CIRCLE OF LIFE

WINTER HAS FINALLY COME TO BIRDLAND, AND FIERCELY IT HAS COME.  Only a few days ago I saw a mosquito. I didn't think anything of it, until I realized it was January. Apparently the little bit of flirting we'd done with winter hadn't been enough to interrupt their life cycle this year. They have been going along in the mild, short days, hatching, feeding, laying eggs, avoiding the minor frost. It was a little bit scary to wonder if we were ever going to get a really hard freeze. Yesterday it seemed to come, bringing snow and blowing it around into swirling, driving furies. This morning is pretty monochromatic. The grey sky muffles the snowscape, and I have to squint to see where the sky meets the edge of the field.

The chickens have been confined to the coop and run for two days. Yesterday was too blusterous (Chickens don't like wind, but don't always have the sense to come in out of it until dusk, so we leave them in the coop on windy days.) and today they are drifted in. They are snug and warm, though, and generous with the eggs this cold morning. We gathered four. The wind has sculpted the drifts into sinuous hills, a graphic picture of the shape of the wind.

This sudden winter reminds me that even the cold, sunless, lonely parts of the circle of life are necessary and good. A few weeks ago, while my boys were home for the holidays I was fixing breakfast and happened to look out the kitchen window in time to see a gang of turkey vultures in the distant field. I said aloud, “I wonder if there's a carcass out there.” I couldn't see what was attracting the birds, but it was not just one or two of them. I was occupied with waffle batter, and the boys were enjoying coffee in their jammies, so their father put on his shoes and walked out to the field to see what the commotion was about. Michael returned shortly to tell us it was a young deer. “It's really beautiful,” he said. “After breakfast we should all walk out to see it.”

It lay in the stubble of beans. 

 We couldn't tell what had killed it, perhaps it was wounded by a hunter or a car? Perhaps illness? It's hard to believe that starvation would take a deer this year, though their numbers are increasing, and after the harvest food would be more scarce. It lay in the stubble of the beans, its head thrown back, its hooves muddied. Dylan knelt and focused his camera. My middle son is an artful photographer. I think the camera helps him focus on ordinary things to find the grace in them. We didn't say too much out there in the field—just stood quietly for a bit, and then walked back to the house. When we reached the driveway I turned back. The vultures had returned to their work.

 A few days later, Ursula raised the alarm. My puppy is kind of a chicken, but always lets us know about any disturbance or intruder. I went to the window and saw a big, red tractor in the field. Jim and Sean were out to finish the work of the birds. I was a little sad, but of course they needed to remove the deer before applying fertilizer in the coming weeks. When I looked again a while later, the tractor was gone and so was the  carcass. I was glad, again, that we had walked out as a family to honor the cycle of life and death in our clumsy way.

 This morning, back in the winter time, I watch from the window as Michael throws the frisbee for Ursula. Her muzzle is sugared with snow crystals and her excitement is palpable. She trots up with the frisbee (which is really the plastic drip tray of a flower pot that she stole) and drops it at Michael's feet. He lets it sail and she carefully watches the trajectory of the flight and bursts into a run like a greyhound from the starting gate. She catches the frisbee in a wild explosion of snow spray, and trots it back to Michael for another round. I watch for a moment more, thinking with wonder of the cycles of life and death, frisbees and snow, and the dance of a little black dog and a big man in a brown parka.

Begin in Beauty; End in Peace; Blessed Be.

Zoo Wanderings

This week we’ve had a reprieve from hot and muggy. In Birdland it’s cool and delicious. The rain has held off too, so that I can once again do my favorite end of the day chore—watering the islands of flowers scattered around the yard. It’s my evening meditation and gives me a chance to notice what’s about to bloom, which bed needs weeding, what work needs to be continued tomorrow.

Last weekend we took a day trip up to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Ellis had a chance to participate in the Youth Conservation Congress, a gathering of 100 Illinois high school students to discuss environmental issues. I had a chance to walk around the zoo for a day. My feelings about zoos are complicated, partly colored by my childhood experiences. I remember a dark building with large pens with bars, a fence wisely keeping human visitors at a safe distance. In the corridor lined with these pens on each side, each one held a different species of big cat, pacing, pacing, pacing. It smelled like an intense cocktail of barnyard and litter box. Even as a young child I was aware of the concentrated tension these huge animals embodied. At random intervals one of the cats would let loose an agonized roar to echo through the tiled building. Outside the animals had yards, fortified with concrete and steel, but no more comforting or natural than the cages inside. No wonder the big cats paced. No wonder the elephants rocked back and forth in a dreary dance.

The scene at Brookfield Zoo this weekend was much more agreeable. If the habitats weren’t exactly wild, they were more natural and pleasant. Here the big cats had a spacious environment, with a variety of plants and terrain. An Amur Leopard lies on a rock, the sun filters through leaves to further dapple its coat; we can see for ourselves the wisdom of evolution. The big cat exhibit is called “Fragile Hunters,” and I spend a good hour walking quietly through the meandering path, viewing these animals from various angles and reading about the struggles of the predatory lifestyle. Predators get a bad rap. In Birdland I try to remember how necessary the coyotes are, even when I lose some chickens. The “Fragile Hunters” exhibit promoted the understanding of not only the important part predators play in a balanced ecosystem, but how difficult a hunter’s life is. I began to feel something like empathy for the majestic feline sunning himself. By the time I got to the rainforest habitats, I was beginning to understand zoos in a new way. The educational plaques asked us to notice the musky smells, interesting, but not overwhelming. Birds flew casually overhead, and we heard the chatter of various species. A wide variety of plants, some of them real, provided perches and climbing opportunities for the animals. Maybe a while back zoos were mostly curiosities or amusements for the public, the animals studied mostly by zoologists and biologists. In just a few generations, the mission has changed to educate the public on the diversity of species and the fragility of our world. In the text-rich walk from one environment to another we were invited to understand the importance of the interconnecting web of life on this planet, its delicate balance, and the impact of human activity. The Swamp exhibit took us to an abandoned sawmill, the remnants of a real-life ghost town that dried up after they had cut all the Cypress trees. We view Packrats, Black Widow Spiders, and other wildlife that moves in when people move out. We read about the sad history of the damaged swamp, discover ways we can help slow this destruction, for example, not purchasing that fancy red Cypress mulch. (I never do, mostly because it is expensive and comes in plastic bags. Also I can fill the bed of my truck with mulch from the Urbana Landscape Recycling Center for the price of a few of those bags. Still I was glad to discover the connection between our purchasing choices and the destruction of a vibrant ecosystem.)

As I said, my feelings about zoos are complex. As natural as these environments may look, they are not natural, but neither is Birdland. Brookfield Zoo sends important messages about the dangers of plastic in the Oceans, yet they still have vestiges of the zoos of my childhood—in nearly every section one of those Mold-O-Rama machines, that will press out a plastic dinosaur as you watch for a few coins. Where were the educational signs describing the impact of those? I think the modern zoo’s mission to educate and preserve justifies the keeping of animals, but we always have room for improvement, don’t we?

Advance in Beauty; Progress in Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She is interested in the complexities of life.