But this morning - ah, this morning! I got onto the trail around 8:30, well before anyone else showed up to jog or take their dogs for a walk, and almost immediately I noticed it. Above the din of traffic and the soft bubbling of the creek, I could hear birdsong. As I made my way down the trail to where I usually begin my musings, I noticed the flitting presence of several vibrantly colored male cardinals, two of which were dog-fighting low in the air above the trail, darting in and out of the reeds along the bank. I managed to catch a shot of one as he lorded over his stretch of the creek, all challengers bested for now.
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| Ha ha! I am king in here! |
It was refreshing to see and hear some degree of life returning to the fields. With so many trees and so much open field around the creek, it was unnerving to keep coming back to the uninterrupted sound of nearby traffic. To see the excitement of birds in territorial challenges, to see them light and alight again from tree branches and reeds, to hear their chatter was enlivening. As best I could, I tracked one of the males as he chirped and flitted his way upstream. Eventually, I was lucky enough to catch a shot of him on a branch with one of NMR's many little oddities in the background: a red, middle-of-nowhere fire hydrant. That hydrant is just out in the field on the far side of the creek, nowhere near any kind of man-made structure that would require such a thing as emergency fire services. But hey - red bird, red hydrant? Good enough for me.
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| He doesn't get it either. |
The temperature is up into the mid-forties this morning, and the snows are nearly all gone here, only clinging to the more shaded corners of the fields and the paths where human traffic has trampled it into packed ice. Signs urge me to "stay on established paths," but when they look more like a bob-sled track than a walking path, my mind starts to justify walking just to the edge, just inside the grass line.
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| COOOOOOOOL RUNNINGS! |
Thankfully, enough of the pathways had melted completely and were beginning to show other signs of wildlife that I have searched for since my first trip here. I had been noticing all kinds of dog tracks in the packed snow that covered the trail, but the freshly exposed dirt underneath, now saturated from the melting snow, was now showing deer tracks. This one below is pictured with a quarter next to it for comparison. From its small size and the wider angle of the toes, I think it belongs to a yearling white-tail. My father taught me most of what I know about scouting animal tracks in the wild, and I think of his lessons every time I spot a new track. Of course, that was a long time ago and I'm sure I've forgotten some of the finer lessons by now.
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| This deer obviously had a hole in his pocket. |
6 comments:
It is interesting how quiet you can try to be, and yet the animals scurry out of an area you're going into. But if you just idle for awhile (usually I notice it takes about 30-45 minutes), the wildlife will return. One of the reasons animals are so quick to flight is not only that they hear something, but I once heard since humans are only species that walks upright, animals immediately regard that as a threat, because they are atuned to walking upright = disturbance. Periodically if I'm feeling adventurous and the ground is tolerable, I will squat and try to make myself look, less human as to not make the animals feel threatened.
"My father, an outdoorsman himself, was the one who taught me that if you are in the woods or out in a field and it is silent, there is a problem, and that problem is almost always you."
Wow! This line was really powerful, and a great way to start your discussion of the cardinals. I like how the "you" has multiple meanings..."you" (Dylan) and "you" people invading forests/wildlife.
ps Mulvania's poetry is beautiful--I want to call him a painter...I see the images in my head so vividly. And the blackberry-picking one--that's my childhood!
I'm bringing you Mahmoud Darwish to class to read...wonderful Palestinian poet...unless you've read him already? Since you're exploring "place." You'll love him if you don'tn already
Great post! I really enjoyed the photos. Like Sarah, I really enjoyed this quote, too:
"My father, an outdoorsman himself, was the one who taught me that if you are in the woods or out in a field and it is silent, there is a problem, and that problem is almost always you."
Birdsong is one of those signs that we take for granted but whose absence we greatly miss. I am wondering now, and I hope you'll return to the birds as you keep writing, about whether the environmental degradation at NMR has had any impact on local bird populations.
Glad Andrew's getting a shout-out on here! He and I have yet to meet, (he came to W&J after I left), but we've been trying to meet for over a year now. Strangely enough, being a native Missourian, we might visit here in the Midwest.
The beginning of birdsong is a great moment, and redbirds hold a kind of mythical place in my family history, so it was poignant and moving to see that it was the first bird for you. But as Mel said, when there's a lack of song, it does make you wonder if populations are down. How would the toilet streams affect them?
Nice post! I really like how when we hear external (man made) noise when we are trying to be "alone" in nature, we think of it as a nuisance. I find myself literally frowning and shaking my head, asking if anyone can have a little respect.
I get offended, but I wonder how the literal inhabitants of the landscape are looking at me? They are all probably like, "Shit guys the kids back. Shut up and he wont come over here."
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