The sun illuminated the water of Perdido Bay a soft magenta…no pink…no purple as it set. It was a glorious expression of nature’s beauty mirrored in the sky, the water….in osprey’s acrobatics, pelicans diving skills and a lone loon as it made its way through the lingering light.
I was having dinner with a couple of friends from Wolf Bay Watershed Watch after our prep meeting for the Jog the Bog race tomorrow. We get to watch as runners navigate through mud holes and creeks. I get to photograph them.
But discussion didn’t stay on the event. We really just enjoyed watching the sky, water and wildlife.
As we sat and watched and chatted, my thoughts turned to a dear person who celebrates 60 years of life tomorrow. I couldn’t help taking a few photographs with my iPhone and sending them along from the dock where we sat. We haven’t seen each other for over a year and perhaps even when we lived closer we didn’t really see each other….not really. But I couldn’t help but think of him and hope he’s able to celebrate his life tomorrow…in some way…even in Iraq where he works and lives now. He so much deserves to reap happiness and joy after a long career in service to his community….in helping others.
As I took photographs, alone on the beach, I said a birthday blessing for him. Here’s to you my friend….may your day be bright and this next year bring many blessings to you.
Happy Birthday Ray from Charlie, the Pirate’s Cove Mastiff Mascot
As I walked through the neighborhood this morning, wind was gusting outrageously. I was listening to music on my iPod and it seemed to match the intensity of the dancing tree limbs. I’m not sure any other element so profoundly calls me to embrace the dance of life.
Hurricane Isaac 2012
Wind is changeable, powerful, gentle, destructive, cooling, warming….it announces storms before they arrive and kisses the cheeks of babes. As I was getting my nature time and cardio in during the pre-storm gusts, it called me to answer its power with my own inner power. Several times while walking I raised my arms and opened my hands to the sky. It felt like an affirmation of life, a big YES to the Universe. Thank goodness our neighborhood is mostly trees with only a few homes. Only the squirrels managed to glimpse my display of…of… WOO HOO!!!
Later I sat inside and watched the oak trees sway from my second story office window. Limbs and branches were highly excited and even the trunks were moving in their slow, steady back-and-forth shuffle. How amazing to witness the power of wind. It calls me to remember the wildness within and free myself to flow with life.
Just after six this morning I raised the shade on my window. Heavy mist from the cow pond next door had first rays of light peeking through it and even though I complained, I threw on a jacket and pants, grabbed my camera and tripod and shoved my flip flops on my chilly feet. The cats were in disbelief that I exited the house prior to their feeding, prior to coffee or crossword puzzle or Facebook…I think they thought the world had ended and walked around in confused circles, tails aloft as if flipping me the proverbial cat ‘bird.’
But sunrise doesn’t wait on anyone. Light can’t be asked to pause while I grab coffee. Dawn comes and in order to witness it we must meet it, face to face.
With temperatures in the fifties my toes didn’t complain that much and before long they were forgotten. First light always delights me and nearly as often frustrates me. Trying to get the exact right exposure with extreme light and shadow can be challenging. But what fun, what pleasure standing under live oak trees, their massive branches spreading overhead and surrounding me with their greatness.
New green of the spring illuminated with pre-dawn light nearly caused me to do back-flips. Instead I simply stood and whispered thank-yous.
And it made me remember a visit to Somerset several years ago. I waked before sunrise and strolled to Glastonbury Tor for a dawn visit. I wasn’t disappointed then either.
I was beginning to think it was a bad April Fool’s joke. I was standing on the beach asking the lifeguard if he knew where the dead dolphin was that had been reported. He didn’t but rode west three miles down the beach on his three wheeler looking….nothing. I called our stranding coordinator and told her the lifeguard reported that someone said there had been a dolphin with rope on its tail…but no dead dolphin materialized. Not sounding good….could we be getting pranked by spring breakers?
A little nudge from my intuition sent me walking east. It was looking pretty hopeless but my intuition nudged me again…ask the fisherman. I did and he said…”Yes, I know exactly where it is. Can’t you smell it?”
Recovered dolphin last week
Great. And I thought last week’s dolphin carcass was challenging. The bloating was significant and so was the smell. But I was observing a necropsy of a very large, adult male dolphin inside a facility. Some decomposing and a lot of blood…the smell of blood was what wore on my stamina. Tissue samples were taken, counting of teeth, and all the other data that must be collected from a marine mammal death. Hours upon hours of locating, loading, hauling, photographing, and bit-by-bit taking the dolphin apart and taking samples from organs, blood, eyes…a very intensive effort on the part of several people.
Thankfully it wasn’t an uncounted dead dolphin
But today, I witnessed another large dolphin…this time in the final stages of decay. The body had been dragged with a rope and there were parts missing….the lower right mandible, the dorsal fin…and even in the ragged state this dolphin was in, I could see where tissue had been removed. Between our coordinator, my on-scene eyes (and nose…significant putrid smell) and another biologist via telephone, we pieced together the story.
This dolphin was found in December, processed by the other biologist and dragged up in the dunes by the resort gardener and buried. It had been recently unearthed by someone or something and the smell created a curiosity in spring break celebrants who reported to the resort management there was a dolphin on the beach with a rope around it. They forgot to mention the fact that it was nearly skeletal….but that’s okay. We want to be sure it is a dolphin that has already been counted….and not an unreported death.
I had nothing to measure the length of the carcass except my flip flops…. x 9 lengths
Perhaps I did feel like an April Fool….but in a good way I suppose. Not another dolphin death, just a resurrection…of sorts….VERY ‘of sorts.’
Every marine mammal that washes onshore (bays and rivers included…not just the Gulf) and is reported has to be confirmed, measured, tissue samples taken and a lot of paperwork completed by the coordinator at Dauphin Island Sea Lab. She is working to build the volunteer program so our state can do its part in reporting dolphin and manatee mortality and stranding.
It’s not a pleasant job as most ‘strandings’ are really recovery and examination of dead dolphins and manatees. But it is very necessary to gather the data and samples so the reason behind the nearly 900 dolphin deaths since the BP Oil Spill can be determined. Everyone isn’t capable of this kind of ‘death’ work…but there are different jobs you can do to help the Alabama Marine Mammal Stranding Network. It’s one way you can make a difference.
Nothing is more vital than a wild heart. When we lose that, we’ve lost our connection to the untamed, the unruly….the undomesticated part of ourself. And when that happens, the planet suffers.
Yesterday I met Sampson.
I walked into the conference room and high up on a shelf, he perched. At first I wasn’t sure if he was alive as I wasn’t expecting a bobcat to be…ummm…there. But he was very much alive.
Sampson is a northern bobcat that was ‘owned’ by humans who had him declawed and kept as a pet. They ran into problems with his ‘wild’ behaviors and there were permitting issues so he was surrendered to a wildlife rescue group in Ft. Walton Beach who now provide a home for him. He doesn’t like to be outdoors but rather lives in the administrative part of their building.
Stanley Kubrick, my orange tabby companion…can’t you see the
resemblance When I looked into this beautiful bobcat’s eyes I immediately saw my orange cat Stanley reflected back through the thread of wildness that remains very present in Sampson. Only it was like Stanley with his superhero powers turned up to full force.
There was no where to hide from his searching eyes. When they locked with mine I understood that his wild wisdom is still intact even though he lives indoors. It was a bit unnerving to have my own wildness, my own worthiness to be evaluated. It was as if I was exposed, open to his scrutiny with no tree or rock or pretense to hide behind. He nailed me.
Sampson allowed me to photograph his greatness and then came down to my level and allowed me to stroke him and ‘love’ him. I was being accepted into his clan. And when I sat at the conference table, he jumped up and walked to me and head-butted or bunted my forehead when I lowered my head to his. Cats (domestic and wild) have facial pheromones that they deposit on other cats, people, objects as a way to mark something as safe. According to one vet, it is like leaving a signal of comfort and safety….trusting the person or environment.
As I reflect back on my interaction with this amazing animal I realize how grateful I am. To be accepted as a trustworthy friend, or a person of comfort and safety to a wild creature (especially one that has been removed from his natural environment by humans and ‘used’ as a pet) is a gift to me. Given the amount of damage humans do to wild animals and wild places, to find acceptance such as this makes my heart glad…and happy.
What is needed on our part to find greater acceptance from wild hearts of the world? What must we do to find ourselves worthy to be accepted by the clan of wild beings that we, in the greater sense, have abandoned? How can we maintain our wildness, like Sampson, even when living in environments that can seem far away from wilderness?
Whether a bobcat–ripped from his natural home as a baby–or a wild manatee, chooses to bring me into their clan, I am deeply grateful that I am deemed as acceptable, as a trustworthy friend and a human that brings comfort instead of pain and destruction….on some level do they know that I am a champion of their wild hearts?
The sun illuminated the water of Perdido Bay a soft magenta…no pink…no purple as it set. It was a glorious expression of nature’s beauty mirrored in the sky, the water….in osprey’s acrobatics, pelicans diving skills and a lone loon as it made its way through the lingering light.
But discussion didn’t stay on the event. We really just enjoyed watching the sky, water and wildlife.
As I took photographs, alone on the beach, I said a birthday blessing for him. Here’s to you my friend….may your day be bright and this next year bring many blessings to you.
