For some reason or another I got to thinking the other day about one of my earlier experiences with watching birds alone. A little south of the town I grew up, lies a empty spot on the map, where my grandfather spent part of his youth. Assessippi was one of the places my great grandfather homesteaded, and where my grandfather lived from the age of one, until he was nine. As he said, it is where his first memories are from, and where he caught his first fish (with a bent pin in the millrace). I have a tape of an interview I did with Grandpa about pioneer life in Assessippi when I was a lad in school.
Just upstream of the village site, on the Shell river is a small park nestled in the valley. A creek, Bear Creek, empties into the Shell at this park, having made its way down a steep sided ravine that runs off the Shell Valley. The park is a place of picnics, ball tournaments, and where I took my first swimming lessons. The hills are steep, and it used to be a tradition to climb to the top of the valley overlooking the river on almost every visit. I loved the creek though, and would love to follow it up stream, watching for minnows in its clear waters, listening to bird song, enjoying the coolness of the woods. On one memorable occasion I saw a Lynx chasing a raven, the raven flying just above the undergrowth, the lynx crashing through below it, as it ran a few feet away from me.
One spring day found my family at the park, and I found myself wandering along the creek, making my way higher up the ravine. As I climbed I heard a partridge drumming (partridge being the local name of Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus)) up the side of the ravine. The drumming of the Ruffed Grouse is one of my favourite sounds in nature, like a one cylinder tractor starting up, a sound of spring.
I left the creek and climbed towards the drumming, and when it stopped, and I hadn’t seen the bird, I sat at the edge of small clearing. I sat in the warm spring sun, with my back against an oak tree and savoured the scene before me. Drinking it in I noticed some movement a little below me, and there came the partridge, strutting his way to a small log amongst the trees below. He hopped up on that log and drummed, and drummed again, over and over. On occasion he’d hop off, and go for a bit of a walk, but soon he’d be back, advertising his availability to any hen within earshot.
I hoped that he’d find his hen, and that soon she’d be tucked in at the base of a tree, brooding a nest full of eggs. Just like the hen that my Grannie pointed out to me when we were picking morel mushrooms one spring. A bird so confident in her ability to hide, that you could stroke her feathers and she would not budge from her nest. What birds these are! Proud, handsome, confident.
And I sat and watched this spectacle unfold just for me. I did not need to share it with anyone to enjoy and appreciate it. Another person would have just taken away from the experience.
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy company while enjoying birds. I love showing someone a bird they’ve never seen, or having someone point out one to me. I enjoy the company of friends, sharing the day, and talking about the day spent in the field long afterward, the birds, the flowers, the insects, the day. But I love the solitude of taking to the field by myself, just as much. There is no pressure to move from a bird, or spider; no need to call someone over before they miss it; no worries about missing something yourself. Just the need to be in the moment, and savour the silence and the time spent with the natural world.
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2 responses
oh how wonderful Clare! The experience of watching a drumming ruffed grouse is so magical.
I too love the solitude of watching birds alone, and tend to do so most of the time.. but we’re never really alone- the birds are watching us just as closely as we’re watching them in some cases.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful memory.
Clare– This is so beautifully remembered and written. I can’t imagine coming upon a grouse so confident that you could touch it. That sounds like a perfect moment.