By Radha Paula Neilson
Like the sunrise, springtime marks a new beginning as sprouts emerge from the earth and the land turns green. The spring of 2004 marked my new beginning when I moved to a piece of property above the Kootenay river and the community of Shore Acres. Surrounded by tall cedar and fir trees, I had room to wander and to witness the wonder of the natural world. The land pulled me in and held me. Seventeen years later I have merged with the creatures and the landscape. Place is part of identity.
I had never heard so much birdsong. Soon I was listening to birdsong recordings from the library and feeling the magic of knowing who sang around me, hoping to identify those who came to the small pond. One spring I found a tiny nest, fallen from a cedar tree close to the house. Knowing nestlings had hatched, been fed, and fledged from here, outside of my awareness, threw me into a stronger realization. The lives of other creatures were unfolding around me.
I consider it a privilege to be allowed to see an animal or bird. Especially with the first sight of a bird, all thought drops away and joy rises in me. Only their movements and beauty exist.
In the intensity of summer, the White-tailed Deer come through. They have their favoured places to lie. 
Last year the mornings often found a doe curled on the moss in the trees behind the pond. She seemed to know I would come and stayed, quite close. A trusting connection forged between us, expressed through our eyes.
The stories have continued to unfold. After finding a dead female junco, and imagining a nest lost, I saw a male, snatching bits of suet from the block in the apple tree and flying into the backwoods. This is unusual behavior for a junco, which I have not witnessed before or since. He came a few times a day for several days, always flying off in the same direction. I surmised he might be feeding his young the richest and easiest food he could find, in the absence of their mother. Could the immature juncos I saw later in the summer, pecking the ground under the apple tree, be those same nestlings? I can't know with any surety but there is a preciousness in believing that I may have been privy to a part of their life story.
In the late spring of 2015, I got my first honeybees. They are fascinating, always surprising me with new tactics. I need a calm focus to enter the bee yard and open a hive. Absorbed in the amazing happenings within, I love to watch and care for these small creatures who are dedicated to the survival of their community. Truthfully most insects engage my attention.
In the cooler days of late summer, as the day ebbs, I often sit and listen to the sound of crickets. The chorus is soothing in its tone and constancy. It somehow reassures me that all is well in the greater picture of life, despite the worries and traumas of my individual human life. I have walked toward the song coming from the brushy edge of woods. One cricket’s sound becomes louder as I approach, then stops. Twice I have been able to find one on the underside of a thimbleberry leaf. It surprised me to see that the small insects I love to hear, are green. Finally, this year, with the help of an entomologist friend, I have discovered they are Snowy Tree Crickets. Interestingly, knowing its name forges a more intimate connection for me. Recently, I found an injured one, not under a leaf, but in an alien place, perhaps dropped by a bird. The same tiny, down-turned head and leaf-like folded wings. It was nearing the end of its life. I had read that they got their name because some are so pale as to appear white. This one was white. A feeling of compassion stirred in me, to see it this way, out of its natural habitat. So, I encouraged it to crawl onto a jar lid lined with grass and leaves, a more familiar place for it to expire.
With the breath-taking colors of the changing leaves and that amazing scent infusing the air, a quietness descends. The earth turns inward, the days shorten, and life wants to slow down, despite the rush of fall gardening tasks. The deer have departed. The elk, although back into herds, are keeping a distance. For me, there is a feeling of absence in the quietness. I note the birds that I no longer hear or see and take delight in each call of the ones still here, still, being the operative word. The warblers are long gone. As the shift happens, I see who stays, the winter birds. The Steller’s Jays come in closer, with their loud calls and partake of the suet that the chickadees and nuthatches have enjoyed all summer. Flickers arrive with winter and wrap their large bodies around the cage, tails slanted underneath for balance, an amusing sight. They knock pieces off and, along with other birds, eat from the snow below.
When winter drapes the land in pristine whiteness and snow covers the fallen leaves and faded grasses, tracks of animals become the magic for me. Knowing who has wandered through in the night draws similarities to knowing who sings around me, unseen, in the spring. More stories will be revealed, of raccoons and snowshoe hares, of elk foraging for bits of grass under building eaves and munching on cedar fronds.
The first sign of spring will be the song of the Varied Thrush, a long plaintive note that pierces the air and causes the heart to quicken. I will wait for enough snow to melt to see if the pond fish survived the winter and for enough warmth to witness the first flight of honeybees. The cycle begins again.