In the Company of Birds
Written by Renée Harmon, MD
Opening my eyes and my heart to what lay just beyond my new back door led me to adventures and “a-ha” moments that I never knew I needed.
Less than a year ago I purchased a rustic lake house on Lay Lake in central Alabama. Located just north of Lay Dam, it is part of the Coosa River system. An old map that I found states that there was once a fish camp on the property. The house was built in stages, so perhaps the old fish camp is part of my house even now. Sited on a slope down to the lake, there are three floors for indoor living and three separate outdoor levels—a layer cake of vistas.
What sold me on this property was the view from the back porches and the dock. It doesn’t directly face the lake, rather, there is an island that separates my property from the open water, with a narrow but deep channel between my shore and the island. It gives me the feeling of privacy, and, as I was to discover, is home to abundant wildlife. Though I’ve only had this lake house for a short time, already I’ve witnessed and encountered several wild creatures, some in their world, some in mine.
Returning to the lake house alone one day, ten days after I was last there, I found the front door standing wide open. What should I do? Just walk in as if nothing was amiss? Call the police and have them check it out first? Shut and lock the door and leave? I decided to go in.
It took all the courage I could muster to enter the house, all the while yelling, “Hello! Anybody here?” The hair on my arms was standing at attention as I continued to shout and check every room. Nothing was disturbed. The TV, the only item of value, was still there. All seemed to be as I had left it.
Then I heard a scratching sound. As I turned and crept toward it, a small dun-colored bird fluttered out of the laundry closet and tried to fly out of a closed window.
My fear of what might lie on the other side of that open front door gave way. I had walked through the door into the unknown, but now I was confronted with a fellow creature who was also in foreign territory.
As I contemplated the bird question, she suddenly flew into another room of the house. I followed her into the small bedroom, then opened one of the windows and left, closing the door behind me. The bird found her way out a few minutes later.
Sitting on one of the back porches of the lake house, I can watch great white egrets, cormorants, ducks, hummingbirds, Canadian geese, and a solitary great blue heron. I’ve even seen two bald eagles riding a thermal high above the treetops, and I once witnessed an osprey drop a fish he was carrying, and then dive back down to the lake’s surface to retrieve it.
On my very first day at the lake house, I saw two hummingbirds flitting around the deck, dive-bombing each other. There were no flowers, and the previous owners hadn’t had a feeder—a mystery. I’ve never seen these tiny birds at my primary home, despite my attempts at luring them with various feeders. So I brought my unused hummingbird feeder on my next visit to the lake, filled it, and hung it eight feet away from my favorite reading and writing spot. Not ten minutes later, I had a visitor! He buzzed around a bit, took a quick sip of the nectar, then buzzed off. A few minutes later, he returned, perched, and drank for a solid two minutes. From my vantage point, I could even watch his minute tongue lap up the sweet fluid.
Cormorants are aquatic birds that dive under the water for fish, popping up several feet from where they dove. When they paddle on the surface of the water, their bodies are mostly submerged because their feathers become waterlogged from diving. To dry off, they stand on a sunny rock or treetop with their wings half-spread, looking like bedraggled black rag dolls. I have a flock of them on the island, and they all silently swoop out together in the morning, then gather again in the branches of pine trees in the evenings. I had to look it up, because the first time I heard the noise, I thought a herd of wild boar were on the island. But no, cormorants neither sing nor squawk; they grunt like pigs when settling in with the flock.
I love watching the great blue heron stalk and hunt her prey in the shallows, moving like a tai chi master in the grasses. And watching her fly off lightens my heart as she performs a port de bras of elegantly slow, undulating wingbeats. But when she opens her beak to let the neighborhood know that she is here, it is pure pterodactyl roar.
During my first spring at the lake house, I discovered that the lone great blue heron had company. Lots of company. I counted at least sixteen adult herons nesting in pairs in one treetop on the island, having displaced the cormorants to a dead tree nearby. Each week there were more herons, and several great white egrets joined them there, bickering congenially with each other with their dinosaur screeches. I spent hours watching the birds flying out and returning with food for the eventual babies. By mid-summer, the island was quiet again with just the one, solitary great blue heron. And the grunting cormorants.
One autumn afternoon, in my kayak, I noticed a few animals swimming in the water directly in front of me. I assumed they were the ubiquitous cormorants and that they would fly off. But as I drew nearer, I could see that it was a family of three raccoons swimming to my island. Their little heads were bobbing above the water, making good time. It may not be its official name, but that island is now Raccoon Island in my mind.
There are turtles who swim near my dock and bask in the sun on half-submerged logs. When I get into my kayak to paddle around Raccoon Island, I can get especially close to them if I’m quiet enough. The egrets and the great blue heron sometimes squawk and fly away as I slip into the shallow areas with them to examine the plants and trees more closely.
It’s my own private nature sanctuary.
So I have learned from these creatures. To trust that a door will open when I feel trapped by circumstances. Or to drink deeply of that which truly nourishes me. Or to gather noisily with my flock of friends and family, with a bit of good-natured squawking. Or alone, to dance a silent ballet. Or to put down my technology and rely on my instincts for rising, eating, and resting. Or to relax in the sun, rolling into the cool water when the time feels right to swim to a different shore.
Photo of a Java Sparrow by Jonas Hill.
