Birding with Yeats: A Mother's Memoir
Page 23
IT WAS LATER THAT summer. The three of us stood on the deck at the cottage in the dark, listening to a pair of barred owls calling to one another. The farther one seemed to be on the other side of Fairylands and it made the usual whoo whowho call. The closer one was so loud that it may have even been on our island, but we couldn’t tell. It also called whoo whowho, but added a little descending tremolo at the end: whoo whowhooooooo. It sounded like a ghost or a demented opera singer. Each time the birds called, Yeats looked at me, grinning.
We stood out there for five minutes, listening, the dark forest enclosing us but our cozy cottage behind, with its electric light and Pippin sleeping on a chair. The cat didn’t bat an eye over these owls. Not much later, though, while we played cards, he raised his head and opened his eyes wide when a dog on Fairylands began to bark. The barking also silenced the owls and we resumed our play.
The next day I watched a raven eviscerate a chipmunk. Ravens seemed to be everywhere; we left some stale crackers on the railing and after they took them, they sat cackling in the pines around the deck. Perhaps they were thanking us, or asking for more.
I heard another raven farther off, making a loud, raspy, repetitive sound. The sound a young bird made when it wanted to be fed. Or the sound of the bungee-jumping toy sheep that Mom brought Yeats home from New Zealand years ago, a deranged Waaaaaa.
I found the bird in my binoculars. An adult raven was sitting on a high branch, feeding bits of chipmunk to its young one, who was making all the noise. I watched as the bird pecked and pecked at the chipmunk, which lay flung out upside down on the branch, its throat exposed and its belly being torn out by the raven. Ravenous.
The only time the young raven stopped its mesmerizing sound was when its parent stuffed a piece of meat into its mouth. I watched as the chipmunk’s belly grew bloodier and bloodier. I watched as the raven pulled out a piece of intestine that looked just like spaghetti. With its claws clamped tightly on the chipmunk, the bird pulled the intestine upwards as far as it could and then dropped its head down, letting the morsel sag. Then it twisted the sagging bit around in its beak and pulled again. It repeated this action over and over until it had had enough and gave a strong tug to set the flesh free. It had accumulated a good-sized bite, which it fed right into the waiting mouth beside it.
I had seen enough.
I MADE A CUP of tea and took it down to the dock. It was early on a cloudy September morning and no one else was moving. Ben and Yeats were both asleep. The rest of my family was in the city and so were most of the other cottagers at our end of the lake.
The water was flat calm and the sun poked a ray through steely clouds, sending a carpet of jewels spreading from the horizon right to the dock. Two seagulls flew past, a couple of minutes apart, both of them adjusting their path so they could fly right over me. The loon kept calling, calling, calling.
I sat until the dew soaked through the towel I put on the chair and into my pyjamas. I’d drunk half my tea and the rest was cold, along with my feet in their flip-flops. It was time to go back to the cottage, but I couldn’t move. I needed to soak up as much of this scene as I could before heading back to Toronto and crashing into my other life — the life of a busy bookseller in a teeming city.
The transition to the city was always difficult, always required a conscious effort to stay balanced. Yeats transitioned now by going birdwatching as many times as he could in his first weeks back. I tried to go for walks, too, just around the neighbourhood, and I always scheduled a visit with at least one good friend.
When Yeats was small we had a really hard time with this transition, neither of us seeing the point in coming back to the city just so he could go to school. There seemed to be so much more to learn in the forest and on the lake. Those were the times when I thought of home-schooling, though that’s not the path we took.
Those early days of September, Yeats and I would leave the house a bit ahead of schedule and walk down to the school, stopping along the way to look at flowers and ferns and the occasional bird that caught our eye. It wouldn’t be long, I knew, before we’d be back to our normal routine, driving to school because I had to hurry on to something else, plunging back into our homework wars.
I reflected on the changes the years had wrought as I sat alone on the dock that glorious morning. Yeats was in university now and wholly in charge of his assignments; I had my work in the bookshop, my writing group, and friends to look forward to. Our lives were evolving, and Yeats depended on me less to go birdwatching. He went on his own.
AND NOW, WINTER: I peeked out the bedroom window to gauge the day. It was 7 a.m. and the sun wasn’t up yet. Grey sky one morning, frost on the balcony railing. Grey sky the next morning, no frost. Ribbons of pink in the eastern sky the next morning and I knew we would have rain or snow.
The sun rose into encroaching clouds, and I had long since dropped the edge of the curtain and gone downstairs to feed the cat.
What happened next in a day? If we were lucky, nothing out of the ordinary. Breakfast, shower, dress. Put the cat out and then let the cat in. Read the front section of the newspaper and note the weather in various spots around the world. −15 in Winnipeg, +30 in Singapore. Imagine for a second being in both of those places at once and spend a minute or two gazing out my kitchen window in wonder.
Thoughts like these came to me more and more often the longer I lived with a teenaged son. Questions of “Why?” and questions of the universe and endless questions and opinions about how to live in this messed-up culture. I suggested ways of seeing that involved being optimistic and positive, and while he didn’t exactly scoff he often became impatient. He needed to be in the forest. He’d said the previous night, for instance, that he had too much energy in his head right now, not enough in his feet.
I SAT AT MY desk, gazing out the window at the first snowfall of the season. Ben and I had shared the morning paper together over coffee before he left for work. I would be joining him downtown later, but for now I was reading a poem on a friend’s website, a poem toasting a lifelong friendship. I was hoping for inspiration and just as I began to write, Yeats pressed play on his stereo in the room beside me. Cat Stevens began to sing his song about wanting to last forever, riding the great white bird up to heaven. I felt deeply moved. Not because I wanted to be young again, but because this day marked two anniversaries and the music brought on a flood of nostalgia. I wanted to slow time down.
It was exactly eleven years since I’d begun writing with The Moving Pen, my weekly writing group. I cherished that writing time and those women who sat around the table every week, bearing witness to our artistic selves. And it was twenty-one years since Dad died. While I didn’t dwell on that loss anymore, and it no longer caused me deep grief, it did sit in me somewhere, lightly. Played with me a little.
The passage of time. Here was a song that reminded me of death, and a poem that spoke of love and friendship, and a special day in the calendar year that marked my journey to a deeper self-awareness.
No birds flew past my window. No crow. No falcon. The trees stood naked and swayed in the winter wind, their branches covered in snow. I sat watching the clouds, being in my life, being here now.
LIST OF BIRDS
Alder Flycatcher
American Crow
American Goldfinch
American Redstart
American Robin
Anna’s Hummingbird
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Bald Eagle
Baltimore Oriole
Barn Swallow Adult
Barn Swallow Chicks
Barred Owl
Bay-breasted Warbler
Belted Kingfisher
Black Oystercatcher
Black Scoter
Black Tern
Black-bellied Plover
Black-billed Magpie
Black-capped Chickadee
Black-crowned Night Heron
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green W
arbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Blue Jay
Blue-footed Booby
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
Blue-grey Tanager
Blue-headed Vireo
Blue-winged Teal
Boat-tailed Grackle
Bobolink
Bonaparte’s Gull
Boreal Owl
Brandt’s Cormorant
Broad-winged Hawk
Brown Noddy
Brown Thrasher
Bufflehead
Bushtit
Canada Goose
Canada Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Carolina Wren
Caspian Tern
Cassin’s Auklet
Cattle Egret
Cedar Waxwing
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Common Goldeneye
Common Ground Dove
Common Loon
Common Merganser
Common Murre
Common Nighthawk
Common Raven
Common Yellowthroat
Cooper’s Hawk
Dark-eyed Junco
Double-crested Cormorant
Downy Woodpecker
Dunlin
Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Screech Owl
Eastern Towhee
European Starling
Fork-tailed Storm Petrel
Forster’s Tern
Gadwall
Galapagos Penguin
Galapagos Storm Petrel
Glaucous-winged Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Great Frigate Bird
Great Grey Owl
Great-crested Flycatcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Green-winged Teal
Grey Catbird
Grey Jay
Herring Gull
House Finch
House Sparrow
House Wren
Hummingbird in Ecuador
Indigo Bunting
Killdeer
Lapland Longspur
Laughing Gull
Lava Gull
Leach’s Storm Petrel
Least Flycatcher
Long-eared Owl
Long-tailed Duck
Magnificent Frigatebird
Magnolia Warbler
Mallard
Marbled Murrelet
Medium Tree Finch
Merlin
Mourning Warbler
Nazca Booby
Northern Cardinal
Northern Flicker
Northern Harrier
Northern Hawk Owl
Northern Mockingbird
Northern Parula
Northern Pintail
Northern Shoveler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Ovenbird
Pacific Loon
Peacock
Philadelphia Vireo
Pigeon Guillemot
Prothonotary warbler
Purple Finch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-billed Tropic Bird
Red-breasted Merganser Female
Red-eyed Vireo
Red-footed Booby Chick
Red-footed Booby
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-throated Loon
Red-winged Blackbird
Reddish Egret
Redhead
Rhinoceros Auklet
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Dove
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Ruddy Turnstone
Rufous Hummingbird
Sanderling
Scarlet Tanager
Semipalmated Plover
Short-billed Dowitcher
Short-tailed Albatross
Snow Bunting
Snowy Egret
Snowy Owl
Song Sparrow
Spotted Sandpiper
Stellar’s Jay
Striated Heron
Surf Scoter
Swainson’s Thrush
Townsend’s Warbler
Tropical Kingbird
Trumpeter Swan
Tufted Puffin
Tundra Swan
Turkey Vulture
Violet-green Swallow
White-breasted Nuthatch
White-crowned Sparrow
White-eyed Vireo
White-rumped Storm Petrel
White-Throated Sparrow
White-winged Scoter
Wild Turkey
Wilson’s Phalarope
Wilson’s Warbler
Wood Duck
Wood Thrush
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
FURTHER RESOURCES
BOOKS
Bull, John L., and John Farron, Jr. Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region. New York: Knopf, 1977.
Gibson, Graeme. The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany. Toronto: Doubleday, 2005.
Howell, Steve N. G. and Jon Dunn. Gulls of the Americas. Peterson Field Guides. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.
Hughes, Janice M. ROM Field Guide to Birds of Ontario. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum and McClelland & Steward, 2001.
Matthiessen, Peter. The Snow Leopard. New York: Viking, 1978.
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Third Edition. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1999.
Sibley, David Allen. The Sibley Guide to Birds. New York: Knopf, 2000.
WEBSITES
Amherst Island: www.amherstisland.on.ca
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: www.allaboutbirds.org
Nature Conservancy of Canada: www.natureconservancy.ca
Pelee Island: www.pelee.org
Point Pelee National Park: www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/on/pelee/index.aspx
Wye Marsh: http://www.wyemarsh.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BIRDING WITH YEATS WOULD not exist without the brilliant vision of Sarah MacLachlan at House of Anansi Press. It was her idea, and I thank her very much for having it and then handing it over to Janie Yoon, my friend and editor. Janie brought the idea to me and now it is a book. Sometimes it feels like that — Janie waved her magic wand and helped me to create a book out of nothing but little stories. But mostly it was hard work and I thank Janie for believing I could write this book and for helping me do it.
Thanks go to everyone else at Anansi, too, for being their wonderful, exuberant selves. A book is a team effort and Anansi is a great team. Special thanks to Alysia Shewchuk for her lovely jacket and map designs, and to Laura Repas, my publicist, for her dedication.
Thank you to Barbara Stoneham for her photographs and our day in the forest; to Marion Hebb, my lawyer and (surprise!) distant cousin; to Melanie Little in her copy-editor’s hat; to Sharon Singer and all the women over all the years of The Moving Pen.
Thank you to my family, without whom there would be no stories, and especially to Yeats and to Ben.
Lynn Thomson
Toronto, December 2013
LYNN THOMSON is a bookseller in Toronto, Canada. Birding with Yeats is her first book.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Pete
r Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”
Black-capped Chickadee
Photo by Simon Pierre Barrette
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)
Downy Woodpecker
Photo by Wolfgang Wander
American Robin
Photo by Lee Karney
Blackburnian Warbler
Photo by Seabamirum
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
House Wren
Photo by Matt Tillett
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Blue Jay
Photo by Frank Miles
Red-winged Blackbird
Photo by Bob Jagendorf
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Dark-eyed Junco
Photo by Ken Thomas
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Photo by Dave Menke
Snowy Egret
Great Egret
Photo by Lukasz Lukasik
Reddish Egret
Photo by Robert Burton
Cattle Egret
Photo by Viriditas
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)
Black-billed Magpie
Photo by Alan D. Wilson
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)
Prothonotary warbler