It is high summer and life is in full swing.  Just as mysteriously as they disappeared last summer, the girls have reappeared in the old hollow cedar.  A few said hi, which makes me think that they belonged to the swarm that vacated the joint last summer;  perhaps it just divided and the new queen retrieved an ancestral memory of “home.”  There’s been so much rain that it must be hard to collect an adequate day’s portion of pollen but the amount of air traffic suggests otherwise.  What a relief to have them back.

And the bat population is rebounding!  Jon sees them down on the river at dusk and there is evidence of their sleeping quarters under the shutters and eaves.  We also hear them crossly chittering when wakened midday from a good dream.  We have been watching The Blue Planet again, whale-watching for hours.  Macro or micro, mammals rock.

Today we walked a wonderful conservation area and I shot a number of flower references to paint this winter.  Jon remarked that our own echinacea was pretty pathetic by comparison.  I stoutly defended our little survivors who have somehow photosynthesized enough to produce a few flowers in the shade.  Someday I hope to have a sunny garden plot.  But as a prairie kid who gardened in nothing but sun, I have to admit to a weakness for the deep forest.  Even orchards enchant.  The first time I saw edible apples - not crabapples, although they make great jelly - I was overcome with wonder.

Ever the cheap date.

I’ve been thinking about insects these days. Even granting the importance of saving old trees, our daily practice of murdering gypsy moth caterpillars and smashing their pupae inevitably gives rise to meditations on what the ethicists call “interest.” Both tree and insect have an interest in survival and some years only one wish can come true. I know which side I chose this year.

Don’t misunderstand me to assume that I am unadmiring of insects. They will surely survive us, if only because of their evolutionary decision to produce multiple offspring. One of my favourite Larsen cartoons shows a praying mantid addressing a host of babies - hers of course; standing at a podium reminiscent of a graduation ceremony, she is dryly reminding them that virtually all of them will shortly be toast. (Another cartoon gem shows two mandids facing each other. One has just said “You slept with her, didn’t you?” and at that point you notice that the other one is missing his head. Don’t get me started on mantids. Did you know that they, unlike other insects, can turn their heads? But I digress…..).

Although Kafka mined the horror of waking up as a cockroach, the miracle of metamorphosis just blows my socks off. I once and only once witnessed a dragonfly emerging from its armoured nymphal stage; on a rocky riverbank, the soaking wet juvenile crawled out of the water to shed its skin and proceeded to steadily pump up two pairs of gossamer wings. What a sea change — from aquatic grazing to aerial hunting within an hour. I wondered at the time if that new helicoptering adult might have been experienced a sense of surprise and thrill at the speed of flight (over 30 mph) and the huge field of vision afforded by composite eyes. I certainly felt it and would be surprised that this new grownup had not.

This magic hour was surpassed only by the great luck of catching a Monarch emergence. That miracle happened during an Eid celebration which we were attending so I herded up the kids to come and watch with me. There are so few Monarchs left that I had almost forgotten the exquisite turquoise transparency of the chrysalis which was surpassed only by the jewel tones of the new adult. Again, it took less than an hour for this miraculous metamorphosis to complete. Appropriately, the kids watched with something akin to reverence.

This ancient watercolour of Gussie is a reminder of how he loved to stay outside, luring anyone from chipmunk to butterfly into his cage for a visit. Though Gussie's eyes are soft with happiness I doubt that his feelings were shared by the butterfly, who, judging from its immediate exit, was probably more persuaded of the likelihood of being devoured. Any insect in our back yard must be sharing the same mortal worry these days. We live in hope of returning soon to our preferred model -- The Peaceable Kingdom - though we do notice the lambs are getting less and less cooperative about lying down with the lions.  After all, they belong to different voting blocs, don't they.

Yesterday found me with a lapful of cold water.  The weather was delightful — cool but sunny — and we had decided to run the river so we pulled on fleeces and loaded up the car.  Because it was a holiday, there were families thronging the walking paths and lots of them waved to us as we passed.  I half-heartedly tried to wave back but had to remind myself to  keep my paddle in the water when we are whistling through class 1-2 rapids.

Running The Credit brings back funny memories.  I learned how to paddle white-water here.  There is a railroad bridge which always reminds us of the time when I confused a pry and a draw;  Jon finally screamed “Your OTHER left!”  I didn’t actually steer the canoe up all the way into the unfortunate fisherman who was casting there, but I wager that both of us still remember the moment.   

To further complicate things, I toggle between being an amateur naturalist and a dependable bow-paddler.  The rock gardens which are my responsibility to call too often coincide with an unusual bird or a botanical surprise (we found a huge wisteria in full bloom pretending to be a lilac);  taking a photo with one hand in a moving vehicle pretty much guarantees rotten shots but I can’t stop myself from trying.  Once in a while it works:  “The Ancients” 2, which won that recent award, arose from the same situation, although I had to paste three shots together to get what I wanted. 

The great joy of being down in a river valley is that sense of being totally immersed in nature, far from cities, even if civilization lurks just over the hill.   At times nature even feels quite wild:  near the cliff further south is a run of standing waves;  Jon claims it is my job to intercept the ones that sweep in.  Thus the lapfuls.  Over the years I have developed an intimate empathy for all of the biblical sacrificial lambs.

We went back out today to complete the run to the lake.  Rather than standing waves, the threat du jour was the golf ball — the course nearby has several holes which traverse the river -- but nobody managed to bean us and we were rewarded for our courage when we saw a family of common mergansers!  Dad was sporting a formal-wear black-tie head but Mom and all of the kids were crowned with gorgeous ginger.   They were ensconced on a couple of snags in mid-river along with with a couple of equally-elegant Caspian terns. Despite a considerable headwind, it was another great paddle, even ending in a colony of swans, all of whom were absorbed in re-oiling their feathers).

Suggested collective nouns:
"an Irish of mergansers"
"a snazzfest of terns"
"a preen of swans"

As I work at our kitchen sink, I am keeping one eye on a long motionless tail on the other side of the window. A robin has built her nest in the old euonymus which clambers up the stone wall. Jon had spotted her last week and yesterday the mother-to-be unintentionally buzzed me in the garden before diving into an opening among the branches. I imagine supper had been a hurried event for her and that she had stuffed in only a few worms before returning to her domestic responsibilities. The whole set-up looks promising and we hope to share a bird’s eye view of the little family.

This mom is no amateur, unlike the robin whose nest appeared in a photo my merry mother snapped at their cottage decades ago. She labelled it “First-year-mom.” The poor soul had set her sights on the back light fixture; she only got as far as laying one egg before the nest collapsed, breaking the shell, which shattered and spilled. I suspect the sight of the yolk, suspended six inches below the nest, inspired the poor young bird to put more thought into nest sites. I certainly have no reason to feel superior, having once rented an apartment in what turned out to be the site of a former red light district; the locals had stayed, it turned out, and gave many a loud party on the other side of my living room wall; they also played Leonard Cohen around the clock, finishing any affection I had for his voice. And then there was the fire hall. Live and learn is good cross-species advice.

I had not, however, expected to experience deep fellow feelings for starlings, the most-maligned avian species in North America. I didn't dislike them and loved John Updike's description of them:  "On the single strand of wire strung to bring our house electricity, grackles and starlings nearly punctuated an invisible sentence.  But it seems that even (or especially) ornithologists despise this introduced and successful bird. Given that powerful bias,  I was further surprised to hear of a naturalist raising a starling, whom she named “Carmen.”  Lyanda Lynn Haupt is acutely aware of the paradox of adoring a particular starling while hating starlings in general. Even so, her inspiration to foster such an outcast arose from Haupt's fascination with the story that Mozart had doted upon his own starling; they met in a pet shop where he was astonished to hear “Star” whistle the first few bars of his yet unpublished sonata; it was kismet and Wolfgang and Star were inseparable thereafter. "In their shared vocal play, their clever backing-and-forthing of aural possibility, Mozart found the closest thing to an avian kindred spirit that the green earth had to offer. A bird playmate evolved, it seems, just for him" (p.146) for, like parrots and mynahs, starlings are true and accomplished mimics. Unlike songbirds, who perform memorized mating calls, starlings, both male and female, compose and extend huge repertoires of remembered sounds. Social animals, they seem to sing for the sheer joy of any sort of communal living.  I like Updike's observation that "On a single strand of wire strung to bring our house electricity, grackles and starlings neatly punctuated an invisible sentence."

Mozart may not have attended his father’s funeral, but his tiny fellow musician rated an elegy and a special service. If you love both birds and Mozart, you must read Mozart’s Starling. If nothing else, it will remind you to sing more often.

This photo was taken through my studio window during a whirlwind visit by a flock of hungry musicians who within seconds consumed an entire bush of euonymus berries. I should have opened the window — maybe they were giving “The Messiah” a crack too.

​Yes, we have a frost advisory tonight so I hauled in the red geraniums and wrapped the white begonias in a scarf, but otherwise it is spring.  I know this for sure because everything is in motion.

In general, the usuals are doing the usual things.  At least one chipmunk survived the winter and last summer’s predators, thank heavens, and scoots past our feet as we garden.  The garlic mustard, while almost eradicated in our own garden, thrives elsewhere, growing inches each day — It was discouraging to hike Mount Nemo this week and notice that its splendid masses of ephemerals are under siege.  I pulled the biggest plants but this is not a battle which can be won.  Woodpeckers everywhere hammer away,  dazed by  the bonanza of dead ash trees.  And then there’s the grouse, of course.  We’ve concluded that he is mildly insane, but in a nice way.

For me the excitement is in the return, if only briefly, of migrants.  Jon saw a wild turkey a couple of doors down and the next night our neighbours called to ask about the enormous birds roosting in their tree — the huge lumps turned out to be turkey vultures.  They soar above the valley but this is the first time I’ve seen them resting.  Warblers appear and move on, edgy geese couples take turns brooding and guarding, and the steelhead run straggles on.  

What brought all of this motion to my attention was a moment in an art gallery yesterday.  I was admiring a Maurice Cullen when Jon said “Remember how I always tell you to add an animal to your paintings?”  (He relentlessly teases me that there’s nothing wrong with a painting that can’t be fixed by the addition of a bunny.  Or a fish.  Or an eagle.  You get the picture.)  Anyway, I turned to look at the painting he was talking about and instantly caught the joke.  The scene was beautifully painted with blue-capped snowbanks reminiscent of Lauren Harris, and perfectly capable of standing on its own.   But at the focal point was an unfortunate stag, frozen in  mid-jump like a wooden carousel horse.   Jon christened it “Boing!!”

Not that I would do any better.  Not a chance.  While everything, particularly in the spring, is in motion, it is motion itself which is the hardest thing to capture.  A still life subject has the virtue of staying put.  (When I was teaching myself to paint, I began with single flowers on a white background;  all alternatives were too overwhelming.)  I wish I could report that I have since mastered motion but nope.    Some of my paintings avoid sharp edges to give the impression of blurred speed but often the best I can do is to guide the viewer’s eye to move through the painting. 

Whatever the device,  spring paintings need an edge of chaos. This small watercolour reflects my panic as I watched Jon and Brian surf a standing wave. Maybe spring's my season.  I scare easy.  

Easter Sunday was windy but with patches of brilliant sunshine.    Everywhere life was reaffirming itself.  Heading over to the college in the afternoon, we trekked up to the woods, hoping to see birds before the canopy opened.  

The best we did was to establish that they were there.  The “Honey, I’m Home” quonks of a red-bellied woodpeckers* were audible, as they have been around the river and in our front yard and we could hear canaries, nuthatches and chickadees.  But the loud hammering had to belong to a pileated and Jon did  finally spot him.  We had brought the long lens and Jon patiently manoeuvred around twigs to find clear shots.  

Equally patient, Theodore and I waited on the main path.  Usually we all walk north and return another way. but yesterday I happened to glance back just as the Easter sun emerged from behind a cloud, and there it was!  I had tried many times to find that scene again but yesterday I was reminded why I had originally taken the shot:  a shaft of sunshine was strewing shadows across the path and highlighting the mossy exposed roots  which comprise the focal point.  I had been starting to wonder if I had made it up but once more the real deal took my breath away and proved that it's hard to improve on the truth.   

Finding the exact spot was like running into an old friend —the same attendant sense of strong recognition. Theodore had no reaction whatsoever.  He was still smarting from the indignity of being forbidden to keep a prize short rib his sniffer had located in the parkland, and there was a bur or two to be chewed out.  I have always thought that shared moments are the best.  But yesterday reminded me that while my primary sense is vision, Theodore’s magnificent schnoz is for him the bearer of most good things and that it is enough to celebrate beauty in whatever form it takes.  Sometimes it will smell like a short rib.  
   
​* see 19/5/16