Forebodings

At dawn he hovered in the grey sky, his lungs swelling with the cadence of his mating song. Now she didn’t respond to the offer of courtship feeding. The tundra call was irresistible. He flew again and called once more. Then he levelled off, the rising sun glinting pinkly on his feathers, and he headed north in silence, alone. — Fred Bodsworth

It was mid-November when the juvenile purple gallinule was found shivering in the sub-zero cold, too weak to fly away when people approached. A glance was enough to know the tall, yellow-legged shorebird didn’t belong where it was. So rescuers brought it to the Neskantaga First Nation band office nearby. The reserve lies in the northern Ontario bush, in that vast area of dense black spruce and frozen lakes due west of Attawapiskat and northeast of Winnipeg. No one had seen anything like the gallinule before, and pretty much everyone dropped by to take a look. It was a...