The great northern wilderness comes stuffed with wildlife of all sorts or
it wouldn’t be wilderness. From the notable bear, wolf and cougar down to a host
of tiny creatures unnoticed, all manner of beasties bring character to the
woods. Even the smallest is critical to the health of the place and in ways we
might never suspect.
Over the last few decades, many species once lost to the Superior Basin
or winnowed down to the significance of rarity are resurgent. That’s due in
part to what we’ve done but more to what we’ve stopped doing. That is, mostly
we no longer harvest, poison and otherwise destroy with abject abandon.
We’re better these days at recognizing hard choices and the information
necessary to make those wisely is more readily at hand, so the real world occasionally
holds the argument over relentless construct. These are comparatively better days for
wilderness and everything that prospers from it, to be sure.
Forty years or so ago it’d have made your trip, to see a single eagle.
Today our national symbol is busy feasting on fresh road kill off the shoulders
of highways, with your trip well and truly made should you happen to drive off
the road while trying not to hit one. And there’s a bit of a story to tell about
just how long it was locals knew the cougar again roamed the shaded hills
before the State finally confirmed the popular consensus. We’ll get to that
sometime later.
Insect life is particularly robust in the wilderness. Worth a mention,
as you’ve not lived ‘til some five inch bug drops from the
night and lands on your bare flesh to pursue unknown intent...
Spend enough time in the home of myriad critters and your paths are
bound to cross. In the midst of such abundance and diversity, that intersection
will range anywhere from sublime to ridiculous and sometimes all at once.
*
The Barred Owl
Barred Owls are at home
in the northwoods. Their distinctive voice is often heard at night and
conversations between birds can carry on at length.
The woods that on three sides surround the Presque Isle campground in
the Porkies are as good a place as any to hear these. It’s tall forest sporting
a dense canopy over sparse understory and much of what falls is annually picked
over by a steady stream of tourists gathering wood for fire. On clear nights
the light of those fires is seen a long way out over Superior.
Towards the forest away from the lake, light fades fast and when you
venture out at night home fires fail completely. We’d walk those dark woods
with flashlights turned off because when needs be your feet have better vision
than they generally get credit for and once you figure that out it’s only natural
to press it, just to see what’s what.
Sure we’d bump around some or now and again take a fall, though not so
often as you’d expect. And walking the woods at night without construct to preserve
expectation is primal, which can be an exercise in fun. So off we’d go, the occasional
minor injury proudly worn as a badge for time in the woods well spent.
The Barred Owl’s voice proved simple to imitate reasonably well. That’s rare opportunity for me as I
can’t whistle worth a damn and typical bird calls are well outside my reach.
One night at Presque Isle a particularly incessant bird rang out from
the woods. No answer forthcoming, it called from near the same spot again and
again. Inspired, I went off into the forest to talk with it, partly to pursue
the aforementioned pleasures of blindly stumbling around at night and mostly
because when you make weird noises while sitting in the dark at your picnic
table in an otherwise crowded campground, the neighbors tend to look askance.
Maybe fifty yards or so into the night and no calamity having claimed
me, I found a likely tree to lean upon and commenced as best I could to talk
bird.
I called once…twice. A third time, then went quiet to listen. The owl
of my ambition maintained place and pace. We parried like this for a bit. By
all evidence, the bird was unimpressed. Eventually I slipped down to the forest
floor, content to sit and listen to the owl.
Wilderness works in shifts. If anything, nightshift is more active
than day. It’s fine to be in the woods in the dark with your back against a sturdy
tree and the world around wide awake. Sit still enough long enough and all sorts of
things might come to visit -- some even that you can hear and not see, which is
quite the thing.
After awhile my owl fell silent. I grew chill in the night and missed
the companionship of friends and fire. I stood slowly, all but defeated. With
desultory effort, I made one last stab at talking owl before returning to
relative civilization. My voice croaked off through the night, “Oout, ‘o oout,
‘o oooooo…”
No sooner had the sound cleared my throat than the genuine article
answered back from my tree, not twenty feet above my head. Reflexively, I
ducked.
“Geez Louise!!” I cried aloud, or words to that effect. That's strictly human talk, but I'm bettin' the owl got the gist of it.
I’ve often wondered and of course there’s no way to know, whether I’d
managed to call that Barred Owl to me in the dark or whether he’d just wandered
over to see what the stupid human was up to, sitting in the woods at night,
pretending to talk like an owl. Not to mention the chance to startle the stupid
human right out of his skin, a sport that animals sometimes engage in just for
fun, trust me.
Doesn’t matter. When I returned to the comfort of the campfire, it was
with a tale to tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment