Sunrises and sunsets interact with species differently

Black or white. Dark or light. On and off, push and pull. Good and evil, truth and bull. Sunset versus sunrise: life is full of dualities and dichotomies.

Let’s stick with the last theme, one that every human in the world experiences every passing day. That construct of time, the day, is created by the tilted and rotating earth as it orbits around the sun at about 107,000 kilometres per hour, giving the stationary sun an appearance of rising and setting over horizons from Canada to Uganda to Argentina.

The sun appears as a tiny sphere in the sky, despite being approximately 109 times the diameter of earth. In some regions of the world, the sun can appear massive as it reveals or conceals itself over an opaque edge. Near the poles of the planet, sometimes people and wildlife alike don’t see the sun for months at a time.

On a family Thanksgiving long weekend, we went up towards Bobcaygeon (any Tragically Hip fans here?) for a fall-colour infused getaway on the lake. Even driving just beyond Burlington, the radiant tree colours are ahead of Niagara. This is testimony to why the highly biodiverse Carolinian Forest zone and the wine belt exist in Niagara — our slightly longer growing season shows green growth for a little bit longer than areas just north of here.

It is time to get ready for our own personal show very soon, Niagara.

In the meantime, I’d love to share how thankful my family, my girlfriend and I were feeling, with a sunrise and a sunset for the books. I rarely get to sleep in, so sometimes it takes a healthy dose of encouraging, or perhaps peer-pressuring, to get me outside to see an everyday spectacle so many of us miss out on.

Our society hums and drones at such a pace that we often negate the beauty of the inevitable morning. Guilty as charged, as we are culturally trained to hustle our lives away and stay up into the dark without a second thought. Here I am writing this article in the late dark, for example.

Interestingly, we have no issue with milking every hour of sleep before our alarm must go off every morning, though. We are comfortably trained to bank that morning time away for snoozing. As you read this, ask yourself, what is the ratio of sunsets to sunrises you have seen in your life?

A sunrise is harder to get to, I get it. However, the featured picture in this article shows my girlfriend sitting as a silhouette in the face of the day’s first direct ultraviolet rays.

Unless it is winter, every plant in the world wakes up with the sun. This is the bottom of the food chain being activated, which therefore awakens the diurnal insects and herbivores who emerge to find delectable nectar and scrumptious leaves. As the sun rises higher, the carnivores come out to feast.

During a sunrise, many flower species rotate to the face the sun, and long-limbed plants do a physiological stretch to enjoy the new day’s warmth and prepare for photosynthesis. Plenty of plants and trees actually tuck themselves in at night, quite literally, to reduce cold temperature harm to their cells and to conserve water and energy. Picture yourself going into fetal position or laying like a shrimp in your bed when you feel cold, only to stretch wide awake as the morning warmth sets in.

This particular sunrise would have been anticlimactic for most, as the desired orange burst of light was put on hold by the artist herself, mother nature. My girlfriend and I were presented with a massive sheet of flowing grey layers rippling across the sky at high speed. These slabs of cloud, called nimbostratus, are a classic fall weather cloud type showing evidence of cooler temperatures and light rain. These blue-grey concrete blankets were gliding over our heads towards the anticipated sunrise. It was an appreciable mood unto itself, even without a glimpse of light yet. Finally, a delayed yet fortuitous crack in the sky unfolded, and the eruption of sun created the photo I took.

Equally as awesome yet entirely different was the sunset we were presented with later that night. When is the last time you saw a sunrise and a sunset in the same day?

The sunset shows us a familiar and dramatic close to the day. Photosynthesis takes a halt, most animals rest, and a select cult of carnivores roam the night both in and out of the water. Our species begins to unwind and relax, and I don’t believe there is a better way to set the tone for a fun evening other than a sunset while paddling the canoe out on the water.

I encourage everyone reading this to challenge themselves, maybe even once a month, to take in a sunrise. You won’t regret experiencing the waking, driving force of our daily lives.