"And smale fowles maken melodye..."

Ever since we left March behind and moved on into April, the opening lines of the "General Prologue" to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have been running through my brain:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour...*

Although we have not had an overabundance of shoures sote this month and March was not so much plagued by droghte as it was by snow and ice lingering from the horrendous February that Maine endured, Spring seems finally to have arrived. Granted, small piles of snow remain in those dark corners that don't get much sun, or lie buried under layers of gravel pushed up by snowplows (like those at the end of my driveway!). Average daily temperatures have yet to get very far out of the 40s but floures are beginning to bloom, adding some much-welcome color to the landscape. Given how much snow we had dumped on us in February it's pretty remarkable how quickly it disappeared. A walk in the woods two weeks ago required wearing snow boots; now light hiking boots are more than sufficient. The downside of this quick flipping of seasons: ticks are already active. I've taken a few off both myself and the cat in the past few days. Sheesh....snow one week, ticks the next. In the immortal words of Celtics announcer Tommy Heinsohn: "Gimme a break!"

The best thing about Aprille though, is that it marks the time of year when, once again, as Chaucer tells us, smale fowles maken melodye. In some ways things are not so different today from the way they were in late 14th century England. The annual bird migration is gaining momentum here in southern Maine and the changing of the guard is well underway. As the warblers, sparrows, swallows, plovers, blackbirds, raptors and many other species arrive, we say farewell to the Juncos, Pine Siskins, Snowy Owls, Tree Sparrows, and whatnot who endured the winter with us. I say "endured," but for them, coming to Maine was the equivalent of human snowbirds heading to Florida for the winter.

With the migration, of course, comes nesting activity and the concomitant staking out of territory by singing males. Soon the chorus of smale fowles maken melodye outside our bedroom windows in the early morning hours will serve as a call to drag our sleepy butts out of our beds and go out to see what we can find by way of birdlife. Chaucer tells us that the season of birdsong evoked a different sort of longing in his protagonists:

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge stronds

To fern halwes, kowth in sondry londes.*

But our own April outings are pilgrimages of a sort. They may not take us to Canterbury, or even as far as shires ende, but we all have our fern halwes to which we venture in the hope of reveling in the sights and sounds of birds we have not seen since this time last year. Or, even better, spotting a new species or two that may have eluded us in prior years.

Even though I noted in one of my very early posts that I'm not much of a lister, the Spring migration seems to bring out in me the urge to tabulate and quantify my experience more than at any other time. My birding notebooks that are generally maintained in a pretty desultory fashion throughout the rest of the year suddenly become repositories of daily sightings once the migration gets underway. I suppose this is largely in response to the fact that the avian landscape outside the windows of my home and in the countryside around is now filled with new sights and sounds. After watching a relatively stable cast of characters play out their daily lives at my feeders and in the trees near the house, the influx of newcomers to the scene prompts me to note their presence as a means of celebrating their return.

All this notwithstanding, to me the act of logging what I see is perhaps the least important reason to go birding in the Spring. There is just something very special and soul-restoring about being outside this time of year and immersing oneself in the natural world. Three short ventures in recent weeks had the character of pilgrimages, and made me realize yet again how important it is to get out into the real world.

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Two weeks ago I made an evening visit to the Kennebunk Plains, a property owned by the Nature Conservancy and one of the state's birding hot spots. I am fortunate that the area is not far from my home so I am able to visit frequently. It was a fairly cold, windy evening, and still a bit early in the season to expect to see some of the bird species that The Plains are famous for. In fact, it was not a very birdy evening at all.  A lone Kestrel, a couple of crows, an Eastern Phoebe or two, and a medium-sized mixed flock of blackbirds were pretty much it. No Meadowlarks, no Vesper Sparrows, no Upland Sandpipers. But simply being out at dusk on a Spring evening and experiencing the almost magical transition from day into night was sheer delight.

Finally, as I began the trek back to my vehicle, I caught sight of something I'd been hoping to see: a Gray Ghost--i.e., a male Northern Harrier--tilting from side to side as he glided low over the ground in search of his evening meal. As I stood and watched, marveling at his silent grace, I was rewarded with another unexpected treat--a second Harrier, following not far behind!

Edward Howe Forbush, my favorite bird writer, characterized the Harrier (known primarily as "Marsh Hawk" in Forbush's day) as a "slender, graceful...bird of tireless flight." The seemingly effortless way that Harriers skim close to the ground over open fields, looking for the small mammals that make up most of their diet, is always a joy to watch. I followed the two birds for as long as I could but they soon crossed over Route 99 and I lost them in the rapidly diminishing light.

It really made no difference that I saw so few other birds that night. The sight of the two Harriers was enough. The gray birds in the gray light of dusk was visual poetry.

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Mousam River, May 15, 2013

The following afternoon I took a walk from my house, through the neighbor's woods, to the banks of the Mousam River. There's a special spot a short distance upstream from our own property where there is a lovely little cove, just below a bend in the river. It's a great vantage point from which to watch the activities of the birds and animals that are drawn to the water. I have occasionally  seen beaver and muskrat from this spot, and ducks, herons, swallows, woodpeckers, flycatchers, and many other birds are frequently present.

After a few minutes of quiet observation I noted some ripples on the water a little upstream from where I stood. I initially dismissed them as having been caused by the slight breeze that was blowing, but no! A dark brown, rounded head broke the surface of the water, moving in my direction. Then, a moment later, a second head appeared! My first thought was that it was a pair of beavers, but when a slender, almost snake-like body became visible above the surface and I got a glimpse of a tail that was flattened vertically rather than horizontally, I realized that I was seeing something even better--two River Otters! They twined around each other as they cavorted in the middle of the stream, repeatedly disappearing under the surface, then popping back up moments later.

I stood and watched their play for several minutes but finally lost track of them when they got to the far side of the river. Just as with the Harriers the previous night, observing the two wild animals going about their lives, oblivious to my presence, was utterly marvelous. It was an enthralling, almost spiritual experience. As if this were not enough, the scene was enhanced further by the sight of two Great Blue Herons, a pair of Ring-necked Ducks, and a few Mallards that were also on the river. A Pileated Woodpecker cackled in the woods behind me and a small group (if there's only three of something, can it legitimately be called a "flock"?) of Canada Geese announced their presence with authority as they flew overhead to some destination downstream.

The spot from which I watched all this is, indeed, a shrine. My visit to it was as much a pilgrimage as was the journey of Chaucer's characters to Caunterbury, as they sought the hooly blisful martir.

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My third recent venture was a walk with Sally this past Saturday on the section of the Eastern Trail that runs from Kennebunk Elementary School to Limerick Road in Arundel. The highlight of this segment of the trail is the dedicated pedestrian bridge that passes over the Maine Turnpike just north of the Kennebunk Service Plaza.

Pink Lady's-slipper, June 8, 2014

This is one of our favorite walks. The round trip from the parking lot at the school to the crossing at Limerick Road and back makes a nice 5 mile walk. It's a fairly birdy corridor and there are spots along the trail where in another month or so Pink Lady's-slippers will be abundant. Last summer we dubbed the short section between the place where the spur trail from the school parking lot joins the main trail, and the bridge over I-95, "Vireo Alley." We could pretty much count on hearing at least one Red-eyed Vireo proclaiming his territorial rights every time we passed through his 'hood.

Perhaps the birdiest spot along the way is the area about 2/3rds of the way up to Limerick Road where the trail crosses a bridge over the Kennebunk River. The combination of water and fairly open, but brushy, habitat makes this an attractive location for many birds. There are often a couple of ducks in the water, an Eastern Phoebe or two in the trees, and even at times a Great Blue Heron wading in the river. Best of all, it seems to be prime "warbitat"--the kind  of area where warblers like to hang out.

Since it's still a bit early in the season my expectations of what we might see there in terms of warblers were fairly low. Happily, I was mistaken! In the trees right by the trailside we spotted a Yellow-rump, our first of the year. Then...a second one! And a third! And....well, we quickly lost count, as they were being their peripatetic little warbler selves and not staying in any one spot for more than a few seconds. (Warblers have the uncanny knack of sitting still for exactly as long as it takes for a human to focus a pair of binoculars on them, and then flitting off to another branch or a different tree.) We soon spotted a couple of Palms in the mix, and Sally gleefully picked out a Black-and-white, one of her favorites, in the tree next to us.

After a bit the action shifted across the river. There were many, many Yellow-rumps ("Butterbutts") bopping around the trees and bushes on the far bank, and several more Palms. We spent a very pleasant quarter of an hour or more just enjoying the sight of so many colorful little birds doing what they do, again seemingly with little or no awareness of our presence.

As delightful as this first big helping of warblers was, I know that, in the words of one of the trolls in one of my favorite scenes from The Hobbit, "There's more to come yet, or I'm mighty mistook." As the season progresses we can expect--or at least hope--to see and hear many other bird species in this and other places along the trail. Last summer, Chestnut-sided Warblers frequently hung out in the vicinity of the bridge. Common Yellowthroats could usually be heard singing their wichety-wichety-wichety song both in an area just south of the bridge as well as further north near the Limerick Road crossing. Ovenbirds, Veerys, Hermit Thrushes, Catbirds, and others should soon be arriving. There's also a little backwater just north of the bridge where a large chorus of Bullfrogs held forth last August, maken melodye in their own fashion.

I regard the Eastern Trail in general and the Kennebunk River bridge in particular as another shrine, another favorite destination for continued pilgrimages.

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I have no illusions that my characterization of these brief encounters with nature as pilgrimages, or as quasi-religious experiences, is in any way original. Thoreau, Muir, Burroughs, et al, have written far more eloquently than I about the healing, spiritual effects of immersing oneself in the natural world. But this does not in any way lessen the importance of doing so, for me or for anyone else. I regard myself as fortunate to have grown up with the opportunity to engage in such immersion regularly, and even more so now as an adult living in a society in which fewer and fewer people seem to know and understand the value of spending quiet time outdoors in the wild. I shall continue to treasure the chance to goon on pilgrimages, beckoned to do so by the sounds of the smale fowles [that] maken melodye in the world around me.
 
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*There are numerous websites that offer translations of Chaucer's prose into modern English. I have used this one from Librarius.com as my reference.