Alexandersmap

    Tag: Wildlife

    • A Bear in the Night

      Sunday night, while sitting around the fire in conversation, a large wild creature moved through the woods, announcing its presence with the crunch of dried leaves and crack of fallen twigs. Not a deer. Not a raccoon or a skunk. Definitely not a squirrel. I quietly walked into the house for the big flashlight and walked out to the edge of the fence and switched it on. Nothing but leaves glowed back at me, but the crunching and cracking continued on and away from us. The speculation on what had visited stayed with us. But we knew.

      The next day someone up the hill posted that three goats had been killed in her yard, and there was talk of a bear up to 800 pounds being the culprit. Was this our visitor? We wondered at the possibility. I walked deep into the woods in daylight looking for tracks, but quickly realized the folly of my search. I’d guess we had a solid layer of leaves blanketing any possible evidence of bear tracks. I contemplated purchasing a wildlife camera set in the woods to track future visitors. It would be good to know the neighbors a bit better. We’ve seen just about everything in our time at the edge of the woods, but haven’t yet seen a bear. But others in town have. This would be our closest encounter.

      Bear encounters have increased in New Hampshire over the years, and there have been three bear attacks over the last decade, including one this year when a man was attacked from behind while getting an air conditioner out of his car. There are reasons for this. First, the bear population has grown significantly over the years as they outpace efforts to cull them through hunting. Second, some people actively feed bears, making them less fearful of humans. And then we have the drought that New Hampshire is currently in, which forces the bears to wander further into populated areas for food. There’s a fascinating article about the increase in bear encounters in the September issue of NH Magazine.

      Bear populations, like squirrels, apparently increased with the bumper crop of acorns a couple of years ago. Well-fed bears want to stay well-fed. And so they come. I can’t help but compare the increase in bear encounters to the increase in Great White Shark encounters on the beaches of New England. Limit hunting seals and sharks and the population explodes in places we’d gotten used to having the beaches to ourselves. Something similar is happening with bear populations (and every other wild animal for that matter). Fewer hunters, more comfort with humans and drought-fueled hunger means more bears in the suburbs.

      Standing in the woods, looking back towards the house, you get the perspective of the wild things. As much as you could I suppose, given my free access to the comforts of a home just on the other side of the border. I considered my desire to get out in the wild so often, and here I was, standing in bear country, 200 feet from my back door. I looked around one last time for tracks and walked back to the other side, closing the gate behind me. But I’ll be back. I suspect the bear(s) will be too.

    • Shift Happens

      The lingering glow of immersion in salt water quickly sweated out of me when I returned home to a yard in need of attention.  Some of the attention simply needed a prompt investment in labor, like mowing the lawn and cleaning the pool.  Co-existing with mature trees means picking up a collection of branches and other debris before you can mow.  Co-existing with wildlife meant scooping six frogs out of the pool once the solar cover was removed, disrupting frog spa day, and more tree debris.  It also meant assessing the damage from the groundhog, who has raised the stakes significantly by wiping out most of the remaining vegetables, but more egregiously climbing up the potted Hibiscus, breaking branches on its quest to mow down tasty bits from the top.  This shall not stand.

      There’s a tangible shift happening with the back yard from June/July satisfaction with the joys of a private oasis in the middle of a pandemic to a feeling that maybe this work is more than I want to deal with.  I recognize this as a post-vacation reality slap and know it will subside in time.  Part of this is a recognition that the pandemic marches on with no clear end in sight, and a burning desire to just get out in the world once again.  To cross borders real and imagined.  Part of it is knowing the routine for what it is and not being quite ready for it just yet.  We’re 1/3 of the way through August and this is naturally the time when I start to look around at where we are and what needs to be done.  The garden had faded even before the large rodent accelerated the process.  Where do we go from here?

      There’s another part of the shift, and its the recognition that time slips quickly away, and our best efforts to maintain a pristine environment can be wiped out faster than you can spell groundhog.  More attention paid to those big things from yesterday’s post, and less on half-assed attempts to grow pumpkins and tomatoes and hibiscus.  Does creating a backyard paradise mean hunting down a mammal that finds a buffet paradise in my efforts?  Or do I just stop planting the things it likes to eat and go to the farm stand for tomatoes and pumpkins?  The garden, however noble a pursuit, was never about produce.

      Yesterday I woke up on the edge of the bay.  This morning I woke up on the edge of the forest.  Each offers a dose of reality that you’ve got to come to terms with.  I’m not a Rhodes Scholar but I’m smart enough to recognize good fortune when I see it.  Appreciate the good and learn from the setbacks.  That’s 2020 in a nutshell.  The world marches on, and shift happens.

    • The Methodical Hunt of Red-Tailed Hawks

      Treading water on an early morning swim and looking up to sky, I observed a pair of red-tailed hawks moving across the landscape in a coordinated hunt.  It was an impressive display, with one hawk working to spook prey into revealing themselves and the other perched nearby ready to pounce on the unsuspecting victim.  A methodical dance of deadly consequences for some prey yet to be determined.  This was clearly part of the act I saw last week when a hawk landed on the umbrella, but I’d only seen half the story then.  I was grateful I was a bit larger than they felt they could take on.  When you see a pair of hunters working the neighborhood, you wonder how any squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit survives long enough to reproduce.  This was a highly coordinated, efficient operation in action, and I came away deeply impressed.

      Red-Tailed Hawks are also known as “chicken hawks” because they wreak havoc on chickens, ducks and other domestic birds.  The name is a bit of a misnomer, but makes me think of the cartoon character I grew up watching, always trying to take on the much bigger rooster Foghorn Leghorn.  But watching them hunt made me realize they’re much more like the Velociraptors hunting the kids in Jurassic Park.  But then again, they’re direct descendants of dinosaurs, so it makes sense they’d hunt in such a way.  Velociraptors were the most bird-like of all the dinosaurs, and I saw the similarity immediately watching that pair of hawks (at least to the movie version).

      Red-Tailed Hawks tend to hunt solo most of the time, but when you see a pair hunting together it generally means that they’re mates or siblings or its a parent teaching the kiddos to kill their own meals.  These were adults, so I’m guessing they were mates.  What’s more romantic than hunting small animals together in a choreographed dance along the edge of the woods?  If you read about these hunters, the details of the prey can be gruesome, which I’ll spare you from here.  They live a life of noble pursuit, not killing for sport but for food.  Humans could learn a few things watching them.

      When my dog was younger we had this game of hide and seek we’d play, where I’d take his favorite fuzzy dice and throw them into a different room for him to fetch.  While he was chasing them down I’d quickly run out of the room and hide.  He’d come back, realize I was gone and excitedly bounce up and down like a reindeer, and the hunt would be on.  He’d check room after room looking for me, and when he found me we’d celebrate with a big human and Labrador hug.  Those games of hide and seek would get my heart rate way up into anaerobic territory and I’d find myself out of breath when the game went on for any length of time.  I was the “prey” in those games, but all in fun.  I can’t imagine being prey in a real life and death hunt, and I’m grateful to live in a time when I can casually observe the hunt of hawks.  With a few notable exceptions that quickly make the news, we generally don’t have to worry about animals hunting us down.  More often than not its other humans we have to worry about, and even then its becoming increasingly safe to coexist in the world with others.  I took a moment to appreciate that as I watched the methodical dance of Red-Tailed Hawks.

    • The Wild Amongst Us

      “Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.” – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

      Last week I drove up the street I live on and saw a bobcat cross the road with its freshly-killed dinner dangling from its mouth. Looked like an unlucky chipmunk to me, but might have been a small rabbit. Honestly I was focused on the bobcat. For I’d never seen one before, and even though I knew right away what it was I still called my friend Tom to validate what I believed I’d just seen.

      The next day my daughter and I were looking out the window and saw a red-tailed hawk land on the umbrella next to the pool, look around for a moment and then fly off to another vantage point. Its search for lunch momentarily overlapped in our world. I sit under that umbrella writing now, as I often do.

      Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I glanced up the street and saw a doe carefully crossing the street at roughly the spot my car was when I saw that bobcat. She was escorting three fawns across the road. Two were more spry, the third a bit awkward on the legs, as if just born. They disappeared into the brush on the other side of the road, just as the bobcat had a few days before.

      All of these interactions with the wild amongst us would be familiar to countless generations of humans who lived on this land. They’d be far more taken aback by the swimming pools, lawn mowers and cars parked in driveways than the wildlife I find so fascinating. The question is whether they’ve been here all along or if they’re just returning in greater numbers as they adapt to the world we’ve dropped down in their neighborhood. Surely the deer and hawks have grown in numbers in my lifetime. But what of the predators like bobcat, fisher cats, mountain lions, coyotes and wolves? Evidence shows they’re returning to the land too. My encounter with the bobcat isn’t uncommon anymore, what was uncommon was the years when it would have been.

      All this points to a relatively healthy ecosystem surrounding the development I live in. Granted, it might have been even healthier were this development not dropped into the woods 22 years ago, but it was, and over time the land adjusts and the wild creatures return. The difference here was a requirement for open, undeveloped space allocated around house lots. Less profitable for the developer, but more attuned to the land. And that land serves as a highway for all sorts of wildlife, and in turn keeps me here, rooted to the land in ways I hadn’t expected when we sunk a foundation onto this plot. And so it is that I serve my tenure as watchman for the land, and wild amongst us. May I serve it well.

    • Missing Poultry and Other Such Thoughts

      I woke up thinking about missing turkeys.  This isn’t a normal occurrence.  I dwelled on the question; Where do the turkeys go in summer?  They made a point of being very present for winter and spring, but seemingly go on vacation all summer.  Sure you might still see one now and then on the side of the road, but it seems lost and disgruntled, wondering where the rest of the family went without her.  There’s always that one oddball in the family.  But then again, some just might view me that way (I hope so: “normal” is boring).

      When the mind is alive and vibrant and most of all open the world pours willingly in.  It might have been trying all along, but sometimes your senses are too dulled to pay much attention.  I’m paying attention.  Perhaps too much attention.  Almost certainly too much attention.  Wondering about such abstract, random things as where the poultry that swarmed the neighborhood went, and what might have prompted them to go there.  Clearly turkey have their own version of The Great Wildebeest Migration that happens in Tanzania, or the Monarch butterfly migration across North America to hang out in Mexico for the winter.  And let’s not forget the Humpback Whale migration in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as they swim from the colder waters of the north to the Caribbean or Hawaiian waters, respectively.  There are many more examples, often driven by the search for food and water and of course mating (There’s always mating involved when you go to the tropics).

      So what’s the deal with turkeys?

      According to the National Wild Turkey Federation (who knew?) “the annual home range of wild turkeys varies from 370 to 1,360 acres”.  The county I live in has approximately 695 square miles of land, which equates to almost 445,000 acres of land for roaming turkeys.  And that’s assuming they don’t all cross over into bordering Massachusetts.  That’s a lot of alula room for a flock of turkeys.  All I’m sure of is that they aren’t in my neighborhood at the moment.  And I guess I’m good with that.  Just let them know I was thinking of them.  Enough that I had to look up alula.

      All of this turkey talk is just my vibrant mind (no really, stick with me on this) wondering at the world around me.  I view getting out of your own head as a good thing, and thinking of things other than yourself as a noble path.  And so it is that I’m spending time this Tuesday talking turkey.  Which brings me to alliteration… 

       

    • Life In Four Native American Quotes

      “When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” – Chief Aupumut in 1725, Mohican.

      The Chief Aupumut I’ve read about was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and fought in the Revolutionary War as an important ally against the British.  He wrote an extraordinary letter to Thomas Jefferson asking for lands for a reservation in Wisconsin, so that his people wouldn’t have to keep moving further and further until they ran out of land.  He was also known as Hendrick Aupaumut, the Chief of the Muhheconneck Nation.  Given the date, the quote above may have derived from his father.  I’m not really sure, I’m relying on a web site dedicated to quotes from Native Americans.  But it took my breath away whomever the source was.  There’s a fair amount of stoicism in Aupumut’s words, not unexpected, and he challenges all of us to live more boldly in pursuit of our own dreams.  That’s a lot to live up to, living that we might die like a hero going home, but what else is this wild and precious life for if not to reach our potential?

      “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” – Crowfoot, Chief of the Siksika First Nation, Blackfoot warrior, peacemaker

      Crowfoot died relatively young at 60 from tuberculosis, so there’s wisdom in this quote reminding us of the briefness of life.  We’re all here for a short time, whether 60 years or 100, it’s all just the flash of a firefly in the night.  So why do we waste time on the trivial when time is so precious?  Because we don’t believe the truth before us.  There’s always another tomorrow, always next year, always an I’ll get to it…  until there isn’t.  Do it now.  If ever there was a consistent call from those who came before us its to make the most of this moment, not some future moment.

      “All who have died are equal.” – Comanche or Navajo quote (source uncertain)

      Google this quote and you’ll find multiple sources for it.  But generally it comes down to either the Comanche or the Navajo.  I wouldn’t be shocked if they both had a version of the same quote.  All who have died are equal.  And all who live are equal as well, even if treated differently.  I was raised to treat everyone the same, no matter what their skin color or nationality or sexual identity or preference.  But I’ve taken my own identity for granted, not seeing the struggles of those who fight unseen battles with those who weren’t raised the same way.  The world is full of struggles for equality and the respect and dignity of all.  But collectively we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes.

      “When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard.” – Navajo Expression

      There are a lot of hardened hearts in the world, removed from nature and seeing the world as asphalt and concrete and electricity.  It’s easy to dismiss climate change and consumer waste as hoaxes when you’re not immersed in nature.  How can you possibly see what you aren’t looking at?  I have seen the plastic washed up on remote beaches, and the oil slicks from spills far away.  I have noticed the shift in seasons and the haze over cities on busy commuter days.  As with equality, we can make significant improvements in our lifetimes, but we can’t wait much longer.  Perhaps a new President and Congress will prove to be the catalyst for change long overdue in the United States.  Perhaps the pandemic has given the world enough of a breather to give us the time to make meaningful change in our collective behavior.  But it always starts with us.

      I linger on the edge of nature often.  Gardening and observing the birds and bees and mammals attracted to the garden.  Hiking and getting out on the water whenever possible.  But I need to plunge deeper into the heart of it, to soften the hardness in my own heart.  We’re all that firefly in the night, with so little time.  How will we use our light?  What are you waiting for?

       

    • Think Like a Mountain

      “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.…  I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.” – Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac

      We all have favorite writers who take our breath away.  I’ve quoted a few of my favorites frequently in this blog, but not as much Aldo Leopold as I should.  Can you read the passage above and not be breathless at the prose?  Not if you have green fire in your own eyes.  I’ve been trying to think like a mountain since I first read A Sand County Almanac in college, but I find that when you grind away at life too long, stay in too many hotels, endure too many long drives and time in airports, spend too much time in business-speak meetings, and focus a bit too much on your net income the green fire fades.  I’m finding my way back again.

      Writing every day teaches you things about yourself.  I highly recommend it if you aren’t doing it yet yourself.  I thought I heard the call to write and so I wrote, but until I started publishing something of substance every day I didn’t really understand.  Understand the process of disciplined writing.  Understand the formation of thoughts and quotes and observations and molding it into your own creation that you nurture and place gently into the world, whether it’s perfect yet or not.  Blogging isn’t writing a novel, with an editor and time to get just the right phrasing down.  You ship every day no matter what.  No expectations of glory or financial gain or viral explosions of followers, but because it matters to you that its out there.  And its transformative: You’d rarely hear me sorting things out in casual conversation the way I write about it in this blog.  I wrote yesterday about taking on too much and working to simplify things.  That’s my own version of trimming the herd to fit the range.  I just happened to publish it for all to see.

      Aldo Leopold died a week after hearing that A Sand County Almanac was going to be published.  He was only 61 at the time, and had no idea how much his book would resonate and influence generations of people.  He simply created it and gave it to the world, perhaps hopeful it would gain an audience.  He would have been amazed at how transformative his work was for the environment and for those who fight for it. Teaching generations how to think like a mountain.  It’s his enduring gift to the world.  We never really know what can happen if we just put ourselves out there, do we?

       

    • The Tickle of a Spider on the Tongue

      This is the absolute truth.  This morning I poured myself a glass of water and started writing a post that will have to wait for another day.  I’d set the kettle and heard it starting to boil as I was writing, so I took my glass that had been sitting there and walked into the kitchen.  As I stood in front of the kitchen sink waiting for the kettle to whistle I took a swig of water and felt a clump of something on my tongue.  I spit out the water onto a plate in the sink and there was a spider, equally stunned by how its day had started.  I laughed (what else can you do?) and carried the plate outside and brushed the spider off into the holly bush.  After taking stock of my tongue, I rinsed out the glass and poured myself another one.  I’m fairly sure that the day can only get better from here, and I’m guessing the spider feels the same.  You never know what the new day will bring you.

      Yesterday I tackled yet another project that’s been nagging at me; a river stone bed that had accumulated years of dirt and bird seed and all manner of tree debris.  I spent several hours pulling out every stone, cleaning out the bed and putting the stone back in (If this seems like the perfect way to spend a Saturday, you must be a gardener too).  It’s a meditative process, and I managed to transform the bed from an eyesore to something beautiful that nobody else will ever notice but me.  And it seems that this river stone bed was the perfect place for giving birth to the next generation of spiders, as I disturbed 4 – 5 spider moms with white egg sacks.  In each case I tried to sweep the spider gently into a dust pan and relocate it to another part of the yard.  That was supposed to be my good spider karma for the weekend, and I felt I’d done my part for humanity’s ongoing tenuous relationship with them.  And then I drank their cousin.

      After this enlightening moment I decided to look into what species of spider I almost consumed.  It was your typical wolf spider, which are hunters who don’t spin webs (I feel I might have noticed a web before drinking the spider).  Living next to the woods you see a lot of spiders.  I don’t believe the other family members are as unconcerned about that as I am.  But then again I’m at a point in my life where I don’t worry about such trivial things as spiders on my tongue.  You’ve got to roll with whatever life throws at you.  I don’t ever expect to experience such an epic moment again, but you never know.  I’ll make a point of checking my glass before drinking next time around.  The entire event reminded me of the fable about a ham and egg breakfast.  Sure, the chicken is involved but the pig is invested.  It seems I was the chicken this morning and the spider the pig.  A near-miss breakfast and a moment to remember.  So how’s your day going?

       

    • A Pair of Opossums Enter the Scene

      I have two neighbors I’ve only seen once, just the other day from an upstairs window overlooking the backyard and the woods beyond. At the edge of the woods there’s a chain link fence that once occasionally held the dog in and now defines the wild from the manicured backyard I wrestle with endlessly. It seems at some point a couple moved into the vacant (of humans anyway) part of my yard that lies beyond the fence. A pair of opossums entered the scene and I can’t stop thinking about the new neighbors.

      I watched them, deep in opossum couple conversation, climb over the old stone wall that marks time in centuries, linger at the gnarled roots of a red maple and slowly make their way into the pile of brush piled just on the other side of the fence. It seems this is the ideal love nest for this pair, and they’re likely doing their business of creating the next generation of opossums as I write. I don’t mind, we can use all the tick and bug eaters we can get around here. I can do without the chipmunks and the groundhog that nibbles on my sweet potato vines and tomatoes, but the opossums are okay in my book. Keep gobbling up those ticks and we’ll be fast friends.

      Funny thing about opossums, the males are called Jacks and the females Jills. Their offspring are called Joeys. They’re nocturnal and generally transient animals, unless they find some cushy love nest anyway. Some people call me Jack, but nobody would call me nocturnal. But we all have our time, and Jack and Jill can have the night. We can say hello during the morning shift change. Hello, Jack! Hello Jack and Jill! And Joey, and Joey, and Joey… but I digress. Opossums have a way of distracting me with their delightfully different vibe.

      Which brings me to the elephant in the room: That silent O in opossum. Who’s idea was it to drop that in there anyway? I complain about learning French, but English is no picnic either. Silent O indeed. It’s my native language and I’m still inclined to start saying “O” when I read the word. Who made these rules anyway? Someone who thought about how delightful it would be to screw with the world for generations. Probably someone named Jack. Or Jill. You know they’re the troublemakers… unlike our friends the opossums.

    • Room for Wonder

      “What is this life if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare? —
      No time to stand beneath the boughs,
      And stare as long as sheep and cows:
      No time to see, when woods we pass,
      Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
      No time to see, in broad daylight,
      Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
      No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
      And watch her feet, how they can dance:
      No time to wait till her mouth can
      Enrich that smile her eyes began?
      A poor life this if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare.”
      – William Henry Davies

      Life is surely for living and getting things done.  And yet it would be meaningless without a healthy dose of looking at the world in wonder. If this daily exercise in blogging has done anything beyond strengthening a habit, it’s prodded me to look at the world in new ways. It’s not like I was closed-minded before, but writing seems to widen the path just as Instagram and an iPhone got me looking at flowers and sunrises differently.

      But what do you drop for this new perspective? Does the mind expand? Sure, I’ll go with that. But does it expand from the writing or from the experiences you’re adding to fuel the writing? Does it matter?

      This morning my cat and I are looking out the window at the steady stream of birds going to the feeders and poking about on the dormant shrubs and vines, looking for leftover berries and seeds or a bit of shelter from predators like the one sitting with me. The cat’s interest is betrayed by her tail swatting me in the head as each bird or squirrel comes onstage. My interest is more subtle, but it’s there just the same. Winter is not the barren landscape people think it is; life goes on all around us. Putting a feeder out surely pulls in more of that life than there would otherwise be. Writing is like that feeder, and it gets filled with observations, poems and quotations and strung-together thoughts. And just like the bird feeder the writing pulls life out of an otherwise barren landscape of a more closed mind.

      Up again for another slow dance with caffeine, I look out the window and notice a doe a hundred meters out in the woods, seemingly staring back at me. Scanning the woods I see a few others scraping at the snow looking for acorns or other edibles. But this doe seems to be looking right in the window at me. Standing and staring, just like me. Beauty’s glance, right there in the woods, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to see it. And that’s life, one moment of beauty at a time amongst the stark and barren. You just have to look for it.