The rite of spring

A meditation on, and gratefulness for, an abundance of life

A coyote in Yosemite. Photo by Yathin S Krishnappa

The birds are returning, chattering in the trees at dusk. Pairs of ducks whisk overhead in the evening. Late at night the coyotes keen. An owl hoots. Spring has arrived at the Two Dog Marshlands again. The surest sign of spring? Red squirrels are making rash decisions on the road. They sprint out in front of cars, before wheeling about and vanishing into the brush again.

Spring is a noisy affair; in fact, living in the country isn’t nearly as peaceful as some would lead you to believe. Many have the mistaken notion that the country is serene and quiet. Nothing could be further from the truth. At regular daily intervals the roosters set up a cacophony of crowing. The coyotes howl, and the owls call.

Not all the sounds are violent. The breeze shudders the tree’s leaves, making them whisper their secrets to the world, while in the woods the flickers laugh hysterically. The most surprising sound of all, however, is the deep roar I kept hearing from the direction of the pond. At first I mistakenly believed it to be a bullfrog. As it turned out the noise came not from the depths, but rather from the sky.

The cry of the common nighthawk is a “peek peek peek” sound; however, according to The Cornell Lab, “On summer evenings, keep an eye and an ear out for the male common nighthawk’s dramatic ‘booming’ display flight. Flying at a height slightly above the treetops, he abruptly dives for the ground. As he peels out of his dive (sometimes just a few meters from the ground) he flexes his wings downward, and the air rushing across his wingtips makes a deep booming or whooshing sound, as if a race car has just passed by.”

It’s an extraordinary and dramatic sound the small bird emits.

As a side note, the common nighthawk isn’t that common any more; the bird is on the endangered list in Nova Scotia.

Contrast the nighthawk’s explosive sound to the thrum of the humming bird as it beats its wings roughly 53 times a second while it hovers in front of the feeder. These remarkable birds retain the memory of every flower and feeder they’ve ever visited. Like fairy visitations, the hummingbirds regularly buzz up to the feeder out front even if I’m seated, reading, adjacent to it. That’s how I came last summer to hear its tiny squeak. The first time I heard it, the noise - as quiet as the bird is small - startled me. I had never heard one of these jewel-like birds vocalize before.

I watched the birds last summer, thinking their speed, power, and grace should humble us. A hummingbird can remember every single flower and feeder they've ever visited. Let that sink in for a bit. And, they migrate from Canada to Central America. Those tiny birds do that.

All around us throughout the day we hear the chatter of starlings, the harsh yells of the blue jay, the melodic lilt of countless song birds, not to mention the alarmed crowing of our rooster.

Night brings yet more noise, not the clamour of car horns, and the whooping of late night revellers in the city, but rather the calls of a variety of wildlife. In spring the peepers frantically sound as a single voice while bullfrogs lend their occasional twang, and American toads trill. The secretive catbirds yelp, and the coyotes chime in, yipping. My friend Wayne told me when you hear the latter sound, they’re fighting over a kill.

We don’t require a clock to know it’s eight in the evening. That’s when squadrons of starlings swoop in, in groups of 25 and 50. The Cornell Lab notes they can reach speeds of up to 48 miles per hour. With military precision they fly low to the horizon, banking in to the large row of birches to the left of the house. They settle in for the night, bickering and fretting to one another.

Most nights I step off the enclosed back porch to gaze at the stars, watching the dots of light pop out in the sky. I gawk at the constellations - one looks like a horse, but I don’t know it’s name - and marvel at the brilliant but cold display above. However, I don’t stray far from the house or stay out long; I’m wary of the creatures that prowl at this time of day. Sure enough, I’m hardly back in the house when the hellacious chorus of coyotes began.

They howl as if someone is torturing each and every one of them. The sound is at once beautiful, but also bone-chilling. Their moans and groans echo from the area of the logging road between our house and Back Centre. This is why at dusk if my wife and I walk we take the dogs and a large stick with us.

For all the racket they create I have yet to see a coyote here. Contrast that to when I lived in Upper Tantallon, a suburb of Halifax, and one December night as I was out for a run one actually charged me. I waved my arms and yelled, and watched, shocked, as it bolted past.

I have a theory about why they make themselves so scarce out here, but in the suburbs are frequently sighted. One, they have the space to move around here in the country. But also I assume over the years they have become habituated to hunters, and know better to steer clear of people. In the city they have no such fears. People’s garbage - poorly stored and torn apart by crows and racoons - lure the coyotes, who also find small pets easy pickings.

To be sure, Coyote Watch Canada offers this: “Overflowing bird feeders, mishandled compost, and fallen fruit attract a diverse range of prey species such as rodents, squirrels, chipmunks, and insects, which coyotes will utilize as food…New infrastructure such as roads, fences, and urbanization impacts how wildlife moves throughout our communities. Urban boundary expansion creates a loss of habitat and green spaces for wildlife. Coyotes and other wildlife species must adjust to their ever-changing world and may be forced to establish new territories to hunt and forage for sustenance; dens are destroyed through development activities and the resilient coyote responds to these environmental impacts.”

Soon, other animals will return. I’ve already witnessed two ravens harassing a hawk in the skies high above our house; a pair of eagles circling thousands of feet in the air, soaring on the thermals. The broad-winged hawk we dubbed Wheezy because of his asthmatic call briefly appeared again, and soon it’s time for the return of the porcupine that spent so much of its time at the top of spindly birches on a particular stretch of our of lane that I’ve come to think of it as Porky’s Corner.

As someone who lived in cities most of his life I associate the season with robins returning. This burgeoning burst of wildlife clamouring for attention, and asserting life - their lives - is invigorating, and thrilling. In a world of YouTubers, TikTokers, social influencers, collectors of non-fungible tokens, and other ephemera, this is real, lasting, true abundance.

Welcome to another spring. Breathe it in.