An adventure in the Colorado Rockies

Hi All!

I'm here in the Rockies, soaking up the forest and wildlife, and sweet, clean air. Before I start telling you about this latest adventure, please read the comment attached to the post below this, the one w/ the link to the barn owl alliance. Tom has some ideas about owl box and ramp design that you ought to look at and see if you think it's good. The only comment I would make about the ramp is that you don't want it to go directly to the entrance of the box, lest predators use it for easy access to the owlets. A ramp to a nearby perch or platform from which they could fly-hop to the perch in front of the door would be best in that case.

About yesterday:
Not one day goes by here without some kind of wildlife encounter or adventure! I was sitting here by my bedroom window writing an email to Sy Montgomery, of all people, when I had a big bird adventure (Sy's new book is called Birdology). As I was emailing, I heard crows making a ruckus, then heard the sound of something crashing through the trees and a thump on the ground. I leapt out of my chair and looked out the window. The crows were now on the ground (crows? They were huge. Maybe they were ravens. I'm not sure. They were as big as small barn owls). And then I saw a large animal thrashing on the ground w/ the crows attacking it. I thought it was the mother rabbit who lives in the wood pile below my window. She has babies, so I started yelling, "Stop it! Leave her alone! Go away!"

This didn't have the effect I had wanted so I threw on some sandals and raced down the stairs and out the back door, and up the embankment toward the crows, yelling. As I did, they backed off and the animal they were attacking stood up. It was a female red tailed hawk! She was beautiful, magnificent!

She was shaken and took a second to get her bearings, then she flew away as fast as she could. Thank God her wings or back were not broken. I was worried they might have pecked her eyes so I followed her. So did the crows. I followed crows and flushed crows for about an hour, and I tromped around the forest looking very carefully for the Red Tailed Hawk and for perhaps any babies or fallen nest.

Apparently there had been no fallen babies. Cait didn't think they had a nest nearby, and she's an astute observer of nature, so she would know.

But here's the part that I've never experienced before:
As I walked through the forest, it was completely devoid of animal sounds. All the animals were aware of what had happened. As I peered closely at trees and branches, and even at the ground, I began to see the animals, lots and lots of animals, frozen in place as they had been when this all happened. I walked right up to a branch at eye level where an adolescent gray squirrel sat like a statue, not even twitching his tail or moving his eyes. He was not afraid of me, compared to a hawk or mob of crows. I stood looking at him and talking to him for awhile and then moved on. When I came back that way, he was still frozen in place.

I would have thought something was wrong with him, except that the birds were also frozen! I saw some amazing birds, all completely still. I would have stepped on one had I not been looking where I was going. They were not trying to get away from me at all! They knew the hawk or crows were the greater threat. I was impressed by how long every animal stayed frozen - long after the hawk and crows had left the area. These animals are WILD animals and are survivors.

It was almost an hour before I began to hear birdsong and see chickadees and finches moving in the trees again.

The amazing thing was that it felt like time had stopped and I was walking through some kind of museum piece, where the animals are forever preserved in position at the "waterhole" or in the "forest". The other amazing thing is that the animals had figured out that the greater threat was the hawk/crows.

Later that day, Cait and I took a walk on the roads around her house, and we heard the crows again. This time we knew that it meant there was a predator around. So we looked down the slope to where the crows were making their ruckus and we saw a large fox trotting along with a VERY ANNOYED look on his face. The crows had ruined any chance of him getting a good hunt, because they had alarmed every animal for who knows how far around that there was a predator in the area! He looked soo annoyed, like he was saying, "Scat! Get away! Shoot! Shoot shoot. There goes my dinner. Gosh darn it. Go away. Stupid crows. I hate when this happens."

Again, he wasn't concerned with us at all but continued to trot, annoyed, away.

I am continually amazed at the dramas that go on around us in the wilderness. The fox's ruined day, the hawk's trauma, the terrible fright the birds and squirrels had. Each species has their own world, their own culture, their own dramas and fears and triumphs, and they are all emotional about what happens in their day or night.

I wonder what today will bring?

This is how humans are meant to live - in the middle of all this. This is how we have lived for millions of years. The more out of touch we become with the wild ones, the more out of touch we become with ourselves, because this is the world that we share with the wild ones.

I look at the selfishness, the pure greed, the evil that spawned this oil nightmare. Some of America's most precious land is being as surely destroyed as if an enemy combatant had dropped a nuclear bomb on the area. It's the chernobyl of America. And the fact that a foreign country did this to us is even more odious. It just feels like we've been bombed by some other country. It's not THEIR land, animals, precious delicate habitats, that are being destroyed! They can go on as they please, while they ruin some of the most irreplaceable habitat on earth.

Thank God we didn't let anyone "drill, baby, drill". Remember hearing that it was "perfectly safe" and how "there were so many precautions in place that drilling would not affect the environment?" Well I give you exhibit A in the gulf of how "safe" it is. I'm so furious and so sad and helpless I can't even express it. It's the most helpless feeling.

I love the fact that there is one parish that is not waiting, not taking no for an answer. In Louisiana they have learned not to wait for help from the federal government. They've lost any sense of innocence about that. So they're dredging and creating a sandbar to block the oil from reaching their wetlands. They have t-shirts that say, "Dredge, baby, Dredge"> haha.

When you are in a habitat where wild animals are carrying out their precious lives in front of you every day, you realize that they have emotions, attachments, friends, family, love, empathy, pain, joy, playfulness, and you realize how precious they really are. If we all lived like we were made to live - in close proximity w/ nature - I think we would not be so glib about using this earth and these animals as if they were all here just for us to exploit. They are not "ours" to exploit!

A little humility would go a long way in almost every one of these cases where animals or habitats get abused by pompous, arrogant people who have no idea who they're hurting when they hurt these wild ones. We're not only hurting them, but by hurting them, we are hurting ourselves.

Maybe someday, we will collectively understand this. I hope it's not too late by then.

-Stacey