Last year, there were some weird avian going-ons down by the Bay. After the first snow storm of the year, birds of different species congregated down by the beach, or so it seemed to me. Read my astonishing report entitled A Grand Interdimensional Adventure in the Park. While birds intermingle throughout the year, it seemed to me that day was particularly crowded with feathery visitors. We just had our first proper snow of the year, so not one to miss a good photo opp, I made my way down to the bay on Christmas day.
As I approached the beach, I could hear the crows raising a raucous. Through the trees beside the recreation centre, I saw a lordly blue heron standing upon the rooftop surveying the murder of crows who were hopping, flying, crowing, and just generally raising hell as crows are wont to do. I sometimes feel a strange affinity with the blue heron. I enjoy the way that they stand alone in the water while patiently and methodically waiting for a fish to slither by. Mysterious creatures residing on the margin between land and ocean. Where do they go, I wonder, when they’re no longer fishing in the ocean. Return to their homes on some alternate dimension where the laws of physics are blue.
Consider, if you please, the blue of the ocean, the blue of the sky, the roiling clouds. This is what I call frozen blue, accentuated by the blanket of snow. It’s darn cold. The temperature had dropped to -2 deg C. The light reflected off the snow and off the clouds, painting hues in azure, the mountains, the ocean, and the line on the horizon. Encased in ice. Diffused in blue.
Then the brown hues of Fall and Winter. Stiff in the cold.
This is a pattern, I thought. Last year, the birds congregated in the bay after the first snows of winter. This year, the same has happened. What could be drawing them there? The warmth in all likelihood. Arctic fingers have their tips on the province, all the way down south, where we reside. The air is likely warmer near the ocean, and therefore the birds are attracted to the area. There is also the extra bonus of food along the shore and in the areas where humans congregate.
I wonder if any biologists have done this kind of research to try to understand their behavior. What I find particularly fascinating is how they leave each other alone. They may even protect each other in case uninvited guests show up (like eagles and hawks). There’s almost like a truce among them, and sometimes they even gather in interspecies groups.
But we all know what we came here for. So let's get to it. Ladies and gentlemen, here are the Canada Geese
A strange sight awaits me at the edge of the west end neighbourhood. Above the roundabout near the little park, a matrix of bird nests nestled on the bare tree branches, the embryonic nodes dotted against the twilit winter sky.
I wondered what species of bird they belonged to. A large bird from the looks of it. Then across the street, I came upon the answer.
Mind officially blown! I thought of herons as mysterious solitary birds. Rebels without a cause. The monks of the feather world. No need for a hive. As it turns out, they live in communities made up of multiple individual family cells within sight and distance of each other. The sly ole rascals! An avian network revealed in the frozen ice. A mystery unfolded like an origami puzzle.
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