Suddenly Spring

Every year on Vancouver Island, with a few exceptions, Spring comes in with a bang. It isn't subtle, it doesn't even waltz right in and announce itself. No, it's more like someone threw a switch - it used to be Winter, and there is still a bit of a nip in the air, but now it's suddenly Spring. The newness of Spring can bring a twinkle to one's eyes; bare branches become budful and leafly, followed shortly by flowers, and; the birthing of baby animals, insects, reptiles, birds, etc. The Comox Valley is filled with a riot of noise and undulating colour brought on by warmer days and softer winds.

But there is a flip-side to this, of course. Competition in the animal world can get downright ugly sometimes. Mother Nature has a fierce beauty to her and I saw it displayed in a surprising, horrifying, amazing fashion last week. I was taking photos of some train tracks - conifers and deciduous trees lines both sides of the tracks, making the composition most alluring to me. I looked up and to my surprise I found that I'd wandered into the middle of a heronry. I had time to shield my eyes from the overhead sun before something rustled in the nearby conifer canopy. Barely was my camera up in front of my face when I saw a bald eagle fly towards the heron's nest, the heron jump back in surprise and then dash forward as he or she protected either the nest of the eggs therein. I captured 22 stills, not on the correct shutter speed or F-stop but they are magical, in my humble opinion. I had been so upset by the ordeal that I had carefully placed the images into a file within a dated folder on my external drive and had forgotten about it. I came across that file today. It's funny how small little time bombs and landmines will litter our lives. They wait like sleeper spies, activated silently and without our knowledge when we least expect it. I knew about this particular time bomb because I had laid it myself. But my mind whirred and clanged with the thought of the eagle smashing the eggs that might have been in the heron nest. I love eagles. I love herons. Why can't they just get along? Well, of course there's competition and now that it's May, things are heating up.