I’ve sat for many years on “my couch�?nbsp; and had morning coffee while watching the news.  Judging from the view through our front room window not much changes from year to year in this small Superior port.  However a few years back we got a new street lamp that arched out over the pavement.  With this new technology came Heckle and Jeckel and a story in the continuing saga of the land north of Superior.

For some three years now I’ve watched Heckel and Jeckel show up faithfully, not by the twenty-four hour clock we use but by nature’s daylight clock.  Twenty minutes after full daylight one or the other, it being hard to determine the bird’s sex at a distance, would arrive and the other would glide down before the first had it’s wings settled comfortably.  Heckel and Jeckel were American crows and used this lamp as their morning base for the day’s food search.  In the bitter colds of winter they had this aerial survey platform all to themselves.  One would swoop down and investigate some object of interest while the other would take in the larger view with constantly swiveling head.  At times in the summer the sparrows and other small songsters would take offense at Heckel and Jeckel’s close proximity to their young and dive bomb the much bigger birds.  This inconvenience would only last for a short while as the songsters soon after flocked and headed to warmer climes.

This year was a strange early spring and then a return to colder more normal temperatures for our land.  It was during this warm 3 week period that seagulls once again returned from the edges of the Superior ice to our small town.  I had heard the raucous cries of the gulls the day before and had stepped outside to welcome these graceful artisans of flight and the air currents.  The return of the gulls marks a significant point in the weather calendar and I spent almost an hour watching them wheel and dive and then with wings held rigid float for incredible distances and times on the very air itself.  Watching these birds, stark white against the deep blue of the sky, held no premonition of what was to come.

The following morning I was doing my normal coffee news thing and I casually took note of Heckel and Jeckel’s arrival �?right on time.  They settled comfortably on the lamp cover and did their morning investigations of items of interest.  The one bird on the lamp would twist it’s head about to get a three sixty view of the area.  On the return from one of these flights the pair of crows were doing what birds do before mating when the clamorous calls of seagulls could be heard approaching.

With wings flared wide a pair of white birds aimed for and settled down on the lamp cover; right where Heckel and Jeckel had been moments before.  The black crows had speedily dropped off the lamp cover and in a few wing strokes were circling the lamp inspecting the intruders.  One of the jet black birds ventured close to the seagulls but a sudden flaring of both bird’s wings sent the larger bird flying toward the lake.  The new birds on the block settled wings comfortably and then proceeded to tell the world that all was well.  Beaks wide open and necks stretched fully they screamed their delight into the daylight sky.

Myrtle and Mac had arrived.  Along with them came a whole family, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and most likely grand parents too.  Four of these sky riders would fit on the lamp cover at a time.  When a fifth decided to land on the silver shade the bird occupying the intended landing place would have to drop off, or as happened fairly frequently, a collusion and it’s attendant screeching and wing flapping would take place.  There seemed to be no real method to this exchange of positions.  It was a random here I come get the heck outa the way deal.  I presume there was some sort of pecking order involved as seagulls do have a hierarchy.

Heckel  and Jeckel came back the next morning and to my amazement were chased off again by Myrtle and Mac.  The same thing happened for three more mornings.  Then one morning there was no Heckel and Jeckel on the lamp cover when Myrtle and Mac arrived.  Heckel and Jeckel seemed to have decided to move on.  Now as I look at the lamp cover I can in some ways understand their reluctance to return to this place.  The once brushed aluminum cover of the lamp was now a white washed surface.  The gulls had painted it with their excrement.   In fact there was so much of the gull crap that the neighbour didn’t park her van under the light anymore.  On the ground under the lamp the black road surface is being given an ever wider coat of seagull white.  The two crows for their much longer tenure on the lamp had never caused this sort of disruption.

It’s been some three weeks since the property title was transferred and I wonder what other changes will occur in front of my neighbour’s house.  I suspect Heckel and Jeckel have indeed vacated the lamp for good.  I do have some trepidation on the outcome of events once the young seagulls make their appearance and add to the growing white washing of the area.  In the land north of Superior nature and it’s wonders can almost be found in your living room.