In spring and summer, the natural world is thrumming with activity before we’ve even had a chance to reach for our morning coffee. In the animal kingdom, most early risers are crepuscular, which means they’re active at dawn and dusk. Others are uniquely matutinal and prefer daybreak hours for optimizing their ability to feed, forage, mate, and vocalize.
Alas, as humans we’re out of sync with prime wildlife social hours. Though it might irk us when the insistent song of a robin jolts us awake before sunrise, it’s worth forcing ourselves out of bed and outdoors. Changing light levels at dawn elicit frenzied activity among animals and provide the most accessible time to watch wildlife drama unfold right in front of us. It might seem counter- intuitive, but low-light conditions can also enhance the visibility of some well- camouflaged critters.
Don’t hate on the following cottage-country early risers. Start your day at dawn and you’ll feel like you’ve just scored front row seats to a riveting nature documentary with a stellar soundtrack, all without leaving your property. Plus, you’ll have the sunrise photos to make your friends jealous. And don’t worry— you’ll have plenty of time to nap later.
That’s what the hammock is for.
Common green darner
The green darner, like all dragonflies, is an agile aerial gymnast that can hover mid-air and fly in every direction, even backwards, while it hunts and catches insect prey on the wing. In addition to a resident population, cottage country boasts migratory green darners. These spectacular, multi-generational long-distance migrants usually return to cottage country in May.
Their morning routine Green darners may dedicate the hours after sunrise for most feeding flights and mating, once they’ve warmed up and can start buzzing around their preferred sites: anywhere with warm, calm water, such as ponds or marshes. With fewer predators in the morning (birds, for example, are often still busy with their dawn-singing), they have a safer window to find a mate and engage in their spirited mid-flight “mating wheels.”
The male uses clasps at the tip of his bright blue abdomen to grab on to the female’s head and pull her in this aerial tan- dem position. She curls her body to connect her reproductive organs with the sperm on his abdomen, the pair forming a striking, heart-shaped wheel formation. Unlike many other dragonflies, the male green darner doesn’t abandon the female to lay her eggs alone. Instead, the couple remains clasped to ensure that a rival male doesn’t attempt to mate with her while she uses her knife- like ovipositor to cut into plant tissue and deposit her eggs.
American robin
Early colonial settlers in North America erroneously gave the American robin its name. They mistakenly thought it was related to the European robin, based solely on appearance. In fact, the American robin belongs to the thrush family and is one of our loudest, most boisterous early morning songsters.
Their morning routine A robin’s whistling song can start as early as 3:30 a.m. and sounds like a string of a dozen short phrases, often transcribed as “cheer up, cheerily, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up!” Vocal acrobatics in the pre-dawn hours on an empty stomach demands a great deal of energy, and a male bird’s loud song signals to females that he’s a good catch. Like all songbirds, robins can emit such complex songs thanks to their syrinx, a double- chambered voice box that sits close to their lungs and allows them to produce two notes simultaneously and harmonize with themselves. American robins have songs that can range in length—anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, and they draw from a varied treasure trove of whistling phrases.
Once they’ve concluded their early morning serenades, robins may embark on their feeding regimen. They can consume large quantities of earthworms. Sometimes, you’ll see robins standing in the dewy morning grass, head tilted to one side—they’re looking for their next meal.
Walleye
The walleye gets its name from its protruding, opaque, and silvery eyes that are designed to function well in low-light conditions, such as the early morning. Their optical super- power is a natural reflector, called the tape- tum lucidum, a light-sensitive tissue behind their retina that enables them to expertly navigate through dark waters. In fact, dim light appears so bright to the walleye, it prefers taking refuge in the shadows of rocks or weed beds.
Where’s walleye? These cottagers know
Their morning routine At dawn, walleye come up to feed in shallow waters where they gorge on insects, smaller fish, and crustaceans. In some cases, an early morning feeding schedule also allows them to elude certain predators, such as birds of prey or larger fish. Low-light conditions in the wee hours of the morning enable the dark-backed walleye to remain camouflaged while successfully weaving their way through rocks and weed beds in the murky water. Once the sun rises, walleye retreat deeper into the lake and remain there until dusk; this makes dawn one of the few times we can spot these fish.
Common nighthawk
The common nighthawk’s name is a complete misnomer: the bird is neither related to hawks—though its pointed wings often resemble falcons in flight—nor is it active at night. It’s at dawn (along with dusk) when nighthawks are especially busy. These curious birds belong to the Caprimulgidae family, which means “goatsuckers” in Latin. This refers to an ancient belief that nighthawks would fly into barns and suck milk from goat udders, ultimately causing the goats to go blind and stop producing milk. Needless to say, the theory is wrong, but the goatsucker nickname stuck.
Their morning routine Nighthawks eat voraciously during the early morning hours, when there’s a robust insect buffet. All of a nighthawk’s foraging happens in low-light conditions and their optical superpowers—like walleyes, they also have light-reflectors in their eyes—allow them to find their prey by sight. Though their beak appears tiny when closed, when opened wide, their gaping mouth is perfectly adapted to scoop up and devour vast quantities of flying insects, sometimes more than 150 metres in the sky. (They also forage on the ground or over water.) Nighthawks sometimes consume small pieces of gravel; not only does it facilitate insect digestion, but the grit helps females supplement the calcium reserves needed for egg development.
The wee hours of the morning aren’t just for eating, of course; male nighthawks will often court females as the sun is rising. They announce themselves with a nasal “peent” call as they ascend in the air, followed by ecstatic looping, diving, and swooping flight patterns. As they dive down, they cup their wings, and the air rushing through their feathers produces a loud “boom” sound. During breeding season, a male’s mating displays include flirtatious tail-wagging along with seductively puffing out his throat to show off his shiny white gorget, while emitting a croaking sound.
Spring peeper
Birds aren’t the only ones who regale us with mating choruses. In the spring, as soon as wetlands thaw, frogs, such as the spring peeper, begin to emerge from their winter hibernation and sing up a storm. Spring peepers are one of several vocal treefrogs that, while mostly active at dusk and night—or, sometimes into the very early morning hours—can also make their loud presence known during the daytime, as long as it’s cloudy or damp (like most amphibians, they don’t love the hot sun). Think of these cacophonous calls as a male’s love song to woo a female.
Their morning routine It’s easier to hear rather than see a spring peeper in cottage country, but you can spot them hanging out near ponds and marshes, resting. Look carefully: at less than an inch long, they are tiny, and they sport an X on their brownish grey backs that allows them to camouflage with the muddy ground. Even though, like other treefrogs, they can cling to vertical surfaces thanks to sticky toe pads, they don’t tend to climb very high (why expend the energy when they need to save it for all that singing later)? When one peeps, it inflates an enormous vocal sac under its mouth that expands to nearly the size of the amphibian. Loud peeps are produced as air passes from their lungs, over the vocal cords, and is amplified by the capacious vocal sac. A chorus of spring peepers can be heard more than a kilometre away.
Moose
This cottage-country icon is the largest member of the deer family, the second-largest animal in North America, an expert swimmer, and a speedy runner. Like other browsing mammals, moose are most active at dawn and at dusk when they can avoid predators.
Their morning routine The early a.m. is ideal for this enormous herbivore’s foraging, typically near the edges of forests or wetlands. Wanna catch a glimpse? Paddling to a sheltered bay with water lilies or aquatic plants would maximize your chances of seeing a moose in the stillness of dawn hours. Though they continue feeding throughout the day, moose are more likely to retreat deeper into the woods, where there is less disturbance, and they can escape both heat and predators.
Common loon
When the lake is still, the plaintive wail of the loon can wake us before dawn, demanding our attention. A communication device bet- ween mating pairs, the drawn out, haunting wail announces a loon’s presence. Within moments, another loon answers.
Their morning routine Not long after sunrise is the beginning of feeding time for loons. You might see them gliding along the lake’s glass-like surface, dipping their heads into the water to check out the food options underneath before embarking on a dive. These expert divers are anatomically adapted to slice through the deep: their solid bones render them less buoyant and their feet are positioned further back on their bodies to propel them through the lake with maximum speed. As the morning warms up, you might see a loon stretching its foot out of the water and giving it a wiggle. No need to worry, this isn’t a sign of injury. Expert theories suggest that it’s a way for the birds to thermoregulate and cool off.
Two to three hours after sunrise can be a good time to hear loons, since the day’s early cooler air allows for better sound projection. You might, for example, hear a male let out a yodel to mark his territory and signal that potential interlopers best back off. The series of slow, ascending, high-pitched sounds, followed by a series of repeated phrases, project extremely well—up to several kilometres away. Each loon has its own, signature yodel that varies in frequency, pitch, and length. If you hear something that sounds like wild, unhinged, quick- syllabled laughter, that’s the loon’s distinctive tremolo; it announces the bird’s presence, or points to danger ahead.
This article was originally published in the June/July 2025 issue of Cottage Life magazine.
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