8:30 am on Crystal Lake and it’s quite brisk and still. Strangely though, it feels different than the deep silence of a couple days back. This morning i don’t hear so many creatures speaking and their timing isn’t concerted, they just tweet and caw whenever.
The difference could be that two days ago was vernal equinox. Why wouldn’t the birds behave differently on this day? Tuned into the rhythms, it might be the day when they take inventory – who has survived the winter? Who is present and ready to begin our great dance again? Perhaps the silence in between the strange cadence of thier calls is a listening.
Whether or not Michigan’s last wild wolverine has died, we don’t know. Our culture is not very wild aware. The wolverine’s passing makes me wonder how animals assess their surround, the available cast of characters. It would seem likely that they might. It’s a gaian viewpoint to expect this degree of inherent organization in wild things, but then I am an earthman, what other viewpoint is there for me? Why deny my own experience?
Species interact, depend on each other even if they’re in competition. It’s a little theory on the second* day of spring, Enjoy.
* Spring equinox was March 20 at ~12:30pm EST (UTC-5), so today is the second day (< 24 hours). If we go by dates then it’s the third day.