I was on my way home from work, driving along a semi-rural road; newer housing development on one side, wooded area bordering the river on the other. Up ahead, I saw a large bird exhibiting some very strange behavior. The bird was hopping backwards, dragging the carcas of what turned out to be a dead raccoon across the road. Then I realized that the dead raccoon was the one I had hit that morning on the way to work.
The bird flew off before I could see whether it was a very large crow or a very small buzzard. Either way, it was impossible not to anthropomorphize the bird, with the it clearly screaming, "You killed this raccoon, MF! Look what you did! Just ... Look ... At ... What ... You ... Did!"
My morning had been like any other. I drive to work in the dark and always see at least a couple animals: possums, deer, raccoons, the occasional skunk. There are very few streetlights during my commute, so often I just see their eyes ghostly reflecting the light from my headlights.
I just requested The Straight Story from the library... It seemed appropriate.
But that morning, a raccoon had been on the side of the road. He saw me, I saw him. We both took evasive action. Unfortunately we both took evasive action right into each other. My front left tire made direct contact into dire consequences to the raccoon.
I felt bad.
I do hunt, so it may seem surprising that killing the raccoon made me feel bad. Our rural roads are littered with road kill - it happens all the time. But I don't like indiscriminate killing, killing for killing's sake. Maybe it is because I hunt that I'm sensitive to this. Killing an animal as a deliberate act to take it home and eat it is entirely different from killing an animal on my way to work. Thud-thud. The raccoon dies. So it goes.
The year I started hunting, a deer I shot was not recovered. This made me feel very, very bad at the time. The next season I found a deer skeleton about 100 yards beyond where I, and my neighbor who I was hunting with, stopped looking for the doe. I've always wondered if that was the same deer. I learned two lessons. One, don't take iffy shots (it wasn't, but I was excited). Two, if in doubt, always look a little more.
But there is an even larger lesson from an old deer skeleton. From the road kill that lay strewn across the roads. From the thud-thud of my truck's tires in the early morning hours. These dead animals don't lay around in perpetuity. Our roads are not strewn with an ever increasing pile of carcasses. Nothing in nature ever goes to waste.
From the putrid, road-kill skunk to the ground hog shot by a pellet gun after the third attempt to dig his hole along my house to the enormous dead whale on the bottom of the ocean, everything gets eaten. Everything dead feeds something else.
No, maggots and flies, coyotes, and turkey vultures may not be the most cute and cuddly of wild animals, but they all thrive on the dead. I've seen road-kill deer be turned into scattered bones within a matter of days in the heat of summer. The last remnants may go slowly, but feed a rich biome of microorganisms to trees.
So maybe that odd bird, hopping backwards across the road dragging the raccoon remains wasn't screaming how evil I am. Maybe that anthropomorphized avian was saying, "Look what you did! You made me dinner. I'm gonna eat well on this dead SOB!"
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Sunday, September 18, 2016
The Sounds of Summer
I've tried to listen to summer more this year.
Watching a local outdoors show in the depths of winter, it isn't unusual to have a summer scene come on. Sometimes I'll quit watching whatever the actual show is, and just listen to the background. Crickets. Tree frogs. Katydids. And of course cicadas.
I just got back from a vacation - a 6000 mile road trip out west. The two weeks of time spent motorcycling throughout the country was glorious. On the road every morning near daylight through some of the most amazing scenery in the country; a different town almost every night.
Outdoors sounds different in different places. The upper elevations, through mountains and high deserts are often quieter. Cooler, sometimes cold temperatures don't support the same kind of cold-blooded life; there was one morning where temperatures were near freezing while most of the Midwest was still in the pressure cooker of heat and humidity.
There is a lot to see in a seemingly parched desert, the landscape and geology is nothing short of amazing. But the invertebrates seem to live quieter, more solitary lives. I bet this changes during wet times, but I've never consciously experienced that.
The summer music has probably been more boisterous than many years, since there has been a lot of rain. The swampy part of the back yard has remained wet much of this year; the amount of life back there has been astounding.
As I let the dogs out first thing in the morning, I often pause, especially on clear mornings, and look up at the stars. I generally don't turn on the outside lights when I let the dogs out, and the stars can often be dramatic. The sound from the crickets and tree frogs is wonderful music. It accompanies the specks of light above in a way nothing else can. I often think about how fortunate I am to live in the Midwest - how fortunate I am to live in a rural area without cars buzzing around and artificial light to spoil the sky.
The neighborhood is rarely quiet when I get home from work in the afternoon. Over the din of distant lawn mowers or farm equipment, katydids are often squeaking, sounding like rusty springs. And the cicadas - oh the cicadas. Even though there aren't very many mature trees nearby, they still scream with the heat of the late summer day. Walking the dogs or riding the bike by areas with a lot of mature trees, things get even louder. What I'm always amazed by is how easy it is to tune this out - how this background noise becomes just that, background. And yet, stopping and listening, it is surprising just how deafening this often is.
Evenings wind down the singing of the day; at times there may be a period of almost complete stillness where everything collectively decides to shut up for a while. Maybe even the insects need a few minutes of quiet before the tree frogs start their nightly chorus.
On the road home from the recent road trip, I knew I was getting nearer to home by the sound (and the smell - the mowing of a roadside ditch filled with Queen Anne's lace). Above the whirring of the engine and buffeting of the wind on the motorcycle, I could hear cold-blooded creatures of all sorts creaking and buzzing while riding down a nearly empty road. I was somewhat pensive since the trip was almost over, but the noise kept me anxious to be home at the same time.
The stillness and quiet of winter is its own mystery to witness. Especially if there is snow on the ground to further muffle any sound, an eerily quiet winter morning is another phenomenon that should be experienced consciously. It is hard to compare this to the cacophony of summer.
The sounds of summer on TV in the depths of winter often seem louder than they are in real life. They aren't, it is just the wistful look forward and backward to what summer has provided and what it has to offer ... if we take the time to listen.
Watching a local outdoors show in the depths of winter, it isn't unusual to have a summer scene come on. Sometimes I'll quit watching whatever the actual show is, and just listen to the background. Crickets. Tree frogs. Katydids. And of course cicadas.
I just got back from a vacation - a 6000 mile road trip out west. The two weeks of time spent motorcycling throughout the country was glorious. On the road every morning near daylight through some of the most amazing scenery in the country; a different town almost every night.
Outdoors sounds different in different places. The upper elevations, through mountains and high deserts are often quieter. Cooler, sometimes cold temperatures don't support the same kind of cold-blooded life; there was one morning where temperatures were near freezing while most of the Midwest was still in the pressure cooker of heat and humidity.
There is a lot to see in a seemingly parched desert, the landscape and geology is nothing short of amazing. But the invertebrates seem to live quieter, more solitary lives. I bet this changes during wet times, but I've never consciously experienced that.
The summer music has probably been more boisterous than many years, since there has been a lot of rain. The swampy part of the back yard has remained wet much of this year; the amount of life back there has been astounding.
As I let the dogs out first thing in the morning, I often pause, especially on clear mornings, and look up at the stars. I generally don't turn on the outside lights when I let the dogs out, and the stars can often be dramatic. The sound from the crickets and tree frogs is wonderful music. It accompanies the specks of light above in a way nothing else can. I often think about how fortunate I am to live in the Midwest - how fortunate I am to live in a rural area without cars buzzing around and artificial light to spoil the sky.
The neighborhood is rarely quiet when I get home from work in the afternoon. Over the din of distant lawn mowers or farm equipment, katydids are often squeaking, sounding like rusty springs. And the cicadas - oh the cicadas. Even though there aren't very many mature trees nearby, they still scream with the heat of the late summer day. Walking the dogs or riding the bike by areas with a lot of mature trees, things get even louder. What I'm always amazed by is how easy it is to tune this out - how this background noise becomes just that, background. And yet, stopping and listening, it is surprising just how deafening this often is.
Evenings wind down the singing of the day; at times there may be a period of almost complete stillness where everything collectively decides to shut up for a while. Maybe even the insects need a few minutes of quiet before the tree frogs start their nightly chorus.
On the road home from the recent road trip, I knew I was getting nearer to home by the sound (and the smell - the mowing of a roadside ditch filled with Queen Anne's lace). Above the whirring of the engine and buffeting of the wind on the motorcycle, I could hear cold-blooded creatures of all sorts creaking and buzzing while riding down a nearly empty road. I was somewhat pensive since the trip was almost over, but the noise kept me anxious to be home at the same time.
The stillness and quiet of winter is its own mystery to witness. Especially if there is snow on the ground to further muffle any sound, an eerily quiet winter morning is another phenomenon that should be experienced consciously. It is hard to compare this to the cacophony of summer.
The sounds of summer on TV in the depths of winter often seem louder than they are in real life. They aren't, it is just the wistful look forward and backward to what summer has provided and what it has to offer ... if we take the time to listen.
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