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.