The Return of Spring
You only recognize the silence of winter once it is no longer there
I always forget just how much I love listening to the bird song of spring. After winter’s silence, it is a welcome herald of the warmth to come.
Winter is a time of harsh hues and hunger and scarcity, where the elk, wild turkeys, and most of the whitetails leave for gentler pastures, the bears disappear for hibernation, and the landscape belongs only to me, the rabbits, grouse, and remaining predators. It is a great time for tracking animals through the snow and for stunning photography; for being alone with your thoughts in an endless pale blue-hued landscape. But I do miss the birdlife. You only recognize the silence of winter once it is no longer there.
The season slowly begins to change around January and February, when deep hoots resound in the darkness from the forest behind the house, heralding the beginning of mating season for the owls. Large and small, they show up regularly each night, having what I jokingly call “hoot-offs” amongst the evergreen trees. The Great Horned Owls, those so-called “Bermuda Triangles of the Forest,” are the most deeply resonant, and I think to myself that perhaps it’s a good thing the wild turkeys have moved elsewhere for the season.
The next birds to return are nameless to me, I only know them as the “Say Phoebes” for their call. They are the first harbingers of the season’s change, but spring is not truly on its way until the robins return. Their arrival will be followed in the coming months by the tree swallows and bluebirds, and countless others, brightening up the landscape with their orchestra of song.
The landscape will slowly awaken, and the hay fields will transition from white to brown to many different shades of green. The whitetails and elk will return, giving birth in the forests around the house and bringing their frolicking youngsters into the pastures each morning and evening. There is nothing better than looking out the kitchen window and seeing a mother elk and her calf resting next to the greenhouse in the grey darkness of first light.
As the pastures green up, the wild turkeys will return. One morning, you will awaken to the sounds of rolling thunder coming from the bowl of trees directly north of the greenhouse. Those gobbles will stir your blood, the noise as deeply primal as it is now tangible.
The bears, those ghosts of the forest, will awaken in March, or sometimes early April, leaving the barest evidence of their presence. A few soft tracks in the melting snow, a couple of overturned rocks along the path…yet the story of their return is laid out on the landscape for those who know how to read it.
I am often asked why I prefer to live so far away from other people and towns? How can I stand being so insulated from society? When I hear this question, I think of those rhythms of nature, of the cycles of life and death and rebirth playing out around me daily, and of which I am a part of, and I pity those who are so distant from it all.
I love living on this landscape and learning its secrets each season. To me, a life lived here is rich with the memories of experience, and requiring none of the material wealth we so often mistakenly think we need.
This place contains everything I need to be truly happy.
