My friend Nancy and I walk along the streets of her leafy neighbourhood.  Suna, her little Shiba Inu, sniffs the shrubs and grass as we go. I notice a doe standing in the shadows a stone’s throw away. 

“Look.” 

“Yes, sometimes the mother deers think that Suna is a fawn, and they follow her because they think I’ve stolen their baby.”

I laugh at this endearing testament to the deep protective instinct mothers feel. Sure enough, this doe looks with interest at Suna, a plush fox-like dog with a curlicued tail. Her coat is the same colour as a fawn’s—I can see why the doe might wonder. We continue to walk, and I notice the doe has started to follow. Soon, she increases her pace and is very close behind us, an avid look in her eyes as she stares at Suna. Indeed, she seems determined to get close to the dog, and we walk a little faster to put some distance between us. The doe canters elegantly around parked cars on her slender matchstick legs, moist black snout and huge almond eyes leading the way. Nancy and I are alarmed. Might the doe attack us to get closer to what she believes is her offspring?

“Let’s go,” says Nancy, and we begin to run down the middle of the quiet street, Suna in tow. After a block or so, we slow down, and I see we have finally lost the doe. I feel strangely thrilled by this brush with an animal. To see close up her ardency—the quiver of her black nose, her flicking tail and tall twitching ears. To empathize with her desire to rescue something she thinks is hers. I wonder what would have happened if we had simply stopped. Perhaps the doe wanted nothing more than to make contact with Suna, to sniff and nuzzle her. She would quickly realize, “this is not my fawn.” 

It’s been a fortnight of animal encounters. About two weeks ago, a nest cradling six or so baby robins in our yard was the epicenter of a grand battle between parent robins and several crows determined to capture and devour the babies. The bush is outside our bedroom window, and early in the mornings, we could hear the desperate chirping of the parents, the caw-caw of their opponents, the tiny cheeps of the chicks, and the rustling of the bush where the nest was located. It seemed that every day, one or two fewer chicks resided there. And soon there were none. Now the nest sits unoccupied, a bowl of fallen petals. I was angry at the crows and heartbroken for the robins, while at the same time recognizing how sentimental I was being about the ways of nature. 

A few days ago when I visited my favourite Arbutus tree in our local park, I witnessed two Great Horned Owls sitting about six metres away from me on a branch overhanging the Colquitz River. Astounded at my luck, I crouched on the riverbank, one hand resting on the smooth bark of the Arbutus, and observed them for several minutes. They looked calmly at me. I had a staring contest with the one on the left, and she was the first to blink and look away. The fellow on the right swivelled his large tufted head in a complete rotation. My kin.

Then there was a Cedar Waxwing sighting as we walked through a grassy meadow from the mall to our house a couple of days ago. His head a golden crested helmet, the vermilion patch on his wing like a talisman. I didn’t identify him at the time; when we got home, I got out the Golden Field Guide to the Birds of North America and found his picture. An old childhood memory surfaced: Our family lived in Boston one summer while my Dad did something at Harvard. We rescued an injured Cedar Waxwing, keeping him in a cardboard box. Care and feeding involved an eyedropper. I have a murky feeling that there is a bad ending to that story, involving a cat. My sisters probably remember more than I do.

I’ve had numerous heron and rabbit sightings these past two weeks too, and yesterday morning the insistent mournful cry of a Northern Flicker punctuated my morning meditation. Our neighbour is the lucky one to host the hollow tree where the family lives. He reported today that baby Flicker pokes his head out of the hole a little more each day. This morning a chevron of honking Canada Geese passed over me as I watered the garden. I drank in the sight and the wistful sound, the sound of yearning.

I don’t think there are more animals and birds in our urban environment than there used to be. What has changed is my level of observation. Not working, slowing down, and staying close to home means I notice more of what’s happening around me. 

This strong feeling of kinship with all of these animals has affected me. In January, I eliminated animal products from my diet. My bad cholesterol (LDL) has been too high for years. My doctor told me it was genetic and changing my diet would likely not have an effect. I disagreed: I proposed to eat vegan for six months and get my blood tested at the beginning and end of the period. Though at first I missed cream in my coffee and chunks of cheddar with my apples, I’ve grown to enjoy plant based cooking and eating.

It’s easy to tell people you are not eating animal products for health reasons (dietary veganism). How can they argue with that? If you say you’ve chosen this diet because you don’t want to harm animals (ethical veganism), some meat-eaters become uncomfortable and defensive. (I know because I felt this way.) I hate to cause discomfort, yet as I continue into the final month of my experiment, I realize my reasons for not eating animals products are not so simple as they first were. 

Yes, I want to be healthier, and I predict my blood test in July will be good news. But I also feel close to my animal family: the owls, the mother deer, the big rabbit who scooted in front of me on the path, the robins, the gorgeous Waxwing, the Flicker, the geese. Even the damn crows. Sure, I know none of those animals is on the menu. But I extend that feeling of kin to the big dairy cows with sad eyes hooked up to milking machines at the Saanich Fair last September. The chickens I imagine stuffed into too-small cages. The lambs my father used to raise on his farm and send to be butchered. My kith and kin, just as much as Joy, our Ragdoll cat lying beside me on the couch is family. I don’t know what I’ll do when this experiment in eating is over. What I do know is that I like this feeling of being connected to all sentient beings.