Over the years I saw so many little nature dramas unfold before my eyes at Piute Meadows. Some were more dramatic than others but they were always moving. To a large extent, this was why I chose to live in the backcountry: to not exactly be a part of the whole web of life but to be a constant witness, to fully comprehend the collective workings of the larger network: to be ever aware of the mycorrhizae under my feet, knowing how these ubiquitous fungal filaments make the meadow “work.” To feel the unseen eagles’ eyes on me, daily, as they made their rounds, keeping tabs on everything that moved in their domain. To unconsciously know when the pines were about to start pollinating and sense when the boletes were probably sprouting down by the river at that one spot. All of it, all at the same time. ◦◦◦◦◦This entry recounts an incident of a type always welcomed gratefully—events I sometimes refer to as “Welcome to the Wild Kingdom moments,” in reference to the Original Nature Program on television in the 1960s, with its grandfatherly host, Marlon Perkins, intoning those words at the show’s opening. Wild Kingdom was perhaps the first popular media rendering of nature’s red-in-tooth-and-claw side as being an essential aspect of the whole deal (even though the camera would pull away at the moment the lion ripped the impala’s neck open, or when the male-whatever was mounting the female and things were about to get really interesting).◦◦◦◦◦ As a life-long birder, I had an extensive subset of knowledge about feathers. When I’d find one, I was generally able to tell what kind of bird it had belonged to, what part of the bird it came from. If the sexes were different, what sex. Adult versus immature. Another explanatory note: the two types of hawk mentioned in this piece belong to a group of raptors known as “accipiters” (as opposed to falcons or “buteos,” stocky birds of the redtail hawk variety). Accipiters are slender hawks, agile fliers that dine primarily on other birds. There are three species in North America, all of which live in the High Sierra. These hawks have a notable feeding habit: they always pluck their prey before eating it, being unable to process feathers in their gut like other animals that eat birds feathers-and-all. I would often find piles of feathers out in the forest or in meadows and could usually tell from the type of feather which of the accipiters were responsible. Seeing a goshawk was always a thrill—being a decidedly charismatic and rare bird—and I only saw them on a few occasions around Piute Country.
6 Sep (Tue) ◦◦◦◦◦ When I went out to saddle Redtop a goshawk took off from the ground at the edge of the meadow just below the yard, carrying something under it like a torpedo. I walked over to the spot and found loads of feathers from an immature sharp-shinned hawk! Imagine: a goshawk catching and eating its cousin, a bird that is basically a smaller version and makes its living the same way (hunting other birds) but happens to be, depending on sex, roughly a third the size. I’d imagine this is fairly uncommon, these instances of predators preying on other predators. ◦◦◦◦◦ And, just a few feet from the pile of sharp-shin feathers blowing in the stiff breeze I saw tail feathers from a male blue grouse. Is this spot a preferred dining area of this individual? Hope so! And when I rode away, flushed the thing again in mid-meal from where it had parked itself right by the front gate. It took off (again) with the torpedo slung under its belly and headed down toward the river gorge for another try at uninterrupted breakfast. An impressive nature drama, particularly since I’d just seen that young sharpshin two days ago hiking up the meadow with Fenix and when he saw it the cat growled and his tail instantly poofed—he knew a hawk when he saw one (though I think it was likely a red-tail that originally imparted his unnatural-for-a-domestic-cat fear of raptors…a fear he was lucky to have acquired in the first place. ◦◦◦◦◦
©2018 Tim Forsell 22 Aug 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment