Take a moment to genuinely see
I’m occasionally asked how it is that I find time to encounter
so much wildlife.
I am usually reluctant to give the real answer, because it’s
just not very satisfying. The answer is that I’m busier than most
people, but I see wildlife because I look for it.
Take a moment to genuinely see
I’m occasionally asked how it is that I find time to encounter so much wildlife.
I am usually reluctant to give the real answer, because it’s just not very satisfying. The answer is that I’m busier than most people, but I see wildlife because I look for it.
Everyone’s had the experience of looking for something – say, agates on a beach – and after a futile search, finally seeing agates everywhere, right where the searching had been taking place.
Perhaps for sheer sanity’s sake, our brains seem to filter out much of what our senses detect. Once we “see” an agate, we’re able to see more. It’s probably why some people seem to find all the coins dropped on sidewalks.
I encounter wild things because I “see” them. Before rising in the morning, I often silently catalogue the neighborhood’s wild birds by their calls. Six qualifies as a good tally.
Last Saturday, we escaped a hot day by loading the dogs into the car and heading to a dog-friendly beach. We chose Carmel Beach at the foot of the town’s main drag, Ocean Avenue.
The beach was mobbed with people and their dogs. Sharing life with a companion animal in many places gives one a sense of what it must be like to be a smoker. Parks display “No Dogs” signs. There’s no public provision for getting water for a thirsty pooch.
But Carmel celebrates the dog. Businesses welcome dogs. There are dog friendly lodgings and restaurants. People just generally fawn over each others’ pets.
While the dogs ran along the water’s edge and kids played, I looked just beyond the surf line and admired an otter, floating on its back and riding the swells.
I finally pointed the animal out to a little girl nearby, but nearly everyone else on the beach was oblivious to the presence of one of the region’s marquee animals.
It’s easy for Monterey Bay area residents to get a little blase about otters, but the beach was liberally peppered with visitors from out of the area Saturday. None of them was prepared to “see.”
Part of “seeing” is looking for any movement that’s out of the ordinary. That was how we stopped one day not long ago to watch a gopher popping in and out of a burrow, caching bits of grass it was clipping.
The animal was comical in its caution, dashing only a few minutes from its burrow before plunging back in.
Others passed the scene without pausing, and without “seeing.”
There’s a red-tailed hawk that hangs around one of the busiest intersections in San Benito County. The hawk frequently perches on light standards at Airline Highway and Sunnyslope Road, no doubt feasting on the plentiful supply of pigeons roosting above Safeway. How many thousands of people pass that bird on a given day without seeing it?
A glance upward at a downtown palm tree not long ago revealed two fuzzy barn owlets napping in its fronds. They were there for anyone who cared to “see.”
Once a person takes care to “see,” the wildlife emerges all around us, and not just in wild places.
