My mother was good with wild creatures. She took in injured birds -- including those delivered by the local game warden -- and cared for them them until they were healthy again or could be turned over to qualified vet care. Which is why, for at least some chunk of time in my childhood, it was not surprising to find whole mice frozen solid and Saran-wrapped in the freezer. Or moles. Sometimes, opening the cold cave of the Frigidaire, a girl could come nose-to-nose with a furry dead rabbit donated by a passing hunter. Most often, when a hunter appeared at our door, it was to borrow the dog (an excellent retriever) for a day of duck- or goose-hunting. But sometimes, it would be a gift instead: a wounded bird of prey or a brace of dead rodents for whatever raptor was already convalescing at our house. Once, while Daddo slapped together an appropriate box, a wounded Snowy Owl strode angrily around the living room, clacking its beak in warning with a sound like a softball connecting with a hickory bat. Another time, there was a winsome little Screech Owl who would lean into a petting for as long as anyone had patience to continue. A sparrow-hawk was among the first of those rescue birds I remember clearly. A fledgleling Falco sparverius was found huddled beside the road, and someone thought to bring it to Mumsie. It was not far from being able to fly, but the bird needed practice catching prey. Mumsie built a little set of jesses for it from a picture in a book about falconry, so that she could retrieve the bird after short flights. That sparrow-hawk's training as a tiny killer culminated when Mumsie staked out a live mouse for it -- a tiny noose around a tiny hind leg fastened to a nail driven into the dirt at the base of the bird's perch. After a brief, anticipatory pause, the bird stooped and mantled (as the falconers phrase it) over the rodent. In a very few moments, with only a few faint sounds, all that was left was the little loop at the end of the string and a happy bird ready to go into the wide world.
And of course my sister and me looking at one another across the bird's head with a complicated mixture of reactions. So many of these childhood adventures seem to end -- in my memory anyhow -- with my sister and me looking at one another: both astonished and jaded, at the same time witnessing and disbelieving, and knowing that we will be telling this story one day.
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This was one of the first images I took with a digital camera. It's an Anhinga, a fish-spearing, southern-swampy watery sort of bird. The scientific name is Anhinga anhinga, a slightly slightly repetitive name name originating from a Native American term for the bird -- which is, of course, anhinga.
Anhingas spend a fair amount of time spreading their wings in this eerie pose, reminiscent of a Karate Kid preparing for his big Crane kick. Known, among other things as the snake-bird, it looks a bit like a cormorant, but is not much related. These birds prefer fresh water, they have very pointy beaks, when they are moved to speak, they sound vaguely like a clarinet -- one raspy note, low on the scale.
When they travel in packs, they are known as "a kettle of anhinga." Sometimes, when you look up, you can spot one simply gliding around on a thermal at high altitudes, barely flapping its wings, like a vulture or an eagle. I suspect they have rich imaginative lives, the anhinga, going from sea-level to cruising altitude for their own mysterious purposes. I wonder if soaring is a relief for them, a break from the hard work of sinking into the water and chasing fish. I wonder if they compare which vasty blue space they like best: the one with air or the one with food? So much happens in the world. My own lawn -- a flat, sandy square with sparse, seasonal grass -- is rich with drama. Lizards defending their turf, ant-lions excavating their circular traps, spiders trapeze-ing around, the odd turtle cruising through. This week, when the sun was out, I happened upon an enormous grub crawling out of the ground. Pale, translucent, squirmy, better than two inches long. I wish I could un-see it. Why was it on the move in the middle of winter? Scientific curiosity muscled aside by revulsion, I flicked it onto the shed roof so that a mockingbird might make a meal of it. I admit the birds' drama interests me most: the chirpy purple martins who return each year (so early! I spotted the first scouts in January), the pair of owls who invaded and occupied a squirrel's nest last year, the mob of raucous crows bedeviling the owls. Crossing the sandy lawn, I spot a mess of feathers by the mailbox: a single flight-feather, big handful of curled coverts, and drifting snowflakes of pale down. The scene is bloodless, but it must have been a massacre. A Cooper's hawk probably, taking a mourning dove at speed. Not to brood on the "nature red in tooth and claw"* character of wildlife, but there's this: What manner of creature stuffed this narrow gap between two channel-markers with the dismembered wings of seagulls? A rogue osprey? An angry human? What other bird-of-prey hunts the open bay?
Was this -- like the fried chicken bones left in a pile along the sea-wall -- the remains of an alfresco picnic? Wings, after all, not being the most nutritious bit of bird? Did someone or somebird perform the dismemberment for vengeance? A bird-feud, a bird-vendetta? Were the wings left as warning? Surely the owners of these wings did not just keel over and land there, did they? I've never seen it a second time, but the mystery haunts me. (*"Nature red in tooth and claw" is a quotation from Tennyson's "In Memorium," a long meditation on doubt and the afterlife.) Like some other birds, vultures spend their winter months soaking up the sun and playing canasta with their friends in the sunny South. Or anyhow the carrion-eater's version of canasta, which seems to involve the rubber gaskets of your car windows and doors. The park angers warn you upon entry to the Myakka River State Park: the vultures will nibble any exposed rubber on your car. They'll peck away the seals on your windshields. They'll chomp on your sidewalls. And they are good at this: they can remove the weather-stripping from a mini-van in under an hour. ...No, the rangers don't know why these creatures do such a thing, but there it is. A vice. Among vultures. Our annual Christmas camping trip a few years ago brought us -- Jeff and me and the small dog -- to Myakka River State Park. (It's a thing we do, hopping into the RV and nipping away for a day or two over the holidays.) Myakka is a couple of hours south, a pleasant enough drive. It boasts 57 square miles of wilderness with an oak-canopy walk, wide river-of-grass vistas, and a whole lot of alligators. It's rightly billed as "Where the River and Prairie Meet the Sky." But the camping area itself is surprisingly compact, with tents and camping vehicles and portable dog kennels and such packed tightly. A crowded little island of humanity. The racket of generators and recorded Christmas songs and people shouting quickly nudged us on a long walk with the dog after sunset. Less than a hundred yards away from the camping area, along the paved road still radiating the day's heat, artificial sound faded. We swept flashlight-beams into the trees, hoping to spot bats or flying squirrels. With the lights switched off, the dark seemed to first press in close and then back away. The stars were bright in the gaps between the oak boughs above. When we stopped to listen, we heard coyotes in the distance, the sound incongruously dry for the marshy surroundings. We walked on, silent, the little dog leaning, in her Boston-Terrier way, at the end of her nylon leash. The yipping and howling got a bit louder -- whether clearing some sound-break or growing closer it was impossible to say in the dark. Then the sound of the coyotes was much closer still, and Jeff said, "This is not good." "Don't worry," I assured him. "They are shy. Listen to them." Jeff knows about alligators, sure, I was thinking, but I know canids. And our dog was snuffling unconcernedly at the pavement. She's a good watch-dog, our Lilly. She pipes up when there's conflict. The yodeling, yelling, yapping cries -- continual now -- grew very loud. There were at least several different voices, all talking at once, the sound like the torment of souls. As anyone who's been camping in Florida can tell you: an armadillo the size of a meatloaf moves through dry palmetto with roughly the same sonic footprint as a marauding elephant. By the volume of their vocalizing, the pack could have been right next door. It seemed remarkable that we didn't hear the pack moving through the underbrush. Then nothing. As if someone had shut off the radio, the silence stunned and absolute. Jeff's alarm infected me. "Come on, dog," I said. I jiggled the leash and she, still unconcerned, obligingly turned back the way we'd come. Night fog was settling as we crested a small rise, and then -- as we entered the damper, misty bit of lowland -- we could smell the pack. The scent clinging to the fog was rank, musky, unmistakably wild. "They are probably watching." Jeff said, his voice low. We skedaddled back to the lights and the noise of the crowded campground. We listened intently for the coyotes to resume their serenade, but they kept silent. Probably watching. The next day at the ranger station on our way out, I told the ranger. "We heard coyotes!" I recounted how while we were walking our small dog, we'd heard a chorus of them. How they'd come close, closer, then went silent. How we'd picked up their actual scent in the hollow. "Next time," the ranger said, his voice calm as he stamped some papers. "You might want to pick up and carry the little dog." I repeated the ranger's words as Jeff steered the RV back through the gates of the park. "Next time," Jeff echoed the phrase, consideringly. "Next time, we'll make her a little bacon-suit." "Gah!" I replied. Then, "Hey!" Outrage rendering me inarticulate. Keeping eyes on the road, he said, "Who doesn't like bacon?" |
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