Encounter with a Red Squirrel
On my way to lunch today, I happened across a little red squirrel chirping away in a tall spruce. At first I couldn't find the animal who was singing, it was so small by comparison to the tree and was situated some distance up its trunk. I felt myself drawn to the sound, though, by its sheer volume and the mystery of the moment. The mystery revealed itself to be a squirrel oriented veritcally, parallel to the trunk. I wondered for what purpose the creature barked so insistently, for I could now discern an urgency in its voice.
Just then a blue jay's shadow played over the daylight illuminating the path. I realized that the squirrel had know of the bird's presence all along; for the furry fellow's cry only intensified with the bird's flight. While the squirrel had not welcomed the jay's presence, it preferred the status quo to movement, which required renewed strategizing.
The blue jay alighted in a tree, yet the squirrel kept up its mighty bark. As I remained before the little animal, it charged a few paces down the trunk and let out its yawp. Yet I stood beholding the foxy coat and bushy tail. The squirrel charged a second and third time. Upon hearing the third cry, I realized that I, the human, had been the unwanted visitor. From the episode's start, the squirrel meant to ward me off, yet by sounding the alarm it had intoxicated me.
Squirrels have not announced themselves in my urban, suburban, or rural experiences. They have preferred to scurry across the scene without attracting the notice of passers by. Here in Juneau, this wild--or is it rural still?--squirrel continued barking for fifteen minutes straight. Not so terrified by my presence as to scamper away before I might see it, the squirrel had had the audacity to stand its ground against a formidable foe. Had my camera been the gun of one of my pioneering ancestors, the squirrel would have found himself in a Brunswick stew.
Later today, I watched a bald eagle soar on the air currents above the shores of Auke Bay. I was on a walk along the shore and happened to be standing thirty yards from the spruce atop which it chose to perch. After admiring its magnificent size from that distance, I crept up under the eagle's tree. The eagle glanced at my approach. Standing a yard from the tree, I studied the eagle's yellow eye, its large, gripping talons, its fluffy, slightly unkempt feathers. Head in wing, the eagle resumed its nap.
While the eagle did not feel threatened by my presence as the squirrel did, both animals shared a quality I could recognize only as wildness for a few hours. But, of course, the two animals I encountered today are wild and live in a region which is wilderness relative to my experience. By terming the eagle and the squirrel wild, I had identified them as inhabiting a different zone from my own habitual realm of existence--one in which even a squirrel considers me part of the throng of nature.
Just then a blue jay's shadow played over the daylight illuminating the path. I realized that the squirrel had know of the bird's presence all along; for the furry fellow's cry only intensified with the bird's flight. While the squirrel had not welcomed the jay's presence, it preferred the status quo to movement, which required renewed strategizing.
The blue jay alighted in a tree, yet the squirrel kept up its mighty bark. As I remained before the little animal, it charged a few paces down the trunk and let out its yawp. Yet I stood beholding the foxy coat and bushy tail. The squirrel charged a second and third time. Upon hearing the third cry, I realized that I, the human, had been the unwanted visitor. From the episode's start, the squirrel meant to ward me off, yet by sounding the alarm it had intoxicated me.
Squirrels have not announced themselves in my urban, suburban, or rural experiences. They have preferred to scurry across the scene without attracting the notice of passers by. Here in Juneau, this wild--or is it rural still?--squirrel continued barking for fifteen minutes straight. Not so terrified by my presence as to scamper away before I might see it, the squirrel had had the audacity to stand its ground against a formidable foe. Had my camera been the gun of one of my pioneering ancestors, the squirrel would have found himself in a Brunswick stew.
*****
Later today, I watched a bald eagle soar on the air currents above the shores of Auke Bay. I was on a walk along the shore and happened to be standing thirty yards from the spruce atop which it chose to perch. After admiring its magnificent size from that distance, I crept up under the eagle's tree. The eagle glanced at my approach. Standing a yard from the tree, I studied the eagle's yellow eye, its large, gripping talons, its fluffy, slightly unkempt feathers. Head in wing, the eagle resumed its nap.
While the eagle did not feel threatened by my presence as the squirrel did, both animals shared a quality I could recognize only as wildness for a few hours. But, of course, the two animals I encountered today are wild and live in a region which is wilderness relative to my experience. By terming the eagle and the squirrel wild, I had identified them as inhabiting a different zone from my own habitual realm of existence--one in which even a squirrel considers me part of the throng of nature.
posted by Palmer Seeley | 5:27 PM
2 Comments:
you atribute the behavior of the squirrel and the eagle to their wild nature. Rather than an inherent wildness couldn't their behavior result from freedom. In cities and suburbs humans control the landscape and have pushed "wild" animals to the perimeter. A squirrel in the city would run away from a person because it knows that it intrudes upon human territory. In contrast, your red squirrel considered you the interloper. In Alaska the squirrel has not been caged or controled, and thus is free to respond as it would naturally.
The pioneer who pushed westward and then northward into Alaska would consider wilderness the domain of freedom. Moonshine, an expression of an individual's claim on social freedom, tends to be made in the more "wild" counties of the Appalachian Mountain states. Yet if wilderness provides freedom to animals and humans, is urban, suburban, rural society not free? As an American citizen living in a city, have I disenfranchized myself of a certain degree of freedom naturally afforded the mythological "Wild Man"? In a word, yes.
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