Laura Erickson's For the Birds

(Recording of Canada Geese)

When I see long skeins of geese passing over Hawk Ridge, I think of what Sigurd Olson wrote of them in The Singing Wilderness.

“There was a time when the sound of wild geese on the move haunted me and I felt that somehow I must capture some of their mystery, some of their freedom and of the blue distances into which they disappeared. The idea grew into an obsession, and I used to lie awake at night, dreaming and planning how I would bring it about.

Then one year my great chance came. It was in the very center of a bog that I heard them–just the merest hint of melody, but enough to stop me in my tracks. The flock was far away and almost instantly the sound was gone. Everything else in the world was forgotten but the geese circling the bend in the river. I reloaded my gun with buckshot, checked and rechecked my safety. Nothing must go wrong now. This was the time I had been praying for.

I stood there straining to catch the music again, but the moss-hung spruces and the soft cushion of muskeg seemed to absorb it. Suddenly the sound grew louder, changed in a moment from a vague, blended harmony to the clear, joyous clamor of birds coming in to feed. As yet I could see nothing, but the music rose and fell as the flock dipped between the hills and valleys looking for a place to land. Then they were overhead and their bugling filled the trees, and I ran madly for the closest ridge where I might have a chance of seeing them as they came by.

I was breathless when I reached the top. From where I stood, I commanded a clear view of the swamp, the winding blue of the river, the golden spot of rice in the mallard hole. The din of their calling grew louder and at last was so deafening that the rocks themselves seemed to bounce back the sound. Then they were directly above and I could see the outstretched necks with their white chin straps, the snowy undersides of the wings.

Straight overhead now in a wavering V, still just out of range. I crouched against a boulder and prayed that they would swing back. For a moment they disappeared behind a ridge, and as the calling died I was sick at heart, knowing I should have taken my chance and fired.

Then they were back, and as they sailed over the spruce tops I knew this was the moment I had been waiting for. They were much bigger than I had ever imagined. I could not only hear the beat of their wings and the rush of air through them, but could actually feel it. At that moment they seemed almost close enough to touch and I could see their eyes, the wary turning of their heads, their outstretched feet. Then they saw me there against the rock and pandemonium broke loose. The flock climbed into the sky, beat the air desperately to escape. Not until then did I remember my gun and what I had come for, and now it was too late. The birds were out of range.

After that boyhood experience I never tried to kill a goose, and now that I am older and a little wiser, I think I know the reason why. As I look back, I could comfort the boy I was. I could tell him that one should never try to capture something as wild and beautiful as the calling of geese, that it is better to wait and listen as they go by and wonder where they have gone. But, knowing that boy, I realize that he would not believe me. Only many years could heal the wound of that October day.

(Recording of Canada Geese)

That was Sigurd Olson, this is Laura Erickson, and this program has been “For the Birds.”