Year in Life

I had my 'its that time of year again' moment this morning, when I spotted a dark juvenile Merlin perched atop a telephone pole on my way to work. Upon arriving, a coworker remarked that two Harriers were coursing our grasslands that morning. The grasslands, last week alive with fledgling Ammodramus sparrows, are silent save for the occasional 'jimp' of a lingering Bobolink or the rattling alarm call of a Meadowlark. Most of these birds have passed on as well. Our fields peaked at nearly 50 Meadowlarks in one day two weeks back and they've been in short supply ever since. Autumn is here.

'Autumn?' you say, 'but its only August!'. That's true, but other species have no regard for the Julian Calendar and a good naturalist must remember that. I count the day I ceased to pay attention to seasons as defined by solstices and equinoxes and instead began to follow the cues of migrants as one of my greatest revelations as a birder. It was then that I realized I was missing more than half of migration!

To me, the greatest joy in naturalism is gaining insight into the sychrony of the landscape and the organisms that use it. The flight of migrant birds does not occur unassisted; it times perfectly with swells in insect populations and the ripening of fall fruit. Predatory birds come along for the ride, dependent on the big concentrations of their small cousins to better chances of obtaining a much needed meal. In a great choreographed dance the whole food chain rolls down the continent, leaving the landscape to sleep behind it, and the animals that remain behind to eke out a living until the whole thing happens again.

You don't have to go far to find something extraordinary about nature. A Black-throated Green Warbler foraging in an Eastern Hemlock will do. Such a scene tells a story; of bird, insect, and tree in a relationship rooted in time and sustained for millenia. A single thread in the tapestry of life that defines a year in nature. Endless delight awaits those who take the time to pay attention to it.