Tag: bird

You Never Know What You’ll Run Into

Walking down the sidewalk at the strip mall, heading to lunch, and along comes the guy pictured above. I am, of course, making gender assumptions, which can be very dangerous in this day and age. Too bad. I’m calling him a him, and if he doesn’t like it, he can come tell me himself.

I have no idea where he came from, or where he was going. He’s not the normal type of encounter one has on a sidewalk in a strip mall in middle America. But there he was, “just a walkin’ down the street.” I don’t know if he was singin’ “doo wah ditti ditti dum ditti doo” (song by Jeff Barry and Ellen Greenwich in 1963, but made popular by the British band, Manfred Mann), or not. Middle America strip malls are not the normal places where crawdads sing. (Book by Delia Owens published in 2018, and soon to be a movie with Reese Witherspoon. As of January 2021, the book has spent a total of 124 weeks on the best seller list, with 32of those weeks at the top of the list. I’ve never read the book, but now that I’ve made mention, and done this little bit of research, I think perhaps I should. Any book that has done that well is a book I should investigate, especially as a hope-to-be published author of novels).

These types of encounters happen to me all the time. They probably happen to everyone, but go un-noticed because people tend to walk around in their own world and ignore the rest of the world around them.I spoke to several co-workers who walked that same sidewalk at about the same time I did, and not a single one of them saw this little guy. They miss so very much. And it makes me wonder how much I miss, even though I tend to pay more attention than most.

This guy, (yes, I’m going with my gender assumptions again. Deal with it), is from an encounter on the way home from work one day. I was just driving along, minding my own business, less than two miles away from home, when I noticed a bunch of really big birds. I pulled over to have a look. This guy was rather curious and didn’t mind posing for me. It took a bit of research before I discovered that they are Sandhill Cranes. I seen and heard them flying high overhead during their migration season, but this was my first up close encounter.

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but he’s at least four feet tall. He looked friendly enough, but I kept my car between us, just in case he considered me to be a threat. (PLEASE! Respect wildlife. Don’t get too close, even if it seems like they are friendly and will let you. It is NEVER good idea. And yes, not only did I use the zoom on my camera, but I cropped the picture as well. I was NOT as close as it looks).

As with the crawdad, I didn’t think that this was normal territory for Sandhill Cranes, but it turns out I was wrong. Northern Illinois is the lower edge of their summer grounds, and some of my friends have seen them around for a couple years. I’m excited to know that they are willing to live with us, enjoying the suburban life.

What’s the upshot of all this? Keep your eyes open. Put the phone down and get outside once in a while. And even when you’re out there, take the earbuds out. There’s as much to hear as there is to see.

Elephant Plop

In 2009 I had the honor of going to Tanzania on a mission trip. So many things happened on that trip I’ll have writing fodder for a lifetime. There will be stories here from that trip, telling of wonderful and amazing things, and things of which no one should have to experience. But this story is neither of those. This story is a great big pile of elephant plop.

We had a total of three and a half weeks in Tanzania, and had two separate opportunities to see the wild life of Africa. The first was Gombe Stream wildlife park, where Jane Goodall did all of her research with chimpanzees. It was a lot of fun, but it was extremely taxing and there was only on within our group who had the wherewithal to keep up with the spotting guides. He got lots of photos which were shared with all in the group, but most of us did not see and chimps in person.

The second opportunity was at Mikumi Wildlife Refuge where we went on a photo safari and got to ride in Land Rovers to go out and see the animals, This was so much more that lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! And actually, we never did see a lion. But there were plenty of elephants, zebras, giraffes, and all sorts of other animals.

One of the sightings I made had the guide very excited. There was a very far off bird that looked different than every other bird we had seen. I pointed it out and asked the guide what it was. He got very animated as he told us it was a secretary bird and that it had been at least two years since one had been spotted in the park. I was pleased that it was me who spotted it. The picture here is not my photo. Mine had a little dot showing in the landscape. It was really far away.

The Secretary bird can be quite Distractifying! in and of itself. They average about four feet in height yet only weigh about seven and a half pounds. They hunt for small rodents, snakes, and reptiles by jumping upon and kicking them. Tests have shown that their kick can deliver up to 195 newtons of power. That’s nearly 44 pounds. Coming from a seven and a half pound bird, that’s an awful lot. African farmers used to keep the birds as pets since they kept small pests and vermin from inundating their land. When Europeans first spotted the birds in the 1800’s they gave the name of Secretary bird because they resembled the secretaries of the day. During that period, secretaries were man wearing dark, knee-length pants and long tailed gray coats. They also tended to carry their quill pens behind their ears. The resemblance is quite striking.

But none of this is what I was going to tell you about. Sorry. I was Distractifying! myself. This is supposed to be about the biggest pile of S*** I’ve ever seen, where I saw it, and how it came about (aside from the obvious).

You see, we actually got to spend the night in Mikumi. It was glamping in the most awesome tents I’ve ever seen. They were on stilts, had running water and flush toilets. There was even semi-warm water for showers if you got to it before it cooled off as it was heated by the sun.

Each tent was assigned a Maasai warrior as a guard for the night to prevent disturbances by animals, but if the animals were disturbing anything, they were free to roam. And roam they did. The warriors did a great job. We never heard a thing. We animals were completely undisturbed by the elephant residents that walked past our tent and deposited the above gem just beneath our balcony.

I feel like I missed the view of a lifetime to have been that close to such incredibly wild creatures, and yet had no clue.

I missed it!