Last year – around now
I haven’t been so good about writng blog posts, but I caught this rooster pheasant running through the back yard the other day and thought he was worth sharing. I also saw a brood of very small turkeys that could already fly this weekend. The fireflies are out in increasing numbers every night. A couple other expieriences this past week that tickled me follow…
Last year around this time I awoke at three in the morning to the sound of our husky/germanshepard mix pacing the floor and whining. Something outside in the dark was upsettting her. I flicked on the outside lights to see a racoon balancing on the deck railing as he emptied the bird feeder. I opened the door with the dog right behind me and yelled at the coon. He paused to look in my direction and went on with his work. I was shocked that he didn’t run a way. Thinking I would really scare him I let the dog out onto the deck. The coon saw the dog coming, even though he was half the dog’s size, he didn’t run. He dropped down onto the deck and faced her. The dog towered over the coon, neck arched, tail stiff and held high.
I regretted my choice. I don’t know who struck first but the two began to brawl on the deck. They moved around the deck, fur literally flying. The coon was holding it’s own and I worried for the safety of my dog. There was a break in the fight and the dog backed off a little, the coon snarling defiantly. I called the dog and she came to me. The coon sat in the middle of the deck staring at me as if to say “bring it on”. I brought the dog in and closed the door. The dog was roughed up but thrilled, evidentally wanting more. The coon limped away and we haven’t seen him since.
Last week on a windy night I woke to the whining and pacing of the dog again. I turned on the deck light fully expecting to see the coon. There was nothing, just the birdfeeder and the plants swinging in the wind. I turned the lights out and the dog started to pace and whine again. Finally I opened the door to the deck allowing the dog out to see there was nothing. She rushed out and then turned in a circle as if confused nothing was there. I let her in and turned out the lights. She stood by the slidng glass door looking out into the dark and whining. I got on my hands and knees and put my head next to hers and peered into the dark with her.
There I saw, unmistakably, the shape of a racoon swinging around by the railing and the birdfeeder. I flicked the light on again to reveal a flower basket swaying in the breeze. I walked the dog out to the flower basket in the dark and she jumped at it. I let her sniff it and walk around, I petted her and reassured her, but as soon as the lights went out the whining and pacing would start again. The only resolution I could find was to take the flower basket down.
Every night now one of has to “take the racoon down” at bed time. Should we forget, the dog wakes us at three am to remind us.
Last Spring I posed a question on this blog, “What bird has a call that sounds like a pebble being dropped in the water?” As happens sometimes no one answered. I googled every search I could think of and found nothing helpful. As the season wore on I stopped hearing the call and forgot about it.
Then last week as I stood in the driveway I heard it again. The call was seemingly near, but there were no bushes or underbrush nearby where the bird could be hiding. I looked around and saw nothing but two starlings watching me from the peak of our house. Defeated in locating the source I went on with my work. The sound was not repeated, later I wondered if I had heard it at all.
Then Yesterday I was between the chicken coop and the garage and I heard it again, loud and distinct, “gloop, gloop”. Such a satisfying sound, I wanted to hear it some more. It was the kind of sound I would imitate if I could.
I looked around – at the peak of the garage roof sat two starlings. One looked at the other as if to say “what?, who me?” and the sound was not repeated.
I don’t know for sure that the starling made the noise, but he has been present the last two times I have heard it. I googled “starling calls” and learned starlings are a realtive of the talkative minah bird. They imitate many other birds including the cry of a red tailed hawk. In the list of the many different calls of the starling was the description “liquid sounds”.
Turns out some folks are quite fond of starlings because of their vocalizations. Mozart owned a pet starling that could sing parts of the composer’s compositions. He had a funeral for the bird when it died.
But I will blame Shakespeare, not Mozart for the harassment I have suffered at the hands of the starlings. They are not a native bird. We would not have the pleasure of their company were it not for a group of Shakespeare enthusiasts in the late 1800’s who made it there goal to realease in New York’s Central Park, every bird that appeared in a work of Shakespeare.
In Shakespeare’s Henry the IVth the character Hotspur is forbidden by the king(so I read on the internet) to speak the name “Mortimer”. Hotspur suggests they train a starling to speak the name as a means of un-nerving the king.
This brief mention lead to the release of two hundred starlings in Central Park who are the ancestors of the birds that kept me searching for a year.
It is not the name “Mortimer” uttered to confound me, but the sound of a stone falling in water when there is no water. Shakespeare seems to get his fingers into everything.
