LED BY AN OWL

Walking through the woods beside my cabin in full daylight, I noticed an owl fly over my head. I stopped and watched it as it circled me a few times.

Then it took off in a different direction than its original azimuth, quickly disappearing over the trees. I departed my plans (I can't remember what they were ... perhaps just taking a walk? maybe I had no plans) and left the dirt road and followed in the direction the owl had gone. I walked a while then quit. Now what?

The owl came from somewhere to my right at that moment and passed slowly over the top of me and exited my perceptions to the forward left. I followed that for a while. I cannot remember now how I determined where to stop -- it was in a little clearing each time, maybe that was the marking point -- but stop I did. Now what?

No kidding, the owl came over within seconds, and 'led' me in another direction. I wonder if the owl had been watching me from a perch, or if it could hear me and could tell when I stopped stomping on the bell-like earth, stumbling over unevennesses, crunching brush, breathing like a locomotive, and maybe even speaking aloud in my attempt to maintain contact with the owl. Whatever, whenever I stopped I had to wait only seconds until the owl passed overhead again.

The owl and I repeated this little routine 6 times, each time, I realize now, with about a 60 degree deviation each time to my left. At the end of these 'trips' I was standing where I had started, on the two-tire track dirt road, and the owl flew off in the direction he had been going when we first met.

Wildlife is much more intelligent than I gave credit when I was a kid. Octopuses (or is it octopi?) communicate with at least with dance and by changing their color through chromotoplasts. We are like, duh, stupid, in octopus language. I can't even stand on my tiptoes and turn black and white. Duh.

I think part of an owl's communication is direction and speed relative to the object with whom the the conversation is going, and relative the subject matter.

One other observation. I can imitate a few owl calls ... well, I thought I was pretty good. But when I make the sound that I think I hear, the deer are startled and start moving away. Somehow my sound is 'human'. I think the deer can 'hear' the human vocal cords. But when I make the owl call in my mouth with a dental-labial fricative, kind of a hum/whistle, the deer are not alarmed and the owl seems to be willing to accept the sound as conversation.

I felt blessed to have been part of this conversation.

A MOOSE IN THE HOOSE

I have removed this post, then reposted it so I could rid the Comments section of several noisome advertisements. Blah! I don't even like advertisements on my clothes! I don't like telling people that I am wearing Adida shoes or a Ralph Lauren shirt. Fooey on that K.R.A.P. To those of you who made genuine comments, I extend my thanks. --Thunderpen

Friday, June 11, 2004

A Moose in the Hoose

Many of us live in Montana because it’s close to the wild. Closer to the Earth is more pristine, colder, cleaner, and it rejuvenates the spirit. We have wild water, wild air and …

… wildlife: Nancy and I were working in the garden when she exclaimed, "Parris, look! There's an elk in the yard!" She has exceptionally sharp eyes for critters.

Elk in the yard — much rarer lately — so I’m glad to hear it. I look. I can see only its nose. But it didn't look quite right. Darker. Its nose ...

Then it moved. It was a moose.

The moose, a young leggy female, moved around to the back of the house and then, I thought, went down the hill to the little remnant pond.

Later, in early dusk, Nancy looked up from the kitchen table and exclaimed, "Parris! (That's my name. It comes up a lot.) It's the moose! She's down by the garden now."

Sure enough. That dark lovely just ambled around and smelled or tasted everything. I thought at one point I would have to chase her away from my little elm tree, but she didn't do much damage. She tried this and sampled that. She’d bite a 2X4. Sniff the pickup. She was like a puppy that will eat or chew anything. She nibbled her way right up to the house. All three of us rushed toward the bedroom, the two of us on the inside and the moose on the outside.

We stood one bedlength away as she tasted the glass of the bedroom windows and bit at the mullions.
I had my camera in hand, but I refrained from taking a shot for three reasons. First, if I shoot through the glass, the reflection of the flash destroys the image on the other side. Second, I didn’t want to scare her away. And third, a sense of awe and respect had settled over us.

When she moved toward the north side of the house, Nancy and I rushed to the backdoor and watched her munch on my little maple trees. Then we froze like statues as this beautiful beast came right up to the window. We stood, still as Hummel painted porcelain children, as she gazed at us, through a double-paned window and perhaps 18” of space.

She licked the glass right in front of our faces.