Here at Crooked Creek Station (where I work in California’s
White Mountains, east of the Sierra Nevada) I’m presently hosting a group of
two dozen undergrad geology students from U.C. Santa Barbara. They’re presently
studying “structure” (how different rock formations are arranged) and the
fieldwork—geologic surface-mapping exercises—is out in Deep Springs Valley at the
famous Poleta Folds, well over an hour’s drive from here. It’s been scorching-hot
down in the high desert so they’ve been climbing into their big, white vans
well before dawn to beat some of the enervating heat and get back by mid-afternoon
to do “homework.” Breakfast is at the unholy hour of four a.m. A couple of days
ago I was too tired after dinner to do any prep work and set my alarm for the
even unholier hour of one-thirty. (There’s at least a hundred individual tasks
to perform, what with laying out an elaborate spread of brown–bag lunch-fixings
and a homestyle breakfast; these I perform in a half-awake, chaotic,
non-routine.)
The kitchen/dining room is about
seventy yards from my cabin. I walked across a dark, sandy parking area and
into light cast by a sixty-watt bulb above the broad, concrete walkway fronting
our lab building where, in 1957, Dr. Edmund Schulman had a “Eureka!” moment. When
done counting the growth rings, revealed by a core sample taken from a Bristlecone
Pine that same day and only a few miles away, he realized that he’d just identified
the oldest-known living organism. It soon became famous as the five-thousand
year-old Methuselah Tree.
Since breakfast has been so early
I’ve been leaving this light on all night to aid my passage across the broad
parking area. (I’m not anywhere near fully-awake when I leave my cabin.) This
morning in particular it was shockingly warm for ten-thousand feet—50° F—and,
when I stepped onto the brightly-illuminated concrete, saw scores of insects
swinging in crazy arcs around that light and perched all over the wooden wall.
This would be nothing of note in lowland country, especially our humid southern
states, but up in these high mountains it’s seldom warm enough for bugs to fly
at night. I got kind of excited (I’m quite fond of insects…) and paused to take
a quick survey of my light-worshipping visitors: moths various and aplenty,
delicate Ichneumon wasps, fearsome-looking
but harmless snakeflies and craneflies. Farther along, as if under a spotlight all
by itself on stage, something large and utterly different. What…? A few paces and I found myself kneeling before a beautiful
and exotic insect which, again, wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Alabama. But here
in the dry White Mountains you seldom see moths with three-inch wingspans and
fat, furry abdomens. (Later that morning I found from my field guide that this
was a “Cerisy’s Sphinx.” Its wings, held at an unusual angle and the forewings
with a half-twist, were exquisitely-patterned in rich tones of tan, brown and
chestnut. Perched against the bark of a willow (where they live) it’d be
invisible; but all by itself on the white concrete under that sixty-watt bulb
this strange critter was a stirring sight.
I walked back out several times while
working on breakfast to see if the thing was still there. It hadn’t moved and
refused to budge, even with a little nudge from my fingertip. I feared that one
of the half-asleep students would step on it but no one did. (I checked while
they were all eating.) And, as I’ve done on various similar occasions, walking
past my diners I spoke up and said, to no one in particular, “We had a big
insect-hatch in the night. There’s a crazy, huge moth perched out there on the
sidewalk.” I must say, I’ve been disappointed to find how seldom I’ve sparked
interest with these casually-delivered pronouncements. Such as, once, “Uh…there’s
a cormorant down on the pond this morning.” And no one even looked up…alas.
But this time I got a taker: A big, jovial, gregarious fella—Scott, one
of their three TAs but only member of his group who’d come into the kitchen to
chat—actually wanted to see the whatever-it-was. So out we went (sky still
pitch black, full of stars) and knelt side-by-side on the walk. Perhaps because
of the “commanding presence” large insects have, along with the moth’s finely
patterned wings and aesthetic coloration, Scott was suitably impressed. I sure was….
After admiring it for a minute we headed
back to the dining room but, rounding the corner, I glanced back. “Oh! There’s
a mouse!” We stopped to look: one of
our native Deermice was making its way up the walkway right toward us, darting
in and out of shadow, following the lab’s wall in mouse-fashion. It’s somehow
humorous to see a mouse’s furtive nocturnal scurrying out in the open. I
thought, wordlessly, How tiny! How
utterly vulnerable and defenseless! We both stood watching it come toward
us and I also thought that if my cat was around….
Just then it finally dawned on me what was
going to happen and I said in a whisper, “It’s going for the moth.” (Lots of people
aren’t aware that mice are omnivores and some, like the Grasshopper Mouse, mostly
carnivorous.) Sure enough, the Deermouse turned away from the wall and, in a final bee-line rush, it
fell upon the lovely (but hapless) Cerisy’s Sphinx.
There was no ghastly roar, no
battle-churned dust cloud, no shrieks of agony, no gore. But this brief drama
encapsulated the same brutality and primal violence of a Cheetah dragging down
a Gazelle. Except in miniature. The struggle lasted only seconds—but long, long ones: attacking, mouse seized moth
(perhaps a bit more than half mouse’s size and weight). Seized it with deft,
clawed toes, and sank its minute fangs into the neck region. There
was some tumbling, some fluttering of wings, and it was over. Carrying its prey
in its jaws, a suddenly-fearsome, ruthless predator dashed forward, still
coming straight toward the stunned witnesses and disappeared under a sagebrush
bush right at our feet where it would gorge itself on warm moth-flesh in
safety. Scott, obviously shaken by the savagery, said, “That was intense!”
“Welcome…to…the Wild Kingdom,” I
intoned. Scott was too young to have heard of Marlon Perkins. Or about the very
first TV nature-show. But he knew exactly what I meant.
Later, in daylight, I went out and parted that sagebrush bush’s
low-lying branches and, sure enough, there were the moth’s beautiful wings—neatly
clipped off at their base and discarded like hooves or horns or hide. The
gorgeous, earthy colors and tasteful patterns reminded me of an Indian blanket
so I gingerly picked them up and put them in a little wooden box with other of
my found treasures.
27
Jun 2006, 3 Nov 2013
© 2013 Tim
Forsell
All
rights reserved.
