By Anne W. Semmes
We are all watching and waiting for how life is unfolding in this lockdown time. And, if we keep our eyes and ears open, we can also see/hear how nature is going through its own challenging stages of watching and waiting.
In backcountry a friend suffers daily hearing the plaintive screech of fawns calling for their mothers. They have been placed by their mother in mostly hidden spots in my friend’s backyard so the mother can go off to feed. This year she has found twin fawns placed near her house, separately placed from each other, instructed to be quiet as a mouse and not move an inch until their mother doe comes to get them, most times reportedly not until the end of the day.
Walking along in Byram and passing through the front grounds of Western Middle School, the eye caught on a tiny furry object sheltering beneath a fallen tree branch. A baby rabbit with a distinctive white spot on its forehead, sitting silent as stone, waiting to be rescued by its mother – off to feed? One had to stop and stare at such adorable innocence, and patience. Walking away, the fear was, that in its waiting perhaps a frisky dog on a long leash would leap upon it.
Then in an email a video is sent showing the frantic practicing being done by an osprey fledgling in that new platform nest near the of Tod’s Point. Flapping its wings over and over again at the very edge of the nest, the bird is building its courage and acumen to make that first flight. Its sibling watches behind in the nest, not quite as ambitious.
