As spring fades in, I’ve become obsessed with watching the Bonaparte’s Gulls (Chroicocephalus philadelphia) migrating through on their way north. One of the smallest gulls in North America, they still hold many secrets. They breed in the boreal forests and are the only gull that regularily nests in trees.

Little is known about their breeding biology as they nest in remote locations and in small colonies, and the only serious study was done in 1934 by A.D. Twomey: Breeding habits of Bonaparte’s Gull. Remarkably, it’s a mere seven pages long (with one page of photos)… a humbling reminder of how utterly ignorant we are of most of the beings we share this planet with.

We’ve survived through winter only to be terrorized by spring. The leaky boat we’re all trapped on is maintained by rabid, greedy men who only know how to use a drill.

Snow fell last weekend – temperatures have remained near zero since and much still remains. Ponds are frozen over, and I contemplate what daily life must be like for birds and animals that cannot retreat into warm, lit boxes like ourselves.

The tide was high, and the wind threw the rain and waves carelessly at the beach. Boats tossed on the rough water, my hands already numb from the cold. The on-going flooding of the ponds at Jericho park has grown and snaked to the beach.

I’ve never seen the water reach so far in the years I’ve been visiting. I couldn’t get a photo that captured the reality – I would have needed a drone, or perhaps I should I tried climbing a tree?

A flooded beach