Bird therapy with Black Skimmers is one of my favorite mindful nature therapy practices. Black Skimmers continue to arrive at the colony on Wrightsville Beach. and begin to form pairs. The male makes a mark in the sand as though to suggest, “What about this spot for our nest?” If the female approves, she lies in the sand, extends her neck and kicks sand behind her, forming a scrape in the sand that will become their nest.
The instinct to mate drives these birds to return each year. I like to imagine that much like humans choose home based on a sense of place that so, too, do these magnificent birds. What is it that draws them, and me, to choose the South end of Wrightsville Beach each year? I experience healing from the bird therapy. Maybe they find comfort in choosing the same place as home.
Wings flapping, flashes of black wing tops with white underbellies, loud barking and yipping drown out the sounds of crashing waves. Everything else becomes insignificant for a moment, and the sounds and movements of Black Skimmers leave me captivated. Artemis, patron of the unknown seabird, daughter of Leto who fled heaven in the form of a bird. Both huntress and protector, holding the miracle of life, death and rebirth in the palm of her hand and quickness of her step.
The average age for reproducing female Skimmers is 3 years, and the average age for males is 4 years, while their average life span ranges from 5-15 years. That all of the migrating birds in the colony eventually pair up begs the question of where the juveniles spend summer, but the ones who are here are clearly driven by instinctual desire. Within days of arriving into the colony, the birds begin the process of mate selection.
Thus far, all obtained reading material on the Black Skimmer provides a highly scientific representation of breeding ecology and behavior. Yet it’s not the science that drives we humans every summer to spend hours watching and protecting them. It’s our own sense of longing and desire that compels us to return weekly, sometimes daily, to bear witness to a mirroring of our own experience in the behavior of these birds, a barely conscious motivation for most who become voyeurs of their courtship and mating rituals.
I stand on the shore while two birds swoop by, leaving the colony to engage in a nimble game of courtship chase. They fly low and straight over the water, then bank a sharp left turn, seemingly flying in perfect formation, their movements gracefully synced. These gangly birds that bark like dogs, lie flat on the sand on their bellies and mate over the offering of a single fish evoke an erotic sense of awe and wonder when they take flight.
As they fly by, it causes me to catch my breath a little, in a good way. I pause. Breathe. Notice the energy stirring in my chest, around my heart, then moving throughout my entire torso. Coming alive. This same catching of breath that comes at the thought of a lover, the brush of a lover’s lips against one’s neck, or a lover moving open-mouthed toward, like a hungry bird. This is why we fall in love with birds, to awaken our own sense of aliveness and embrace our own true nature, our hunger for sensuousness that transports us from the ordinary to extraordinary and gives us hope in that brief flash that anything is possible.
Jen Johnson is a mindfulness teacher, coach, and therapist teaching meditation for healing, creativity, and resilience. She integrates nature therapy and bird therapy into her coaching and therapy sessions. To learn more about mindfulness or to develop a regular mindfulness practice, register for the MBSR online course.