Spring is here, well sort of!
Today is one of those days where you want to curl up with a keyboard and blog till your heart is content because it is so ugly outside.
But on the other hand I can look out and see the daffodils blooming and all the trees with buds just ready to burst forth with a spray of green. The ornamental cherry trees are already losing their blossoms in expectation of fruit to bear.
All in all it is spring.
I love this time of year, it is a time when you smell the scent of new beginnings. A time when a rainstorm can result in a rainbow more often than not. A time when the darkness does not call as early. It is also a time when mother nature is smiling down upon the land. And babies of all shape and size are being brought into the world in fields of green, hidden dens, lush majestic forests, and all the places that an animal mother has searched for, to bear her young.
It is in the spring I wish I had some magic way of peering in on wild animals. I wish so much that I could see the miracle of birth in the wild. No obstetricians, no nurses, no screaming, no sterile smell, just the amazing sight of a mommy giving birth and then tenderly doing all she can to take care of her baby; clean her baby with her tongue, not only to clean it, but to conceal it's scent from preditors, help her baby to stand so at a moment's notice her baby can flee, teach it to nurse, and keep her baby from wandering off.
It is such a miracle to know that a mommy so loving and so caring in such a short time has to prepare her baby to be self-sufficient, because he/she has to strike out on his/her own, so soon. I often wonder and marvel at such a strong bond and then that bond has to be broken for her young's own good. Does the mommy mourn the loss of her child? Does she even think of her baby after it has left her?
I think of polarbears and how the mommy polarbear has to keep her babies (often two) free from harm. She wanders so far in search of food and shelter, and her babies keep tagging along. Then at a very young age compared to humans, she has to let them go in that vast, freezing, no man's land. Does she know her young when and if she encounters them again?
Then I think to the animals that stay with the herd or pack. Just like a human mother she has to watch her young picked on, or even killed because it didn't obey group rules, or her young's position in the heirarchy wasn't high enough. Does she come to the defence of her baby, or does intinct about pack rules govern her behaviour? So many questions. But in the end, I would just like for a moment to let go of all those questions, and just watch the first few moments of birth and the bonding between mommy and baby animal. That would be a spring to remember for me.
