EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

Sneaking Out the Back Door

Outside the back door of the Crooked 9, to its left and a little above it, is a light, a certain kind of light. Unequipped with a timer, a motion sensor and prison break searchlight wattage, it’s still rather fancy. A carriage or coach light of black metal with four panes and an ornamental peaked cap. It’s not terribly bright, dimmer than me. About a month ago a female robin began building her nest in the sheltered space between it and the wall, up under the eaves.

Robins are migratory members of the thrush family. Once the days have lengthened and Ann or I spot one on the property, hopping and bopping yet haughty, beak up, we are confident furious winter has exhausted itself: “Guess what I just saw!” The timing of our nest suggests a second clutch of three to five pale blue eggs. A second brood requires a second nest and so who knows where the first batch maybe hatched sometime in May? Not us who took the common, everyday convenience of a back door for granted until we did our best to avoid using it.

We’ve been taking detours to the patio and garden when possible, using the front door to go around the back. Although we understand we cannot alter nature’s way we’ve no wish to disrupt it nor corrupt it. Ann has removed the screen from the side window of our den. If she hunches down on the love seat just so, she can peer into the nest, get a close up through our binoculars. She can see three hatchlings whose gaping craws are larger than their fuzzy heads. In another week or so the trio will be evicted from the nest, grounded fledglings that must learn to feed themselves and learn to fly in a hurry.

Should Ann or I use our back door and if the male isn’t otherwise occupied elsewhere gathering food, he will not swoop us. Instead, he attempts to lure us away from the nest. It’s thought that robins live for about two or three years. They are prey during every stage of their development. There are nest raiders, crows, magpies, blue jays and even squirrels. Cats and snakes have the ground covered. Raptors fill the air, owls, falcons, hawks.

Somehow this American songbird survives and thrives. According to Merlin Bird ID, an app courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the robin population is an estimated 370-million. Ann and I are sharing short-term accommodation with just five. There’s a bookshelf just inside our back door, literally inches from the robins’ nest. There, five North American bird reference books nestle alongside our many cookbooks. They are as well-thumbed as the two editions of The Joy of Cooking and the yellow three-ring binder of Ann's recipe clippings. Not only have we learned about our temporary neighbours, we have learned how to be good neighbours too. In the heat of the summer there’s an extra spring in our step even as we take the long way round.   

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source nature writing since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format.