This may very well be my favourite season: the time when living things poke from the ground and swell on branches, the time when days are getting longer, the time when kids arrive home from school and fish outside to play with friends.

This morning, the inevitable happened. The morning itself was wet and mild. I set out for a short walk around the block. Usually, I would do the walk while listening to an audiobook or a podcast, but since I am still reeling from finishing The Comfort of Crows, I decided to listen to what’s going on around. I don’t think that I had ever listened with so much intent, neither have I ever felt so connected to the here and now as during this short walk. I though I had heard about six or seven different bird songs, but was able to see only two plump chikadees and a robin. The rest of the birds remained invisible to me.

When I came back home, I finally downloaded the Merlin app and now I can tell to which bird belongs a song. I feel like I am learning a new language – although I can’t interpret a song without my Merlin app, I am learning to tell them apart and rejoicing in the anticipation of the moment when I will not need to rely on my bird interpreter any more. One day I will walk on my street and say “hello robin” “hello cardinal” “hello goldfinch.” One day I will hear the land I live on and understand its song all by myself. But for now, my greatest pleasure is to stand on a corner of a suburban street, under some big tree and read the names of the birds that appear on my Merlin screen: that was a red-winged blackbird, this is a sparrow, here is a cardinal and a chikadee and here is a bluejay.