Spring Passage
Torrential rains last night. The weather forecast maps displayed a line of thunder storms portending heavy rain, two to five inches, to fall within the span of a few hours. Persons living near creeks and rivers were warned of flooding. My parents generation did not have this precision of weather forecasting, nor did they have such severe and frequent weather events.
I had just finished watching a National Geographic special on Yellowstone Park. Video and narration was offered by individuals who had studied grizzly bear, a beaver family, a wolf pack, and gray owls that live in the forests and meadows of the park. The photography was breath taking due to the intimate insight afforded into the animals life habits. I never knew that beavers stored a pantry of leaves and twigs in their lodge to sustain them through the long winters.
In summary —with a milder shorter winter, early arrival of spring, and the onset of higher temperatures the animals are under stress. Their natural adaptive faculties are overwhelmed by the rate of change in their habitat.
A relatively warmer winter resulted in a stronger buffalo herd, fewer casualties to severe cold and thus less food for a local wolf pack. A video clip showed the pack desperately executing an attack on the full herd of buffalo. The pack grows weaker by the day and must eat to survive and hold it’s territory. Sadly for the pack, the attack failed as the female buffalo defended their calves with hoof and horn. The wolves moved on.
The final story was of a three gray owl chicks. It is rare for three fledglings to survive. The runt usually dies because the food supply is sufficient for only two chicks. In this case, all three fledglings managed enough to eat. With the early spring, mice and voles were abundant. There is enough food to go around. However as they grow, showing feathers amidst the down, the three fill the nest. The time comes to leave the nest. The last to risk the 30 foot drop to the forest floor is the runt. (They cannot yet fly but must leave the nest to survive) The owl chick is caught between it’s fear of dropping over the edge, and the extraordinary heat of the sun that beats upon it’s down coat. Continued delay risks death by heat exhaustion. The adolescent owl, hyperventilating, shakily stood on the edge. The owl chick that beat the odds thus far makes the drop to the forest floor. I felt happiness at this juncture in the story. The photographer-narrator was certainly over joyed too.
Spring and All
By William Carlos Williams
I By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of standing water the scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines- Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches- They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind- Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance-Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken
