Chasing Nature

Muskrat, Upper Herring Lake inlet

I remember Grandma Maginity fearlessly chasing a badger out of her garden, armed with a broom and her voice. This is the same gear she used to chase the neighbor's cows away, too. But a badger! I didn't get to see it, just the activity to chase it. Grandma was fearless.

 A younger Grandma Effie than I knew

I remember when one of my brothers came running in, white-faced and terrified, from taking out the trash one night. He had heard a scream in the dark. A bobcat was near. (Since I posted this, my brother corrected me. The bobcat and  he came face to face at the garbage pit and looked each other in the eye!)

Our huge dining room window faces East, into the sunrise. Eating breakfast required squinting. There was a barn and an open field. One morning, my brother's dog Sarge brought home a friend. Or it brought him; never sure how this happened. The dog was a beagle, the friend was a fox. We watched, entranced, as they played tag with each other. One would crouch down and the other would run round and round, closing the circle, until they touched noses. Then they would trade spots.

It was wonderful.

The dam on the Betsie River was pretty near right behind our house, and we used to walk back to it quite often. There were orderly rows of pines, planted in the 1950's and not very tall back then. One day I was running through the pines just to run, and a doe apparently was doing the same thing. We stopped, frozen on a bed of moss, not five feet from each other. Frozen and holding our breath. How long we stood and stared at each other I do not know. Time stopped.

If I don't move, you can't see me, right?

Grandma Maginity taught me about birds. She fed them, and showed me the difference between male and female cardinals, what phoebes looked like. We laughed at the silly nuthatches and longed to see the summer Baltimore Orioles, humming birds, and of course, the robins. Dad took after his mother and fed birds too. We had Grosbeaks and even a brilliant Red-headed woodpecker!

That was then. This is now.

I had never seen a sand hill crane until about seven  years ago in a field up near Grawn. I saw a huge something, made Tom pull over to see what it was. A sand hill crane! Now I see them every year.

Juvenile eagle

There were never eagles when I was younger. The DDT and other horrible things nearly eliminated them. Now, there are families of eagles flourishing. Eagles, hawks, ospreys. I remember when the osprey family took over a light fixture at the old high school football field, which is now a baseball/soccer/frisbee golf/pick nick area. Ospreys!

We have a casting of this print

When we lived on Upper Herring Lake, we had bear. I saw a tall, long legged bobcat down by the water, playing like a kitten. One animal that crossed the path between home and water looked exactly like a wolverine, but of course it couldn't have been, could it?

Near Elberta, we saw a pair of beautiful coyotes chasing down a deer. They were reddish in coat lush looking. Another strolled through our yard one day. The chorus the provided at night was haunting and wild.

I had seen great blue herons, and not just on the Gwen Frostic Sign. I once watched one in the park near the Benzie Shores District Library eat a fish. It was a big fish, and eating it took some planning. The bird put the fish down, looked it over carefully, then picked it up again, trying to get it in position to swollow it.  Over and over again he tried. The fish was huge! Finally, after many attempts, he got the head aiming down his gullet and started to swallow it. Poor thing had a neck full of fish for some time. He must have been uncomfortable!

Head down, looking for dinner

Green herons I never knew about until the past ten years. One flew over the car on a drive once. Then, we had a nesting pair on Upper Herring Lake for the past three or four years. We named them "Gronk" after the wonderful sound they made.

These days, I listen to the convocation of rooks and ravens with the occasional crow. It is a funny lot of noise, sounds like neighbors shouting at each other. There are still deer that come wandering through the yard. Although there is a house where the barn used to be, and houses down the road and accross the street, the animals still come out. We have bear. Everyone seems to have bear this year. Getting into the bird feeders and the trash. So, we put our bird feeders away and keep the trash in the garage until trash day. Wildlife flourishes.

There are even cougars here. Who knows what else will show up?