A Walk at the Equinox

I didn't mean to mark the vernal equinox. I just got up early and headed out, as I do most mornings, because that's all I really want to do any more--go out. I go out into the fields and find my friends.

You can look at the time stamp on this photo of the moon setting and there it is, 6:29 AM March 20, 2017. At the exact moment of the vernal equinox, I was standing in the driveway with the rising sun before me and the setting moon off to the south. And I thought, man, it doesn't get any better than this, that sun throwing pink and tangerine around to the east and the moon slipping down in sherbert lavender, way over there, to the south. What is it doing over there? Will you look at that! So I took a photo of it, not knowing that I was recording the equinox moonset, the exact moment of the day that night is equal.

And that's how I know there is something watching over me, something rich in magic. It guides me like a Tickle Bee, so I show up for the moments I need to experience. 

7:19 AM, March 20. The meadow is aglow. I know the cloud cover will soon coalesce and close over again. That's mornings in March, and one reason I get up and out. If I'm to have only one audience with the sun, let it be as it rises.

I also get out because I need to get my poo-mail. Bobcat, very fresh. Oh yes, very fresh and shiny.

Wild turkey, fresh, too. There's corn nearby, so there are deer and turkey and bobcats too.

I walked another 20 minutes and found some deer, but they caught my scent first and all I saw was white flags waving and the tha-dunk of heavy hooves on duff. I much prefer to spot them first. 

I see this older buck most mornings. I haven't named him, but I know him to see him. He is one to stand still and watch me from behind the trees. He is very savvy, and knows how to duck behind trunks and drop below slopes to avoid being seen. By now it was 6:50 and I was well into my morning.

I lingered around the far haymeadow, the one with the sweeping curves, for another hour or so, watching whatever came my way. By now the sun had that quality of coming from under a low lid. I knew it would soon disappear for the day, as it seems to always do in an Ohio Valley winter. But for now, this first day of spring, it was raking across the greening winter wheat, and I was soaking up as much as I could.

Laughing, crazy, over the field came two pileated woodpeckers, one passing like a bullet through budding branches. I love how these big birds fly, powering so hard, then gliding, wings closed to their startlingly light bodies, cutting the air like the head of a javelin. Reveling, I know, in the surety of their passage, propelled by a few powerful wingbeats, then cut loose to coast.

 

I know they must enjoy themselves because they laugh the whole way. I thought about the one road-killed pileated I'd picked up, fresh, and I remember it was like picking up a plastic beer stein. It's got you fooled, looking like it would be heavy as leaded glass. I remember thinking, "Why, there's nothing at all to it. It's all wing, a little muscle holding them together."

By 8:01 I had walked all the way back home to find Pinky and Flag just visible out in the pale little bluestem, that's fading so fast with spring sun. Look closely, and click on the photos to see them well.

Their coats are fading, too, soon to drop and be replaced with summer red. I am looking forward to that.

I messed around back at the house, getting ready to go to town to run a bunch of errands, to reprovision after being gone for a week. Chet needed a vet visit, too. So I packed him in the car and headed out the driveway, only to find a bundle of black and white rags snuffling around in the meadow. I turned around by the mailbox and headed right back to the studio for my big camera. I will not miss playing with a skunk. My errands could wait.

I've been playing with skunks lately. There are so many skunks this year.  This makes me happy, as I adore them. I asked Phoebe why there might be an overabundance of skunks this spring. Her eyes flew open wide and not missing a beat she answered "Cicadas!" I knew then that the magic passes through this child, too, straight from the equinox moon and into her marvelous mind.  This one who, when she was about 6, pulled me out to see a silvery checkerspot butterfly because it was "diffwent fwom the pearl cwescent." Yes, of course, she's got it. Turkeys, bobcats, skunks...all bred and raised on the great bounty of periodical cicadas that rose up and then rained down on us with clattering wings last spring. 

Skunks are peaceful creatures. They eat when they're hungry. They don't look at their watches. 

Skunks don't have to be wary. Their weapons are always ready.

And yet all they want to do is dig and eat and find other skunks to mate with. The last thing they want to do is stink the place up. I respect skunks, but I don't fear them at all.

I creep closer, staying low. Soon enough the skunk comes to, sensing me near. Smelling me, most likely, for they don't use their eyes much, and they seem not to pay much attention to soft footfalls drawing near. He sniffed the air.

And he looked right at me. Please click on the photo, and admire the white base of each tail hair, something I hadn't seen before. He's fancy!

And with that, he trundled into the nearby woods, wanting only to celebrate the Equinox alone. Not even knowing what I was celebrating, I'd done the same.

Get out there. It's all waiting for you.

Turkeys in the Straw, Geese on the Levee

In our birding safari, we proceeded from the Harmar Bridge in Marietta, Ohio, to the Levee, where Canada geese gather to stare out at the river, poop, honk, and wait for the people who feed them. This gentleman liked their lineup, and got down low to photograph them. It's not often I see people doing the things I do.

Several photos taken, he strode off.

I swung the lens around just in time to catch another smooch in progress. My goodness those young people do a lot of smooching.

I'm sorry. I can't help it. It's just so sweet. I'll leave you alone now. I'll go photograph somebody else. 

I found some hipsters taking pictures of each other. 

They were extremely skinny, and the guy had a big ol' bee beard. Somebody please explain to me the big ol' bee beard thing, especially when it's paired with super skinny cigarette pants and knit hats. I don't get it. Nah, that's OK. There's no explaining fashion to me. Fashion left me in the fog years ago. These people clearly know what they're doing. I'm wearing the same dung-colored clothes I've always worn.

We walked toward the confluence of the Muskingum and the Ohio, where it's legal to feed ducks and geese (they don't let people do that on the Levee. Too much poop.)

There was a young musician practicing guitar there. What a nice thing to see! On this murky warmish day, people were out doing interesting things. I love walking around Marietta. It's waking up in so many wonderful ways.

And there was Greta, Queen of the Levee! I love seeing my good old friends. She was looking strong as always. 

A pretty good looking black duck...but I had a feeling it had mallard genes, or it wouldn't have been sleeping on the levee with me standing right there. 

A sleepy mallard drake peeked at us, then closed his eye, then peeked. His eyelids are white. I explained to Liam how birds can sleep with one half of their brain at a time, and keep the other half engaged and peeking around for danger. I think I do something like that, too.

I was searching the levee's earthen slopes for a familiar shape. 

Mr. Lonely! the hybrid goose (Canada x Chinese swan-necked) who I saved from entangling monofilament back on Nov. 3, 2016. 

photo by Dorothy Lowe

I always fancy he remembers me. He looks like he does. I was pleased to see his feet healthy and unswollen once again. What a guy, what a goose. I love his spirit. 

He showed me how well his feet work. 

The next thing we did was drive across the river. We were driving along the flats in Boaz, WV, just across the river from Marietta, when we saw a zillion dark specks in a cornfield. 

We piled out of the car at an historic cemetery to get a closer look.

Ivy climbs the old oaks, and yuccas mark the graves.

I love cemeteries. Without this one, there'd surely be a housing development there. But such old cemeteries represent sacred ground, and nobody wants to mess with the people sleeping there.

We peered out of the trees at the massive flock of wild turkeys feeding on waste corn.

When they finally clumped together to adjourn to the forest, I counted 72--my largest flock ever.

I would not be surprised if this spectacular abundance of turkeys is a direct result of the periodical cicada brood of the summer of 2016. Every poult that needed something to eat got it, in spades.  The biggest flock I'd ever counted until now was 17 years ago, during the last cicada outbreak, and that was 41 hens and poults right in our meadow. And they were all eating cicadas.

Our last bird of the day was a rattling kingfisher, somewhere in the mists on the mighty Ohio.

Well, the time has come for another fiddle tune from the Talented Mr. Husic and the Talented Mr. Thompson.

This KitchenMusic tune comes with snap peas AND cauliflower, and a girl eating that cauliflower! Here's "Squirrel Hunters!" I love this one because Bill and Corey are nice and loose from an afternoon of sledding with Liam and Phoebe. I did not partake, for shingly reasons. I could not imagine sitting on a plastic sled, bumping over frozen ground at a high rate of speed. I may never be able to imagine that again.

 Please pardon my hillbilly hollering at the end. I get excited. I love having live old-time music in my kitchen!!!!! WOOOOO!!!

Big Sean the Brush-Wolf

I was headed for the car, which was loaded up with packages, a bit before noon on May 16. My destination: the Lower Salem post office. I was already pushing it for time, but I knew I could make it before the place shut down at noon sharp. I raked the meadow with my eyes, the way I always do, and picked up a distant anomaly.

First look.  Oh, that's something good out there in the meadow. That's a canid.

Grabbed my car binoculars to confirm. Coy-wolf, brush wolf, eastern coyote, hybrid canid. Take your pick. Big male. Catching and eating small things. Jackpot!

I happened to have my Canon 7D with me because going anywhere in May without it is just stupid.
There is so much to see and photograph in May. Every time the animal dropped his head, I ran closer.
Looking at these shots, I'm pretty confident he was picking off freshly-emerged periodical cicadas as they clung to the grass blades. Brood V is coming out of the ground in Ohio after its 17-year sleep!! if the rain and cold ever subside. The first few have started coming out. Bracing myself. It's gonna be huge.

 And thus I kicked off my personal Brood V Project: to photograph as many creatures as possible, exploiting the abundant food these cicadas provide. So far, coy-wolf is the first, and a new one for me. Cardinal: #2.  The way my biology professor friend Dave McShaffrey puts it, "This is like Halley's Comet coming around for astronomers. Brood V is an entomologist's Halley's Comet." Exactly. I don't pretend to be an entomologist, but I had a blast documenting species eating cicadas in the summer of 1999, when I didn't even have a proper camera. This time: look out.

Finally I got close enough to the preoccupied coy-wolf to get his attention. I'm sure he smelled me before he saw me. He suddenly picked his head up. Imagine being able to smell a reasonably fresh human down the length of a football field.

He raised his head higher when he saw me.

There was that moment when he said, "Oh, crap. Now what?"

 He looked away in annoyance and confusion. How could I have let that woman creep up so close to me? What an idiot I am. Having so much fun eating these delicious big bugs I completely overlooked the fact that there's a house up there. And primates pop out of it during the daytime. Duh, Wile E.

Gonna mosey on.

I marveled at the heft and beauty of this animal. There is coyote in him, yes, but there's a lot of something else, too, something big, dark, strong. Eastern wolf, Canis rufus. We didn't quite manage to exterminate them. Left just enough of them in a Canadian refuge to mingle their genes with those of western coyotes and produce something larger, stronger, brainier and more adaptable than any canid we've ever seen. Evolution, afoot.

Evolution happens, right before our eyes. It's always and still happening, whether we acknowledge the process or not.  No Deus ex machina required.

The pattern of his coat, the fine white bib and the red flammulation. The fine stippling of his dark fur, tan, red and black; the thick ruff and long legs. The shorter, deeper muzzle; the robust dentition; the bigger feet. This creature is genetically set to take down much larger prey than cicadas. Groundhogs. Deer. Feral cats, to name a few. Welcome, coy-wolf! Eat hearty! We are serving all your favorites today. 

I was grateful to be so close, thankful to have caught him on my camera. What a gift. How do I know he's a guy? Too big and bulky to be a gal. I can't really see his bits in any of my photos, but there's enough to suggest his sex in his build. Though a radiotagged female coy-wolf in Massachusetts tipped the scales at 60 pounds, twice the bulk of a western coyote.

 "Coyote" just doesn't fit. I like "brush wolf." Might start using that.  And "Coy-wolf" is a lingual stumble. It has no music to it.

He glared at me. Thanks for wrecking my hunting, woman.

His ears, set backward in disappointment.

With a last stink-eye at me, he simply melted into the unmown half of the meadow.

I saw him enter it, but never saw him exit. There's an open path on the far side of the tall vegetation he's going into that he'd have to cross to gain the woods. I never saw him cross it, and repeated scans of the unmown half with my binoculars showed he'd simply disappeared. What he actually did, I'm almost sure, was come toward me until he was behind a small rise, then dart behind that into the woods. 

I love the gotohell look on his face. He's not afraid of me. He just knows he has to curtail his current, enjoyable activity (eating tender, freshly emerged cicadas) and beat it out of here. Because that's how the world works. He's the king of his little pack; his basso profundo howl makes shivers run up and down my spine, but he's outta here, because the two-legged pale creature cannot be trusted. Might be packing heat.

Because my kids have polluted my steady musical diet of Americana with the songs that most move them, I've named this magnificent animal Big Sean. There are times when his hit song is the only thing I want to hear. Had it up to here with it all, OK with explicit rap? Enjoy. Heck of a bit of filmmaking and acting--Big Sean manages to convey hurt and a sweet vulnerability despite his profane braggadocio. I can hear my kids and their friends (I'm lookin' at you, Thunder Squad) laughing at my pin-headed critique, reading my stiff appraisal aloud even as I write.

Easily offended? I pray of you, don't click. And if you do, and get all huffy, scolding me is not your best choice. Like coy-wolves, like evolution, explicit material is going down all around us.

I never made it to the post office. That's OK. I had an audience with Big Sean, whom I adore.

 Who hates me. 

 I'm OK with that, too.