Hearing hope for brighter days

I saw a robin in a tree today as I walked home to lunch. I wouldn’t have known the robin was in the tree, but it called and the call of a robin is distinctive, not so much in June, when it’s common, but in December, when it’s not.

It’s like hearing a fart in church.

So I looked up and there was the robin, high in larch, as snow fell all around.

You can view my robin sighting in one of two ways: That things are going to get better and spring is just around the corner, or that things are going bad and this robin has been blown off course and is doomed.

Oh sure, there’s some science involved that can ruin either option. For example, the fruit trees were loaded this year, and so there is enough to eat, or at least get by. While robins are known for their worm prowess, they also eat a variety of fruits when they need or want to, and robin sightings, particularly near open water, are not uncommon around here, even in winter.

But even then, even with the science that says, yeah, robins can and will be seen in the dead of winter, I’d like to take my sighting as an omen. A lot of folks look at January as a terrible month.

It’s cold. It’s dreary. The days are short.

But I look at the days following Dec. 21 as being on the upswing. Sure it’s cold. Sure it’s dreary.

But the days, slowly, but surely, are getting longer and by the end of the month, they’re noticeably longer, noticeably less dreary. You really notice this if you winter camp.

Winter camping isn’t dreadful because of snow and cold (it's supposed to be that). It’s dreadful because it’s so dark. If you camp in late November or December, you really only get about eight to nine hours of usable daylight. The rest is spent in a tent, hunkered down. If you’re lucky, you’ve remembered a good book and have enough batteries for your headlamp or enough fuel for your lantern. If you’re not, you have a lot of listening to the wind to do.

You can only listen to so much wind. Trust me.

So on this December day I know that there’s a biological reason to see a robin a snowstorm. But there’s a spirtual one as well and this December, I’m betting on the robin.

Now go on, cheerful bird. Go on. Come back on a warmer spring day. I’ll be waiting for you.

Chris Peterson is the photographer for the Hungry Horse News.