You’ll Likely Become Prey

The fox was back today.  She didn’t catch anything, at least that I could see. There’s likely an idiom out there somewhere that suggests: fox with full belly, only run so fast.  She trotted around, looking into the weeds at the edge of the lawn until ultimately darting back into the wood at the far end of the lawn.  Is she the same gal who snapped up the squirrel yesterday?  Having enjoyed a meal on my lawn does she now look at it as her refrigerator?  A fox just darted right under the window.  Could she have made the loop all the way around the yard and up or was this some other family member?  One could imagine advantages if they were able to hunt in pairs, but then of course, you’d need to share. 

There is a hawk circling in the sky.  All the squirrels and the blue jays who’d just ben down eating fled.  Now they are slowly returning.  When a blue jay flies right down over the head of a squirrel he is completely nonplused.  They seem to know without having to look.  Is it that they put all their faith in some other squirrel or some other animal’s warning call?  The shadow of the hawk’s flight doesn’t seem to trigger them.  Nor, surprisingly does the distinctive shriek that always makes me pause and look up from what I’m doing when I hear. It appears that the calls of others are the primary warning system.

Having witnessed the demise of one squirrel yesterday, it occurred to me this morning that there is likely no squirrel, no chipmunk, no blue jay, that doesn’t confront a violent death. It’s only a matter of time.  One rarely sees such a thing, so one assumes that when animals get old, they have a nice convalescence and dies peacefully surrounded by loved ones.  Or perhaps they squirrel cancer, spawning malignant tumors that ultimately fell them.  But there is no quite nor private place to the woods, is there?  Everybody is ultimately somebody’s lunch.  And if you can’t run fast enough anymore, or you can’t climb a tree, or you damage a wing, you’ll likely become prey, before you can otherwise expire.

To my right is a little hummingbird feeder I’ve hung from a suctioned-cupped hanger off the window.  My wife didn’t like the grain feeder I’d first put there and will not approve of this feeder either.  Miraculously, a hummingbird dropped in yesterday, not twenty-four hours from when I’d placed this there.  She considered the faux red petals, they apparently fly in to inspect the color rather than because of the smell of the nectar, and promptly disappeared.    Is there something lowbrow about my nectar?   Later in the day, another one appeared, looking for all the world like an enormous bumble bee.  I fumbled for my camera, but it was already off.  Could there be something wrong with the feeder? 

I just finished up this post and you know who returned.  Close this time. But at least from what I could see, she still hasn’t caught one today.  Moments later, wrong.  She just trotted across the lawn with her latest catch.

Tuesday, 05/05/20