Murmuration and other bird mysteries

 

Intrigued by the flocks of birds that performed unusual manoeuvres outside our windows on Saltspring, we learned that they're probably starlings doing something we'd never heard of before. The phenomenon called murmuration is a fall thing; birds fly together in tight formation, apparently to fend off predators, keep warm and tell each other about food sources. Photo by John Denniston. 

On the other side of the water, at Iona Beach Regional Park in Richmond, snow geese were carrying out their own fall ritual. They stop over in many areas of Metro Vancouver to rest and eat during their annual migration from arctic lands to warmer climes. Photo by John Denniston.

It’s fun to watch a lone hummingbird assume lordly possession of the back-porch feeder, a robin puff itself to twice its size in the birdbath, or a bluejay contemptuously kick aside the autumn leaves to search for goodies beneath. But these are humble, back-yard moments. They’re a different thing altogether from the eerie mystery of what great gatherings of birds get up to.

This year, possibly because Covid has meant more time for idle observation, I’ve been paying more attention to what birds do in bunches. On Saltspring this fall, we were intrigued by the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of rather ordinary, drab-looking birds swooping and looping past our windows, all flying together and changing direction on a dime, as if linked by a common brain.

That’s how I learned about murmuration – the phenomenon of birds, usually starlings, flying together in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns. Bird telepathy was the original explanation of how this was done, according to the website https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/starling-murmurations, but later studies revealed something less psychic. Each bird simply keeps track of the movements of seven other birds around it, the website explains. “Considering all these little groups of seven touch on other individuals and groups of seven, twists and turns quickly spread. And from that, a whole murmuration moves.”

Here's a hint of what murmuration looks like, with groups of birds forming different patterns in the sky. Photo by John Denniston.

Our Saltspring version was rather modest because of the size of the flock, but web videos  (https://phys.org/news/2019-02-starling-murmurations-science-nature-greatest.html) are more impressive. When thousands of starlings get together, they can blacken, then lighten, the sky in ever-changing, ever dividing and reconnecting waves and circles and columns.

Then there are the snow geese, who stop in various areas of Metro Vancouver on their annual migration from arctic lands to the warmer south of the continent. They seemed like a visitation from another world when we saw them at Iona Beach Regional Park this week, whitening the shore and drifting like snow on the water. Their chatter was constant, an interrogative screeching, and I wondered what they were telling each other in all those thousands of exchanges. On the shore, feisty young geese snapped at each other and flapped their wings like bullying teenagers, while their tired elders snoozed on their feet, heads tucked under wings. They ignored the photographers standing mere feet away, but when a trio of dogs raced along the shoreline, they rose squawking, forming waves of white mystery against the autumn sky.

 

The snow geese in Richmond, resting up for their migration ahead, were remarkably calm about photographers getting close. Photo by John Denniston.

But add some dogs, who surely thought this the best sport in the world, and the geese were off the beach in an instant. Photo by John Denniston.

Uprooted, they joined their companions in the water, there to sleep some more. Photo by John Denniston.

Covid summer, remembered

 We thought we had a strange summer this year thanks to Covid, but as winter and the pandemic’s dreaded “second wave” kick in, those months of sunny freedom are starting to look pretty good. We saw fewer people, hosted almost nobody, and I lost my last chance of ever walking in a graduation procession after SFU cancelled my June convocation. On the plus side, I upped my baking game, learned that kale and arugula are the stars of a shady garden, and walked a lot of woodsy trails. We also spent more time than usual at our place on Saltspring Island; isolating is easy when the birds, deer and rabbits outnumber the neighbours.

Now that the winter rains have hit and we’re all hunkering down at home under stricter pandemic rules, here are some scenes from that strange but in retrospect, pretty okay, Covid summer:

Flaky biscuits have always eluded me, but Covid isolation gave me time to perfect them. This pan is awaiting strawberries and cream for one of our count-on-one-hand social gatherings.

The finished product. Yum!

This is what preparation for guests looked like this summer: everything outdoors and very widely spaced. Notice the blue hydrangeas and yellow hollyhocks serving as living floral arrangements.

                                        

Our guests, John's cousin Janice and her husband Jim seemed to enjoy the strawberry shortcake.

Another day, another guest, but the same widely spaced chairs, this time in the back garden. My friend Linda talks with John.

Linda and me during the same visit. Oh, how far apart we are sitting!

Proof that I'm now a master of liberal studies at Simon Fraser University came in a special box, containing my degree and a graduation cap. I had to celebrate  in the back yard after convocation ceremonies were cancelled due to Covid. Photo by John Denniston.

As I've documented in several previous posts, Covid prompted us to begin a little veggie garden by the back fence. In spite of our efforts to get some sunshine into the space, we found that only shade-friendly veggies like kale, bok choy and arugula flourished. Lessons learned for next year.

That same lack of sunlight prompted delphiniums to reach for the sky, higher than ever this year. These must have been about 10 feet, and needed to be propped up on sticks after rain knocked them sideways. Photo by John Denniston. 

Like everybody else, we walked a lot this summer. The woods were a beautiful, peaceful place to stay safely away from everybody else.  Photo by John Denniston. 

There are always discoveries when you walk, and we were impressed by this ghostly stand of trees around a slough in the Ruckle Park area of Saltspring Island. Photo by John Denniston. 

Another view of those dead trees in the swampy green water. I think our late painter friend Kathy Robertson would have enjoyed doing justice to this scene. Photo by John Denniston.

A lookout bench on Channel Ridge on Saltspring Island; the joke is that the view has been obscured by the trees. Photo by John Denniston.

And somehow or other, I always end up posing in the giant trees we come across on our walks. There were many such photos this summer. Photo by John Denniston.

Saltspring was our refuge from the city's pandemic craziness. This view of our property, looking down at the house with the ocean beyond, says everything. Photo by John Denniston.

Picking blackberries for dessert from a wicked tangle of brambles in our yard was part of the daily routine on Saltspring. So much better than donning a mask and going to a grocery store! Photo by John Denniston.

A leaf swaying in the wind, seemingly attached to nothing, had John down on his knees in the back yard one day. It was actually on a spider's web attached to the tree above, but it fascinated John enough that he turned it into a weirdly soporific video clip. 

Our new neighbour on Saltspring has departed from his predecessor's strict devotion to a manicured lawn. We kind of like the relaxed feeling that a summer's worth of uncut grass produces. Photo by John Denniston.

Another view of that back-to-nature back yard.  What a playground for the two young children who live there! It wouldn't have been a confined Covid summer for them. Photo by John Denniston.

The morning view from our Saltspring living room. We watch birds, boats and barges, and the pandemic is a long way away. Photo by John Denniston.

The view from the deck outside that same window is always changing. At sunset one night, John caught ocean, clouds and mountains sandwiched between the silhouettes of our neighbour's trees and chimney stack.. Photo by John Denniston.

At just the right time of a cloudy day, the little Vesuvius ferry looks magical against a backdrop of ocean, clouds and the lights of the Crofton pulp mill. Photo by John Denniston.

The deck comes in useful for various ways of entertaining ourselves. Here, John wanted to know if we could read out there by the light of the old coal oil lamp from my parents' farm. The answer was yes. Photo by John Denniston. 

Not every day was sunny during our time on Saltspring. Here I am on a non-swimming day on Vesuvius Beach. Photo by John Denniston.

John, however, thought a little rain wouldn't deter him from his daily swim, so here he is in the water.

Later in the season, when the water was getting marginal for swimming, I joined a couple of hardy neighbours and braved the cold. This time, John stayed on the beach. Photo by John Denniston. 

Here's John at the little Vesuvius cafe, with his coffee, computer and internet connection, which was the real point of going there. The inconvenience of depending on coffee shops and dodging other customers finally persuaded us to sign up for internet on Saltspring.

The cafe took Covid precautions seriously; only two customers at a time and a big bottle of hand sanitizer at the entrance.

Near the stairs leading down to Vesuvius beach is a little chunk of waterfront property that belongs to the pretty cottage across the road from it. This little bit of quaintness, the handiwork of longtime owner Jack Clement, who died this year, is a reminder that people and pandemics may come and go, but the beauty of nature goes on.

Lost things

 

Ever since the cold season began, I've been losing bits and pieces of my crucial winter wardrobe. Why does this happen? And, what's next? Photo by John Denniston. 

First, the hat went. The cozy, warm woolen hat my friend Linda meticulously knit me a few years ago was suddenly…gone. Today, another piece of my vital winter gear – the burgundy scarf that was once my mother’s – disappeared. Both times on a walk, both times completely unnoticed.

As I retraced my steps today in what was beginning to feel like a too-familiar mission, I thought about losing things. A sign of old age? Of distraction? (There’s lots to be distracted about now, from the U.S. election to Covid.) Maybe it’s something to do with winter and all the extra gear it entails. Which reminded me of those humiliating, but highly effective mitten-string devices of my childhood. The mittens were attached to a string that went up your coat sleeves and across your back; doffed, they dangled ridiculously, but were never lost. Which reminded me of the old Mother Goose rhyme about the three naughty kittens who lost their mittens – surely a winter phenomenon too.

The good news is that I found my lost treasures. After ransacking my backpack, revisiting two stores, and retracing a few blocks of an earlier walk I’d taken with Linda, the burgundy splotch of my hat stood out nicely against the green grass of a Vancouver boulevard. Today’s search, a couple of weeks later, involved redoing a walk John and I had taken on Saltspring Island earlier in the day. Halfway through the re-do, there was my scarf, neatly tied to an overhanging branch of a prominent tree at the top of a hill.

If mishaps go in threes, and this series is all about favourite winter accessories, I’m wondering what’s next. A Saltspring friend recently gave me some fingerless gloves that I’m beginning to get fond of; perhaps I should see about attaching them to a string.

Are these the next to fall out of my pocket? Should I take counter-measures? Photo by John Denniston.