We kept time less by the calendar than by the migratory birds that arrived. The first appearance of any species was a thrill and marked a change in the weather—Sandhill cranes in the early fall, Tundra swans from the Arctic reaches around Thanksgiving, and snow geese shortly thereafter.
But the big excitement was always the swallows. Like their cousins who make an annual pilgrimage to the famous mission at San Juan Capistrano, these barn swallows—with their deep purple-blue iridescent feathers sparkling in the sun—always found their way back to their warm-weather home on the water. A few scouts would show up, sometimes as early as February, coming north from their wintering grounds in Mexico, to see whether conditions were right. Later the rest would follow.
Unlike coastal California, which was mild most of the time, this inland area had greater extremes, including scorching triple digits in summer and freezing weather in winter, when the fog hung so low over the water you could barely see a few feet ahead. Sweaters and a fireplace kept the damp from seeping into the bones. And then one day the fog and cold suddenly gave way to sunshine. Seeing a swallow meant the reprieve was near.
Each year during the season of the swallows, a few pairs would live inside the houseboat, and my friend made a point of leaving windows and doors open for them. Each pair would choose a nest that remained from the previous season and simply add new mud to it, painstakingly, one tiny bit at a time. We would get to see parents sitting on eggs, then watch as the newly hatched chicks were fed and their new feathers grew in.
It was full-time work keeping those hungry mouths fed. Each mama and papa bird took turns on bug patrol, flying out over the water to hunt for juicy insects, plucking them straight out of the air. After a while they would switch duties and the one who had been supplying food for the young would sit in the nest keeping guard. Soon the young birds fledged. Flying lessons took place in the living room.
One year, a special pair chose to make a nest in the bedroom, high up in the corner. First thing in the morning one day, as the sun began peeking over the horizon, one of the birds came down from the nest, settling upon the head of a statue of the Buddha that sat at the foot of the bed. As we lay there, still half asleep, the swallow began to serenade us. The songs were sweet and exuberant with complex combinations of sounds punctuated throughout with trills. He would look directly at us and we would often chirp back, softly, so as not to create any reason for alarm.
Day after day, for as long as the swallows used the nest, we were blessed with this delightful gift—a creature completely of the wild, of its own accord, merging our human and avian families, singing its heart out and igniting ours with childlike delight and amazement.
I had never felt such complete connection with a wild being as with this one we called the Buddha Bird. In its presence I felt still, yet thrilled at the same time. We had broken a boundary, and in those moments life felt miraculous.
As trust grew, I was allowed to be close enough with my camera to take pictures of the statue of Buddha with his feathery, singing headpiece. Then, after the first group of babies had discovered their wings and were able to hunt, mama and papa kicked them out of the nest in order to prepare for a second brood. One morning, after chasing each other around the room, the pair stopped on the Buddha's head to create new life. This too I caught on film—and the tiny eggs, and the featherless, newly-hatched babies, and the fledglings all lined up on lamps and picture frames.
Once in a while a parent would circle around us, calling an alarm. Following it, we would find a baby that had fallen to the ground after hitting a window or simply was stuck in a tight spot. Picking the bird up, one of us would hold it and speak gently in a mixture of words and “swallow-speak” until it was calm, and then, with an open palm, let it fly—or if not, place it on a safe surface. Later, as they grew, they worked on high-speed precision turns: little F-16s, enjoying the gift of flight.
Scientists have reported that swallows don’t interact with humans other than sharing eaves or other parts of buildings not used by the residents, and that their songs are mostly a random chattering. How wrong they are. The birds communicate clearly—and we noted many distinct calls, including the intense, rapid-fire one to signal danger, a fancy one to call a mate, a businesslike one to round up the babies, a playful one as they darted around chasing each other, and the sweet, spectacular ballad-like flow that just seemed to be about the joy of being alive.
Little did I know that it would be the last season I'd spend with the swallows. Shortly after they flew south that year, and the birds from the Far North were arriving, the houseboat sank. All I had left were the photographs. And then months later, the photographs went up in smoke when fire took down my home.
So when my time comes to migrate to the other world, across the thin veil that separates life from death, if I have a chance to retrieve some moments, crystal-clear and filled with joy, at least one choice will be easy: I wish for that picture-perfect moment, heart to heart, soul to soul, chirp to chirp, with the Buddha Bird. (And what a wonderful sendoff it would be.)
