Creatures

There are more creatures than I can count, or will ever see. Or meet. I love my creature counting life.

Squirrels, striped, little and brush tailed. Chittering. Aware. Intelligent. Chasing things. Escaping cat. Or not sometimes. Defying gravity. Scolding Dusty, when she chases one up the tree.

Cat. On a wet afternoon, there is a pause in the rain, and the birds are pleased and the others I cannot see are happy. You see a creature too happy to care about your presence. A swift ten foot dash and you are done. You do not know that I watch from the window. I whistle at you but I am not of your party, I play no role in this game. You do not drop what you have caught. You are a happy cat. That is the thought I choose to hold in the palm of my hand before I release you.

Owls. I remember two who flew into a high roofed film studio we were shooting in, a long time ago. They sat on the rafters, two fat, white, curious fellows, staring down upon crew and cast. In the middle of a take that involved dialogue and sound recording, one of them would let out an unscripted, spontaneous hoot. Or do a flappy fly past. We were delighted and took a break.

Another time, on a morning walk, I heard a whish, a swish, in the leaves overhead, and looked up. An owl had landed. I think this was a light biscuit brown colour. Perhaps a Bata size 6, a good sneaker size. They have this unique way of rotating their heads upon their necks. We read about this uniqueness, but a real live encounter is a thrill that stops your breath. Not that you can see much neck.

As I stopped to stare, biscuit brown Bata size 6 rotated that head to look down at me. Our eyes met. Its that striking stranger who walks in through the door across a crowded room and everything else recedes. Breath in. Breath out. Play it cool. I hope that you are a well fed and happy owl. I like you very much.

My walking shoes get very dusty. (Not referring to my dog, Dusty.) Sometimes I look down and I see, in the dust that I am walking through, shiny, brilliant colours, going about their business.

They have legs and heads and wings and antennae, markings and mandibles. A whole lot of doings, in grass and scrub, twigs and brown leaves.

This Red, with wings, about this size.

Or

this

size.

These wings are so perfectly constructed, like swing doors fitting into the body. If little Red didn’t occasionally open out or shimmy one or both of them, I wouldn’t know they were there.

There are many cows here. They know cars are people carriers. Every time I’m driving across a road divider break, where very often there are cows and a bull or two, I have to roll up my windows. They are friendly and unafraid.

They want to know if I’ve got a snack to share.

I have to roll up Dusty’s windows at the back.

Once a large cow face and tongue pressed itself against the glass attempting to lick the dog who went barking mad. They shove their heads, horns and all, right into my face if my timing’s off and the windows are down. I don’t mind at all actually, but there is a lot of drool, smell and bristly hair involved in this greeting.

This very large, very friendly creature wants to meet us through taste and texture.

The squirrel in my window used to steal my socks from the clothesline on the roof. She’d line her nest with them for the winter. She never stole a pair, so I rarely had more than one sock of a pair.

For the longest time, I wore odd socks. People thought I was being cool and when I told them I was in a squirrel’s share program it became a story.

The small palm sized fruit bat that flew into my room, hit the ceiling fan and crash landed on the floor. Eleven year old I, had just read somewhere that body warmth was helpful for recovering from shock. So I slipped the bat into my shirt front and went and showed it to others I lived with. That’s when I was told bats could bite and etc. So the bat was transferred to a small box and I remained unbitten. I made the box as comfortable as I knew how to. A little mud. Twigs. Leaves. Some bits of banana. Bat recovered and flew away after a week.

In the counting house.
Creatures a plenty.

In this nature connectedness blog, the author, Prof. Miles Richardson says “With clear links between an individual’s nature connectedness, their psychological wellbeing, and engagement in nature-friendly behaviours, improving nature connectedness can help unite human and planetary wellbeing.”

I agree. I would just add that nature connectedness can be most valuable when there is an aware intention to be so.

(About my Leaf and Lighthouse series of posts.)

Read:

Leaf

Night

Feathery

Water

Rain Sparrows