Some Of The Loons Are On The Lake

I was taking my regular constitutional around Birch Lake last week, mulling over the state of my world: The winter was long and gloomy, punctuated by stretches of genuine blackness involve war, famine, pestilence, corporate greed which more and more resembles the behavior of the mob but without the barber shop “rub outs,” venal and small-minded politicians, misbehaving members of the clergy, a press dependent on governmental and military hand-outs, increasing intrusion on our private lives by government bureaucrats, and stupidity creeping across the land to the point where one wonders if anybody is thinking anywhere.

At about this point, I begin fantasizing about moving to a cottage on an island off the coast of Scotland, but without The New York Times at my door each day and Diet-Rite in the fridge, I’d say the chances are slim. I have always admired Huck Finn but can no more light out for the West than ply a raft down the Mississippi River.

As I came to the Northwest corner of the lake, I had achieved a state of darkness which was making me angry – angry at the world and angry at me for being angry during a perfectly decent walk around a smallish but attractive lake.

Then I saw them. A pair of loons diving just off the shore. Loons, our state bird here in Minnesota, plumage of black and white in varied patterns, incredibly adept in the water, clumsy on land, and linear in the air. Birds with an air of mystery because of their diving abilities, but most of all, their strange and haunting calls which come echoing across the eons and the water into your core, unrelentingly unforgettable.

He was alert and protective while she continued to dive around him. Gradually, they moved off toward the center of the lake.

We’ve had a nesting pair of loons on the lake since I moved here twenty-five years ago. Most years, there is a baby loon, and once in while, two. Sometimes in my kayak I can drift quietly within fifty feet of them before they disappear under the waves, and every once in a while a loon will come up from a dive within a few feet of me – we are both equally surprised, and the loon disappears back under the water and pops up some distance away in a few seconds.

The fact that the loons were back on the lake was the best news bulletin I’d gotten in weeks. I doubt any of the inhabitants of the cars speeding by me took note of the loons – too busy on the cell phone, eating breakfast on the move, chatting with a passenger, thinking about work to see that the loons had returned to the lake.

But the arrival of our loons was the best news I’d gotten in months, and I was grateful. So I went home poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, sat down at the dining room table, looked out at the loons as they moved off to the East, and felt some of the accumulated tension of the recent past begin to ease its way out of my body.

Walked By A Dog

On a balmy Spring day, there is nothing better than taking a stroll with a small child or a dog. In those few minutes, you might learn more about the natural world than you would if you were on your own for an hour.

In my case, I walk with Gus the thirteen year old Scotty; we head down the drive, take a right at the street and wander for a couple of hundred yards down the bikeway/walkway next to the lake.

We do this twice a day, and during the cold, dark winter months we get up a head of steam: Get out, do your stuff, and head back (being environmentally responsible to bring any, uh, debris home with you). Speed and performance are our criteria.

Now, the walks have become more like a royal progress. Because dogs can perceive something like 70,000 different smells, Gus takes the considered view that each smell must be absorbed, analyzed, categorized, and – sometimes – marked in that wonderful way which dogs do.

He also observes the ducks, loons, and geese on the lake. Each Spring when we go through this transition, I suffer from a short stretch of impatience. It dissipates as Gus meanders from smell to smell because I have time to observe the buds on the trees changing each day, to see the loons and listen closely to their tremolo call, to speak to the geese, all of whom are interested in talking right back. In the morning especially, the sunlight strikes the skin and the soul with equal force.

Meandering is good, but you can’t be listening to the Walkman or ordering your day on your PDA or chattering on your cell phone. I can’t smell the smells which intrigue Gus, but there is enough to remind me that most of what I do is not nearly as important as this all-to-brief contact with the natural world.

Having said that, I am delighted to report that unlike every dog I’ve known, I still have not developed the urge to roll in something revolting as part of my “rite of Spring.” Next year,
perhaps.

Walked By A Dog

On a balmy Spring day, there is nothing better than taking a stroll with a small child or a dog. In those few minutes, you might learn more about the natural world than you would if you were on your own for an hour.

In my case, I walk with Gus the thirteen year old Scotty; we head down the drive, take a right at the street and wander for a couple of hundred yards down the bikeway/walkway next to the lake.

We do this twice a day, and during the cold, dark winter months we get up a head of steam: Get out, do your stuff, and head back (being environmentally responsible to bring any, uh, debris home with you). Speed and performance are our criteria.

Now, the walks have become more like a royal progress. Because dogs can perceive something like 70,000 different smells, Gus takes the considered view that each smell must be absorbed, analyzed, categorized, and – sometimes – marked in that wonderful way which dogs do.

He also observes the ducks, loons, and geese on the lake. Each Spring when we go through this transition, I suffer from a short stretch of impatience. It dissipates as Gus meanders from smell to smell because I have time to observe the buds on the trees changing each day, to see the loons and listen closely to their tremolo call, to speak to the geese, all of whom are interested in talking right back. In the morning especially, the sunlight strikes the skin and the soul with equal force.

Meandering is good, but you can’t be listening to the Walkman or ordering your day on your PDA or chattering on your cell phone. I can’t smell the smells which intrigue Gus, but there is enough to remind me that most of what I do is not nearly as important as this all-to-brief contact with the natural world.

Having said that, I am delighted to report that unlike every dog I’ve known, I still have not developed the urge to roll in something revolting as part of my “rite of Spring.” Next year,