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Backyard Nature“close encounters” with animals off the screen |
5 Comments |
| By Steve Balogh in Education, Green Living, Simple Living | May 11, 2008 | ||
There’s nothing like seeing a wild animal in real life. Nature shows are great, and the footage available is impressive (see the Planet Earth series for example). However, I prefer the rarer “close encounters” with animals off the screen.
This spring, I’ve have the luck of being in the right place at the right time, right outside my front door. Several weeks ago, just after midnight, I ran out to my car to get something. As I stepped out the door, I noticed a deer out of the corner of my eye, slowly walking towards the road. At the same time I heard a car coming up the street (don’t worry, this story has a happy ending…) Instead of the car barreling down the street and reducing the deer population by one, it saw the deer and slowed down. The deer froze in my front yard. The driver made a few noises like he was calling his cat, and the deer nonchalantly walked away from the car – and right towards me. I stood motionless, thinking “I can’t believe how big this animal really is.” The deer passed right on the other side of the bush in front of me – stopping when it caught my scent. I was less than five feet away. Time slowed to a stand still, and my heart was racing. I was eye to eye with a glorious looking doe. After one hour 15 seconds – the jig was up. The deer saw me and did its best imitation of a cartoon character, spinning its legs in place before barreling out of there.
A week or so after that while locking up, I noticed another doe walking up from the side of my house. I stepped out and watched one deer after another come around the side of the house and head for the woods across the street. Six does passed by – this time at a stones throw. Funny thing was each one stopped – and looked both ways(!) – before crossing the road. The big mommas and the little babies all knew to check both ways before venturing over the blacktop. Pretty incredible to see adaptation in action.
The last little encounter might not be much to write home about, but it was still a wonderful break in my day. Around dusk, I headed out side and heard a little commotion on the side of the house. I saw a plump little brown body scurry under the garage. I waited and watched as a beady little head popped up out of the hole – a woodchuck. He and I entered a staring contest of sorts. He trying to figure out if I were there to do him harm, and myself thinking “I can’t believe that that little bugger lives under my garage!”
All of these little glimpses of nature have stuck with me. They made me feel alive.
Appreciating the scope and diversity of the animal life on this planet is important. I’ll be sure that my children have access to nature videos, books, and the like. However, just as importantly, I’ll take them out in the yard, and show them how wonderful our local “critters” are.
[photo via Wikipedia]
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N. & J. said,
Right now I’m trying to find a new job and so last week I had a second interview at the company headquarters. As I was sitting in the car composing myself I saw over 10 rabbits hopping around and playing. They would come right up to the building and I think had their home in one of large shrubs flanking the entrance. They were fun to watch and it made me feel good that this was a company that didn’t view the rabbits as pests and try to get rid of them.
Marian Van Eyk McCain said,
You’re so right. When people learn that my partner and I have lived a TV-less life for 23 years they often say “Oh but there are some wonderful Nature shows.” And I think to myself that I only have to walk outside my front door for a Nature show. Any day, any time.
If we are so focused on the big, fast and flashy ones involving lions and wildebeeste or breaching whales we ignore the myriad smaller, slower Nature shows – the conversations between magpies, the slow uncurling of a fern frond, or a grass snake daring to sun itself on the garden path. And the really tiny ones, like the Herculean labors of an ant with a load four times its size or a spider’s leap of faith as it bungee-jumps into space on a gossamer thread, we don’t even notice at all.
The encounters that stay with us for ever are those face-to-face ones. The eye contact, the wordless recognition of the Other. (Even if – like your doe – the Other takes one look and gets the hell out fast). Precious moments.
Bobg said,
About twenty years ago I was in Big Basin State Park in California. My daughter, her kids and I had gotten an ice cream cone and were eating them in front of the visitor’s center. A large buck (antlers and all) walked up the driveway and started to pass within eight feet of us. I slowly put my ice cream out toward the buck and he stretched toward it and his nose was going a mile a minute. The buck wanted that ice cream but he wasn’t about to get any closer. After a minute he figured that it wasn’t worth getting closer to me so he continued on to the woods.
Jose said,
What an amazing experiencie. Thanks for sharing it!
Kory said,
If its the same groundhog from my neighborhood, he’s probably looking for a drink of water. One got into my cayenne plants last year, haven’t seen him since.