches of song as he plied the edger. My friend could not contain her curiosity, and directly enquired as to what his good news might be.

“I’ve met a young lady,” quoth he, before gamboling off to tend the rosebush.

 

 

Good Broken Things

 Maple at the edge of our balcony

I’ve noticed some things being broken over the past few days.

On Thursday, it was a full week that my co-worker had broken her smoking habit. I kept waiting for her to turn tired, grumpy, and impatient — Thursday is stock day — but no, she was cheery and energetic all day, breaking into little snatches of song, my goodness! The change in her from the week before was incredible.

On Friday, E.g. and Jack’s mum and our mutual friend Jane and I all went out to supper. We broke bread — a long, skinny baguette, actually — in the neighbourhood chi-chi French restaurant, and the waiter broke out a bottle of Grenache to go with our dinners. It was Jack’s mum’s birthday, so while Jack was out at his youth club we enjoyed a “girls’ night out”. Our menus were in English — and so was our waiter — so he was a little puzzled when I asked in broken French for the “palourdes rembourrees”, which more or less means upholstered clams.

Yesterday, Jack and Jack’s mum and E.g. and Cai and I broke out of our usual Saturday routines, leaving the city for a drive out in the country. We went to visit half a dozen youngsters somewhere; more about that tomorrow. On the way back, we took a break at Mono Cliffs Conservation Area, hiking in a little ways until we found a nice set of boulders where we could break for lunch.

Our apartment is an end unit, just over the fence from a recreation field lined with maples. The branches of one tree touch our balcony. This morning, I was standing out there in the Spring sunshine when I noticed that the buds are just starting to break, fat and full of promise. Some of them have actually broken right open into tiny, delicate green bobbly things since I took the photo.

Spit in the Lake (I)

I went birding this morning in Tommy Thompson Park. I counted 31 species of birds, including 15 species of anseriformes (= ducks, geese, and swans). The Ring-necked Duck was a new one for my life list, as was the Green-winged Teal. If The Marvelous in Nature reads this, she’ll be happy to know that I finally saw my first American Tree Sparrow.

The bird that thrilled me the most, however, was one that I almost missed because I was looking at a bunny instead. It was just after noon. When I took my eyes out of the ditch and back onto the road, what I saw next was the birder on her bicycle about 20 feet from me and bunnykins. Approaching quietly, I followed her line of sight, and viewed a pale grey bird, the size of a robin, at the top of a mid-sized tree.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “I don’t have my guide with me.”

“I do.” I pulled my well-thumbed ROM Field Guide to Birds of Ontario from my bookbag. I looked through my binoculars. “Ohhhh… I think it’s… lemme look in the index…” Flip, flip. “This?”

We took turns reading the description, peering through our binocs, describing it out loud, until we were sure that that was our bird. It was a Northern Shrike, not as rare as its cousin the Loggerhead Shrike, but uncommon enough for me. Northern Shrikes breed way up in the top fifth of Ontario, about three-fifths higher north than I’ve ever been. So let us say, once again, that I was thrilled. The other birder cycled away, I penciled the new bird on today’s list, I looked up, and the Shrike was gone. It was one of those magic moments.

When Fancy is Turning

I read someplace once that February 14 was chosen as a celebratory day for lovers because it was observed that in mid-February, songbirds start exhibiting mating behaviour. And indeed, on February 11 I saw, on one end of the fallen log that lies just inside the fence on the far side of the parkette in front of our building to the north, a bird. A male house sparrow he was, looking pretty small on that log, but proudly shaking his fanned tailfeathers like a peacock on espresso. “Here I am, ladies! Your chick magnet has arrived! Take a number!” I can vouch that in mid-February, the sight of that much cheery sex appeal brought a smile to more than one species.

Six weeks later, the filthy old snow is still ebbing from parks and soccer fields and front yards. The sidewalks are mostly clear, though, and poggles — oops, I mean Cai — and I can go walkies at a good clip now.

Since his leg owie, when he was limping from a pulled ligament, Cai has been learning to walk nicely on leash. That’s because Mummy dislikes pratfalls. So we’ve been going up street and through alley and along river, noting gradual changes as Spring comes to the city.

Some of these changes are happening throughout the province: the Red-winged Blackbirds, for example, are returning to the still-frozen ponds. (And now, thanks to the March 12 and March 24 entries of The Marvellous in Nature, I know what they’re eating!)

Other changes are distinctly urban. We’ve seen people hacking at the ice in their backyards and banishing winter over the fence. The other day, the storm sewers were full, flowing merrily merrily down the street. Bundle-buggies are out again in  full force.

Finally, there are changes  that belong to the Little World — the world of little creatures, or personal significance, or both. For instance, earlier this week, I went out for walkies without needing either mittens or four layers of shirt-and-sweater under my parka. On the way back, Cai and I surprised a female sparrow bathing in a real live puddle. (Maybe she was getting ready for a date with Mr. Espresso Peacock, who knows?) Today, I saw a baby’s mitten placed on a fence picket, resembling a tiny pink cactus, and it looked out of place.

And yesterday, fresh in from walkies, we heard a familiar yipping in the back field. Cai looked up in barklove (thanks for the phrase, Aged Cat!), and I said sure, we’d go out again. It was his best friend, the little Jack Russell from the next building. With the combination of lousy weather and his play restrictions, Cai hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. We went out to say hello, and there was the JR, racing around all nudie, freed at last from her faux-sheepskin jacket.