We are walking, Amie and Amy and I, stopping so often that one mile of the rail trail between Marcott Road and the head of the pond takes us a good hour. I like to snail ahead like this with no sense of purpose except for looking, and then looking some more.
In the thickening evening shadows the forest soon begins to reveal itself. There is a dead Ring-neck snake, a secretive and seldom seen nocturnal snake I carry to the nearest stump for my companions to see. There are explosions of skunk cabbages, thick rugs of last year's leaves lining the forest floor and the approaching night filling bright spaces.
The best time. The hiding time. The emerging time.
We reach the narrow pond with its archipelago of beaver lodges and soon come upon a water snake -- no, not a Black rat snake, says Amie: "look at his broad jaws and a bit of a pattern on his sides" -- and two families of Canada geese trailed by their chicks. The geese play musical chairs of avoidance and waddle into the pond as we approach, swim ahead and pop up on the trail ahead of us again and again. There is a Kingfisher, flying low and steady. And then several Barred owls -- three? four? a whole battalion of Strix varia? -- start calling back and forth between tall deciduous trees fringing the pond, doing their nine-syllable hoots which people obsessed with cooking like to translate into some human phrases. These owls also shriek, trill, bark and hoot, as if urging the night to come.
A beaver lodge erected recently abuts the trail and looks sturdy, while others slowly disintegrate into an aquatic Shaker village abandoned years ago. And yes, there is even a beaver, swimming around the outflow cage and patiently plugging it with mud. A man in a pumpkin colored T-shirt watches the massive rodent with its Puritanical work ethic in full swing and loudly approves: "He discovered what he has to do to raise the pond: block the outlet!" and then trots away.
We approve everything, and nothing we see this evening is out of place as opposed to the virus and our face masks and the distance we try to maintain. If I move left, Amy or Amie will move to the right, walk forward or drop behind, a synchronized dance of safety we are good at maintaining. We are so good that once we return to the small parking and our three vehicles I want to hug them but I will not. We wave from a distance and I drive home. John had some annoying gut pains today and I want to see how he is doing.
I walk in and sense right away that something happened. Indeed: John tells me he was looking out the window and saw a rapid blur dropping below the grassy knoll near a scrawny peach tree he planted by spitting out a peach stone. He assumed it was a squirrel's tail but a few minutes later he saw it again: the light fuzzy color... a squirrel tail... but not quite. He opened the door and two wild turkeys squawked and ran out of sight. He turned and a large Barred owl perched nearby nailed him with her intense stare. And beneath her tree there was a small owl chick, alone. Did it fall? Since it had no business sitting on the ground so close to the den of foxes and other predators using our forest like an well-stocked pantry, it probably did.
The owlet, somewhat astounded by John's presence, started up a tall oak trunk. Young Barred owl chicks can climb trees by grasping the bark with their bills and sharp talons, flapping their wings, and walking their way up the trunk. A little rest?
More strenuous effort. And a real obstacle: one of the flapping small wings got caught on a sturdy oak twiglet.
I learn that John waited for a good while before he crept from behind the tree and gently snapped off the twig to free the wing. In spite of the route upward now open, the owlet soon fell to the ground again, then tried to climb two more trees -- these young maples are too damn smooth to serve as owlet ladders! -- and, with its alarmed parent bird calling, ran into the woods. John had no idea what happened next.
This morning I walk around and look for a pale head with fluffy feathers somewhere on the ground or -- more optimistically -- for the reunited owl family perched somewhere. Yet I see no one. Maybe we will spot them after evening shadows descend on the forest? But this evening we will be walking with Amie again, snailing ahead with no sense of purpose except for looking. And then looking some more.
©Yva Momatiuk
A beaver lodge erected recently abuts the trail and looks sturdy, while others slowly disintegrate into an aquatic Shaker village abandoned years ago. And yes, there is even a beaver, swimming around the outflow cage and patiently plugging it with mud. A man in a pumpkin colored T-shirt watches the massive rodent with its Puritanical work ethic in full swing and loudly approves: "He discovered what he has to do to raise the pond: block the outlet!" and then trots away.
We approve everything, and nothing we see this evening is out of place as opposed to the virus and our face masks and the distance we try to maintain. If I move left, Amy or Amie will move to the right, walk forward or drop behind, a synchronized dance of safety we are good at maintaining. We are so good that once we return to the small parking and our three vehicles I want to hug them but I will not. We wave from a distance and I drive home. John had some annoying gut pains today and I want to see how he is doing.
I walk in and sense right away that something happened. Indeed: John tells me he was looking out the window and saw a rapid blur dropping below the grassy knoll near a scrawny peach tree he planted by spitting out a peach stone. He assumed it was a squirrel's tail but a few minutes later he saw it again: the light fuzzy color... a squirrel tail... but not quite. He opened the door and two wild turkeys squawked and ran out of sight. He turned and a large Barred owl perched nearby nailed him with her intense stare. And beneath her tree there was a small owl chick, alone. Did it fall? Since it had no business sitting on the ground so close to the den of foxes and other predators using our forest like an well-stocked pantry, it probably did.
The owlet, somewhat astounded by John's presence, started up a tall oak trunk. Young Barred owl chicks can climb trees by grasping the bark with their bills and sharp talons, flapping their wings, and walking their way up the trunk. A little rest?
More strenuous effort. And a real obstacle: one of the flapping small wings got caught on a sturdy oak twiglet.
I learn that John waited for a good while before he crept from behind the tree and gently snapped off the twig to free the wing. In spite of the route upward now open, the owlet soon fell to the ground again, then tried to climb two more trees -- these young maples are too damn smooth to serve as owlet ladders! -- and, with its alarmed parent bird calling, ran into the woods. John had no idea what happened next.
This morning I walk around and look for a pale head with fluffy feathers somewhere on the ground or -- more optimistically -- for the reunited owl family perched somewhere. Yet I see no one. Maybe we will spot them after evening shadows descend on the forest? But this evening we will be walking with Amie again, snailing ahead with no sense of purpose except for looking. And then looking some more.
©Yva Momatiuk
