Critters

\While on runs, I’ve been spotting worms that dangle from the beaks of robins. I would love to follow a robin around and measure the length each of its victims. The 18’ of worms a day stat continues to impress my mind. That’s a lot of worm meat to consume on a daily basis. Images of worm after worm being snatched from the ground play out in my imagination. I see montages of them being vacuumed out of the dirt by seemingly insatiable robins. Each day another bout of murderous mayhem for our earthworm neighbors.

Google tells me that these segmented creatures also go by the name angleworms. Of this name, I knew not. Google also shares their scientific classifications with me, which leaves me wondering what it’d be like to know the Latin names for all lifeforms; how different would life feel were I to use that nomenclature rather than our common terms? Quicker would be my ability to connect shared traits, especially were I to know the identity for each level of classification. I’d know that this creature was one of many species in its genus and/or family, and so on up the categorization scheme.

As it stands now, I can group certain species, such as crows, ravens, jays, magpies, among others, being corvids. But, on the whole, my range of such knowledge is spotty, lackluster actually. So, I can only speculate what a deeper appreciation might invoke, though I have found that as my knowledge of flowers, birds, and other entities increases I become further stunned by the webworks of a truly marvelous world.

Amusingly enough, I can likely speak more in-depth on the topic of board games than biology, though, conversely, the details of ethology or ecology or other studies of the kind interest me more deeply. It’s just that in my daily life it’s either easier to take in facts about games or that I’ve simply molding myself into patterns to absorb such information. I fear though that to celebrate such knowledge possibly resembles pontification more than anything useful.

Oftentimes the act of sharing knowledge can seem to be a boorish activity regardless of the topic. Though, I recognize that this danger lurks even more notably when the subject matter is more arcane or, at least, less interesting to most. Kelly, fortunately, humors me by listening to my explanations of game mechanics, comparing and contrasting their implementation across a range of examples. It’s like literature, where you have innovators and masters of various forms. I like to think that I convey these concepts in creative, engaging ways, but I should accept the reality that she’s humoring me, at least to some appreciable degree. And, it’s true, I do appreciate her patience.

Birds have become part of the COVID-19 life. We had been watching them from our balcony. The center of our apartment complex hosts many trees, of which local and migratory birds frequent. Most of the usual suspects alight here. Robins. Crows. Grackles. Doves. Starlings. Cardinals. Blue jays.

For Kelly’s birthday, she found herself the owner of a pair of high-quality binoculars. They live on a table near our living room windows, alongside The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. Most days will see her giggling as she uses them to observe the absurd antics of birds. Robins and other ground scavengers bring her much delight whenever she spies them throwing leaves and other debris about as they quest for worms.

The other day I got her the newest Sibley book, What It’s Like to Be a Bird, which provides numerous facts about birds, generally as well as for specific species. She regurgitates tidbits for me as we look at these marvelous critters. I imagine a lever that I can pull to have her spit out a factoid. As we watch a bird, she’ll whisper what feels like a secret: robins can eat 18’ of worms a day. If a bird ate pizza, the proportionate number of calories for a human would be 25 pizzas a day. I may have these facts wrong. She remembers the details better than me, but you get the idea, and the figures are close enough to accurate. Once you enter the realm of the surprising, the details are all a touch fluid anyhow.

From our apartment window, we once saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Though, we’ve not yet seen anything exotic or unexpected. Snowy owls aren’t making appearances, or red-tailed hawks for that matter. I dream of barred owls, though recognize the divide between desire and possibility. With the arrival of leaves, it has become more difficult to spot our avian neighbors, and it’s become even more difficult to photograph them. We still hear their calls, so their presence continues to delight our senses.

Most weekends we travel somewhere nearby to stroll through the woods, along fields, or within wetlands. The primary goal is to move; to walk and spend time together. Though, given that Kelly has resorted to unyielding exercise to deal with this situation and that I am not too far behind her in this regard, for I run most days and do some core or arms or legs workouts most days as well, it’s not like we need these trips to combat an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. I had referred to our trips as hikes, but Kelly chided me. We’re barely walking, it’s not hiking. She’s right. Though, I maintain, and I think that she agrees, that we’re conducting a form of exercise, nonetheless. Being away from the home, and wandering about alongside flora and fauna, does exercise one’s spirits, replenishing us. Being locked up in a home isn’t necessarily the definition of comfort that most people would scribe.

What we mostly do during these walks is unearth birds at which we then stare. A call sounds, we stop. We look. We regard. She uses the binoculars. I use my camera, equipped with a telephoto lens. There’s a lot of standing around happening during our walks. Most trips involve us seeing a species that we hadn’t seen since we began our explorations alongside the birth of the pandemic. Red-winged blackbird. Tree swallow. Titmouse. Warbler, of which we’ve seen many varieties. Mockingbird. Eastern Towhee. Great Blue Heron. Egret. Osprey. And the usual suspects, named above. Numerous types of woodpeckers as well.

As the weather warms, I fear that these excursions may cease for each trip sees an uptick of other people who have elected to leave their homes to enjoy fresh air and pleasures of nature. Being near people, generally, does not concern me, but the presence of many folk does increase my anxiety.

Yesterday, we visited Burke Lake Park, which was overrun by individuals and families performing activities that fit many a label: joggers, cyclists, meanderers, romantic excursionists, fishers, etc. We left the trail to wander along the kiddie-train tracks or traverse the roadways when feasible, but much of the time we were being passed by those locomoting quickly as well as crossing paths with people circumnavigating the reservoir via a counterclockwise path. It was a bit too packed for me, so we’ll need to be more discerning for our next jaunt.

We did see something amazing at Burke Lake, though. Throughout our hike we heard great commotion. Lots of geese flocked about doing geese things as geese are known to do, so we sort of assumed that they were the sole source of the ever-present din. There’s a small island in the reservoir. Only near the end of our stroll were we on a section of the trail that nears the island. The cacophony was most intense along this stretch and we could hear variance in the pitch. Up went the binoculars and camera. To our astonishment we saw at least a dozen large nests in the trees, many nests per tree. In each stood or sat a heron. As we observed, a heron would arrive, sometimes with fish, and take the place of the heron that had been in the nest so that bird could then fly off, presumably to hunt. If the arriving heron had been successful, then it would regurgitate the fish for the young. Given that these nests were at least 100’ up in the trees, we couldn’t see the chicks. However, it was astounding to see so many gigantic birds in one tree, and then to see numerous adjacent trees each with multiple herons occupying enormous nests. It was really cool. Either Kelly’s bird-fact lever had jammed, or she hasn’t yet made it to the heron chapter, for the extent of this colony left her equally stunned.

Years ago, I would hear voices. Not often, but even one time is enough to make you appreciate that it does not happen again, or at least frequently. Mostly, I would hear a voice that resembled mine, or something speaking in clear, distinct terms to me. Most of these events happened before sleep, so I figured I was perhaps asleep, or maybe my mind had entered some strange state within the liminal space surrounding slumber. Again, these auditory hallucinations were infrequent and transient, and then they faded from my life. The closest I get is while climbing, I sometimes think that feedback provided by someone is for me. I know that it is not, but it’ll seem like the words are directed at me, in direction as well as content. However, I know that it’s almost always the case that I need to lift my left or right leg or move a hand to a given handhold, so the advice is nearly always close enough to believable, for people shouting advice tend to be the people who aren’t providing all that useful, or at least nuanced, information. Occasionally, it’ll turn out to be a person I know who had said, “nice work,” or whatever, for upon descending or looking down I’d see a smile beaming my way, hello.

A part of me has always wondered about varied perspectives. In high school, I’d switch sides of a classroom debate, from pro to con, as the argument interested me. As a child, I’d try to stare blankly to cause optical distortions in patterns, and the premise of DARE backfired completely as the police officer explained that drugs would distort reality and cause you to feel things not otherwise normal, which all sounded wildly fun and, hell, people must do this stuff because it’s enjoyable in some way or another, hence the few drug-filled, if not fueled, movie scenes I had witnessed by the time I had reached fifth grade. So, I try to imagine one-off situations as I traverse through the day.

Accordingly, earlier today I strolled down a suburban block with my roommate. Birds were everywhere, as they tend to be. Surely, they might be the most plentiful animal larger than an insect. So many birds, everywhere, woodpeckers, wrens, chickadees, starlings, and so on. They’re singing and calling and bickering and generally flying all about doing the bird-things that birds do. What if, I wondered, there were no birds, and I simply heard their din throughout the day. Auditory hallucinations plaguing me. Distracting me. What it would it be like to suffer from such schizophrenia. Nothing else, no voices, nothing to drive me batty or violent or irascible outside of hearing persistent avian articulations. With my eyes closed, as I walked for several steps, the world I know collapsed, for I found myself in a sans bird world populated by a perturbed mind that clicked along as it passed about the world, its machinations internally made audible by bird song.