The Hope for Feathers

I thought it would be like in that movie I never saw but which yielded a ubiquitous catchphrase that most of the planet recognizes, Field of Dreams. I thought if I built it (er, rather, put it up), they would come. They = hummingbird(s). Turns out that there is only a single hummingbird species native to western Pennsylvania. It also turns out that not a one of them would like to visit my backyard.

I am reminded of sitting on H.'s balcony in midsummer, watching all those hummingbirds flitting about. Nope. Not going to get to see that here. How sad.

Two things that i suck at identifying and would like to be able to do a lot better: birds and trees.

Suspended Between Light and Dark

Fireflies in the Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

—Robert Frost

Car-less for a while last night, so I walked to the grocery store for some stuff for this evening's small holiday festivities. There is one experience each year that always makes me smile, always makes me infinitely happy: seeing the very first fireflies of the season.

Everyone, it seems, has a firefly story that also makes me smile, particularly stories of those who are seeing them for the very first time. They're so common where I'm from, that I always take for granted their existence, forgetting that they don't even exist on the other side of this US landscape.

My welsh friend B., upon seeing fireflies, thought for certain she was hallucinating, for there are no fireflies across The Pond (nor skunks, interestingly). She believed she, and only she, was seeing fairies. No one with her at the time made any mention or seemed to notice at all the flickering flashes of light surrounding them. Both intrigued and terrified by the phenomena, B. told me she was unable to confess to anyone what she'd seen until many weeks later.

E., who is from eastern Washington state, discovered his first fireflies during a family vacation back east. He decided that the western US needed a firefly population, so he captured many many of them inside a glass jar with holes poked in the lid. He and his parents were traveling by train. Not a single poor firefly made it even as far as Glacier National Park. E. was devastated.

I feel sad for people who have not seen them, who don't get to see them annually. they are truly one of the only things i've really missed during the times I've lived out west.

Happy Happy Midsummer!

Having Faith in the Non-Human Other

Lions Free Kidnapped Girl in Ethiopia

Rescue the Drowning, and Tie Your Shoe-Strings

Here's the mark of a true, geeky academic: When you discover not one, but TWO, really amazing journals, which are surprisingly accessible. And you find yourself positively delirious with excitement over words, plain old *boring* words on the page. Such that you simply cannot stop reading them. Have spent the better part of my "work" time so far reading full text articles from Society and Animals . My favorites so far?:

• "Anthropomorphism and Anthropomorphic Selection—Beyond the 'Cute Response'"
• "Toward a Non-Speciesist Psychoethic"
• "Crossover Animal Fantasy Series: Crossing Cultural and Species as Well as Age Boundaries"

Yup. Total geek.

Passing the Torch

Yep. That Lamb can take over for the Lion now. The sooner the better.

Earlier this morning, staring absentmindely out the second floor window while getting dressed to take out the doggles. I saw one. Then another. Kiting together. Then later, in the still-bare branches of the tall tall oak tree, rebuilding together the nest for another year. Yes, the hawks have returned for another season.

And I have nenewed hope that days of warmer weather will follow their lead.

Wish I Was a Nomad

One of my fondest childhood memories is the ritual of sitting down weekly (Sunday nights?) to watch Marlin Perkins narrate animal stories on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I was really not much into either Nature or Animals as a kid - not at all, in fact - but this show was one of my favorites.

The show is still around. Last night I watched the most remarkable story of a lioness in Kenya with an 'unnatural' penchant for adopting orphaned oryx calves . The film just left me speechless. But, as is the case with pretty much all such stories, this one does not have a happy ending. For most of the calves, and for the lioness herself (who disappeared and hasn't been sighted in several years). And certainly not in my own heart. But still. Wow.

As with so many things in my world, i have a love/hate relationship with these sorts of nature shows, probably with Nature herself. I love learning, watching, observing, but there is always the inevitable sadness.

Thinking of Moving...

...into the Langley Hall library (aka the Biology library). Seriously. Conveniently located right across the street from where I work, it's like a wee little library full of the coolest books. If I had a home library like that, I'd never have to leave my house. I just can't stop pulling books off the shelves in there. I went during lunch today for just two particular books, which turned into four, which then turned into seven, and then I saw one more I'd missed on the "new book" shelf right by the checkout. And there were several more I just couldn't carry.

I really should have had some sense about me fifteen years ago and studied wildlife biology, instead of English. How very different my life might be. Ah, hindsight.

This Distance Pulls at the Breath

So an old high school friend of J.'s sent him an email the other day with an interesting story . A painted bunting seems to have taken up residence in his friend's mother's yard in southern New Jersey. What makes the story interesting is that this type of bird lives exclusively in the southern U.S., the very far south. This is the northernmost sighting, ever, of this particular bird. His presence has caused quite a stir, a ruckus almost, among bird watchers and preservation groups, particularly the Audubon Society, and now friend's mother's yard is under constant watch by many people. No one is sure quite why he's gotten himself out of his "natural" habitat. Me, while I am in awe of the bunting's obvious beauty , I am also a bit sad for him. Most certainly he will never find a mate way up there and will likely live a lonely existence, indeed.

Though I've Dreamed Them, In Sleep's Spaces

Friday necessitated my going to Ohio for the day. I offered, on the way home, to help transport two wolfdogs from a temporary home in OH, to their new foster home in PA. The story of the journey itself, while mildly interesting (How it Took M. 7 Hours to Drive a Mere 150 Miles), is unimportant at the moment. Suffice to say that if I ever consider such a journey in the future, it will definitely be on very different terms, MY terms.

I knew/know very little about wolfdogs. Intuitively, I've always had this sense that such breeding between species may not necessarily be the best idea. Now that I've done a bit of retrospective research, I am very conflicted about having participated in this rescue endeavor, conflicted for a few reasons:

• At the OH home, the wolfdogs lived in an outdoor kennel (talk about filthy dogs! my car is still stinky!). At the PA foster home, they are going to a person who has little if any experience with this type of animal, who has 2 small-ish children and a puppy; the dogs will most likely live in a basement room and the new caretaker will not have the time or the resources to handle/socialize them as they will need in order to be adopted. Have I unknowingly helped to trade one *bad* home for another? Has this actually been the best thing for these two dogs? I am not sure I would have done this if I'd known what I do now.

• Is there any real reason, any real benefit, to breeding wolfdogs in the first place? By "benefit" I mean, does this practice make things better for the individual or collective animals themselves? They are, essentially, neither wolf nor dog, stuck somewhere in the middle, uncomfortably and unwillingly straddling those two worlds. It seems that any reason one could offer up for doing this would just reinforce my developing belief that this is done only for selfish, purely human reasons. The kind of home environment all the resources indicate wolfdogs need, does not seem like it would give any of them the quality of life they deserve. Then again, this same issue could be raised for any number of *exotic pets*. This seems to get back to the issue L. and i were discussing a while back, about when and to what extent can/should humans intervene/meddle with Nature?

• What does it mean that I am bothered by say, keeping a bengal tiger as a "pet," but conversely, I am not bothered by say, keeping an "exotic" reptile (provided it's captive bred) as a "pet"? Hypocritical? Am I assigning some hierarchy of importance/meaning to particular animals' existences based on some overtly subjective, personal criteria?

I am seriously grappling with the ethics of this whole thing.

It did occur to me on Friday that spending the little time I did with those animals, is perhaps the closest I will ever come to being truly near the wild wolf.