Outside the windows of my residence, I have witnessed this spring of 2026 as being a spring of many memorable oddities, spectacles, wonders, and disasters.
The pair of Canadian geese came back rather early to nest on the edge of our roof garden again. Mother Goose sat on her nest for way over a month without hatching a single gosling. This was odd and yet during her time on the nest there were hot days then snowy days and even a little hail on one occasion.
The wild turkeys are amusing with their flamboyant plumage and careful but intentional moves and behaviours during the mating season. Usually, three birds travel past the dining room window. Two males strut side by side with their tail feathers fully fanned while following a female sauntering slowly ahead or sometimes dashing out in front. They are huge birds and to see them fly into the trees where they safely roost at night is a sight to behold at sundown.
Every spring I enjoy watching the leaves grow on the trees turning quickly from a green fuzzy appearance to small then large leaves. But this year was different. The fluctuating temperatures this spring caused the leaves to grow slowly.
The fact that the leaves grew slowly had a ripple effect on the bird population. Two robins chose the tree outside my window to build a nest. Since the leaves took a long time to develop, I was able to watch the amazing architectural achievement right to the depositing of the four tiny blue eggs into the well-built nest. Then disaster struck.
The disaster I witnessed took place on a cold, rainy, windy spring night when the mother robin was no longer able to protect her eggs from the wind and water and she was forced to abandon the nest. The pair of robins assessed the damage, cleared out and cleaned up the nest, and proceeded to lay four more eggs as the temperature warmed up and the leaves began to grow larger. Not long after the rebuilding and repopulating the nest with eggs, we experienced a tornado passing through the south of our city. Once again, the mother robin had to abandon the nest, and the pair of robins haven’t been seen since.
Living so close to the environment and seeing the effects of changing weather patterns on the bird population has an emotional effect on me. The obstacles faced by the nesting birds, the courage they demonstrated while protecting their eggs and the helplessness I felt as a silent observer, profoundly moved me. Is it love?
-Sister Elaine Cole, csj
Images: Hannah Schulte/Unsplash; Elaine Cole