A fairly long posting here, for May 25, one of the very best days, as in "mesmerizing" of our entire winter sojourn.
We sat outside most of the day, on the south side of the cabin, out of the north wind, feeling warm and reading in the sun. I slipped between dozing and waking, listening to the ducks splash, display and court one another. It sounded very much like a suburban, municipal, swimming pool filled with excited, strutting, diving adolescents. Scoters (i.e., Black Ducks) and scaups continued to arrive, zooming in on their jet wings. Sixteen Tundra Swans, with heavy wing beats, circled and landed like Boeing 747s. The swans usually arrived in pairs, and once on the water they faced each other, elegant necks bent forward, wings outstretched, apparently giddy with their successful arrival. This display invariably excited the other swans, all of which immediately repeated the same dance. Later in the day most of the Tundra Swans lifted up into the north wind, momentarily hung in the sky like a crib-side mobile, and then coalesced into a V heading north.
Kathleen’s diary entry for today shows her satisfaction with our current life:
I don’t think we could have a better spot to spend this time. Certainly the cabin is well made, and has everything we need in a home, but it is the location that makes our life here so very special. We sit on some of the first open water in the entire region, and we are surrounded by ducks, geese, swans and birds. It has been such fun to watch these creatures day by day, and to learn their personalities. About a week ago, a Bonaparte’s Gull ‘staked out’ a small, shallow bay as his own. From the cabin, we can easily observe his breeding behaviour, which includes yelling very loudly if any intruders, including us, ever dare to enter his territory.
This morning I walked below the cabin, and sat down only one metre from the end of the point, which is marshy and shallow. In addition to the Bonaparte’s Gull, Mew Gulls, Greater Yellowlegs, Rusty Blackbirds, American Robins and some ducks spend a great deal of time here. I set up my camera on the tripod, and sat all morning taking pictures with the 300-mm lens. All the while the birds simply went about their business as though I wasn’t even there.
It is so wonderful just to sit here and watch. Swans with their necks in the water looking like blobs of snow. Red-necked Grebes doing their breeding dance accompanied with loud, harsh calls. Flocks of scaups arriving, sounding like jets overhead. Groups of 5 to 10 scoters diving and splashing. Barrow’s Goldeneyes and American Wigeons swimming by in the calm, joined by little piles of ice floating downstream.
I like that last part, about watching bits of ice floating downstream. When we tell people back in Vancouver that we often just sat and watched ice floaing downstream, they always look perplexed. I know they’re thinking that it can’t be interesting or exciting just to watch ice float downstream. Maybe you need to have been here since January 31 to enjoy watching ice float downstream. Or maybe you just need to live life at a slower pace, without deadlines and without ‘to-do lists.’ Watching ice floating down stream was very satisfying. (Perhaps even mesmerizing?)
