I really don't like the sound of rain on my roof. I've had leaks before, some of them pretty bad, and I can't hear rain falling without the nagging feeling that water is pooling somewhere in the house. The leaks have long been fixed and there are no new ones so the feeling is entirely unjustified. But it still persists.
The sound of rain on leaves or on the roof of the truck, however, fills me with calm.
So much calm that when I was pulled over at the side of the narrow road leading to Winchell Lake out by Water Valley, I failed to notice a vehicle coming straight at me. Fortunately, the oncoming car noticed me and squeezed by as I waved an apology for blocking the road.
But that falling rain really did sound nice.
Into the Wet Day
I knew I was going to be in for a wet day as I left the city. There were clouds building up off to the west and north and there were thunderstorms in the forecast. But that also meant the light was going to be soft, perfect for all the fresh late-spring colours I knew I was going to find.
And it was. But, oh my, it was also very dark. By the time I got out to the Dogpound Creek valley the clouds had thickened substantially and the sun was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't too bad out in the open around pastures and fields but in the deep shade along one of my favourite roads, it was pretty dim.
And it pretty much stayed that way. The little violets I stopped to shoot along the road stood out with their bright petals and the pair of mourning doves perched in a snaggly old willow caught enough light to make focusing easy, at least. But I really had to hope neither I nor the subjects made any sudden moves if I wanted sharp pictures.
Interestingly, though, things got a little brighter once the rain started to fall. And man, did it fall. Heading west from Dogpound it hammered down, the shallow ruts in the gravel roads running like trout streams. The wind kicked up, too, and small, leafy branches snapped off the roadside poplars and blew into the fields.
Luckily, though, the full-on blast only lasted for a few minutes and by the time I got to the narrow road leading to Winchell Lake, the wind had stopped and the rain had backed off to a steady drizzle.
Discoveries in the Drizzle
I was back in the dark again, the spruce trees and green vegetation sucking up what little light there was, but something kind of bright caught my eye so I stopped to check it out. It was the skull of an animal, moose, I think, and it had obviously been there for a long while. There was no hair, barely any cartilage and moss was beginning to grow on the mandible.
Yeah, I know, kinda grim but that's nature. And it looked pretty cool lying there with its ivory tones and surrounded by green.
So that was the reason I'd stopped but I stayed for the sound. The rain was pattering down and I could hear it hitting the leaves of the poplars across the road and the willows in front of me as well as the roof of the truck. The rhythm was soothing, calming, and I sat there with the window rolled down and my jacket sleeve soaking through as I listened.
But there was more than the sound of the rain. Birds were singing. I recognized yellow warblers and siskins, robins and ravens, little flycatchers and a wren. The bird app on my phone picked up a few more like redstarts and a yellowthroat. I caught glimpses of some of them, swift, tiny shadows flitting among the branches, but it wasn't until I'd let that oncoming car squeeze by and moved on closer to the lake that I could have a good look at any of them.
It was still raining but the storm was passing and a bit of brightness was sneaking past the edge of the clouds. It made the falling drops look like silver streaks against the dark background of the trees and lit the drops that lingered on the willow branches. It lit the birds, too.
They were everywhere along the lake, robins bouncing along the shore and tiny balls of wet fluff among the willows. They were taking advantage of the chill that came along with the rain to pick torpid bugs from the branches and I found a little least flycatcher that had just caught one. These guys would easily fit in the palm of your hand.
But then I saw a blast of bright colour fly by. It was red and black and bright yellow and a bird I'd only ever seen a few times before, a western tanager. They aren't particularly uncommon but even with their bright colours, their life among the thick branches makes them hard to see. This one, though, perched out in the open on a spruce branch to shake the water off its feathers. I got lucky.
The rain quit for a few minutes and I found a damp mulie doe among the trees next to the lake but by the time I made the turn toward Water Valley, it was coming down again. It didn't bother the flock of siskins I found up the road. They were ignoring the falling drops as they tore apart dandelions to get at the seeds.
Scents and Sights Along the River
The wind that had accompanied the first storm was much more gentle this time and it barely moved the leaves down by the Little Red Deer River just north of Water Valley. I hadn't actually planned to stop there but nature was calling rather insistently so I pulled into the campground for a, um, rest.
And it smelled so nice I decided to go for a walk. I recognized the scent immediately, of course; it was the scent of wolf willow. Those tiny flowers give off a strong, sweet smell entirely out of proportion to their fingernail size. I would have thought they were mostly done by now but they were everywhere here.
Roses were coming into bloom, too, though with the falling rain they were a bit reluctant to open all the way up. Don't blame them. A few degrees cooler and that rain might have become snow. But the raindrops on the petals and the dark green leaves were mighty pretty.
The rain backed off to a thin drizzle and the sun threatened to break through as I rolled on toward the Big Prairie Creek valley. The roses out here in the open were a little more bold, their petals mostly spread wide. The whitetail buck I found nibbling in a pasture was much less so. He bounded off as soon as I slowed down.
I could see more storm clouds off to the west and north but they looked like they were going around my area. Fine with me. The gravel roads were already sloppy and less than fun to drive on. After a quick stop a bit further west to take pictures of a trio of mule deer — they were still in their loose winter fur — I started heading back to town.
I caught up with the rain again east of Cremona. It wasn't coming down hard but it was enough to dampen a merlin I found taking a rest on a fencepost. And a young coyote was looking pretty soggy as it sat in the mud next to a den close to Madden.
The wind hit again as I slowed down to take pictures of a family of mallards on the beaver-flooded flats near Big Hill Springs Park but I got out of its blast as I parked to listen for birds next to the parking lot.
There were flycatchers and chickadees, warblers, ravens and magpies. But there was also the sound of the rain on the leaves and on the truck's roof. So I sat, calmly, and listened to that. And hoped I would come home to dry floors.
