26. januar 2023. Just Neighbors

Just Neighbors

A peaceful symbiotic relationship

    I watched as three turkeys feeding below our bird feeder saw four deer approach. One turkey strode out to meet them as the other turkeys kept scratching the packed snow cover for remnants of sunflower seeds. The deer stopped unafraid. One stretched its neck toward the turkey as if to confer as three other deer looked on. The turkey abruptly turned away as turkeys often do, their movements quick and jerky in all things; and the deer resumed their walk toward the shelter of the leafless green ash trees from which a bird feeder hung too high for them to reach, and where the snow is packed down hard and pebbled all around with deer and turkey poop.

"Deer are in their brush & bark eating phase and so are rabbits."

   What would be neat, in all manners of the word, is if turkeys ate deer poop as it’s very plentiful, very easy to find, and immediately visible in the snow. People sometimes have difficulty differentiating deer poop from rabbit poop; the oval shapes/round shapes confusing them, even so, rabbit poop content versus deer poop content, I would think, wouldn’t be much different at this time of year as deer are in their brush & bark eating phase and so are rabbits.

What if turkeys ate deer poop? It’s very plentiful, very easy to find, and immediately visible in the snow.

    But what goes in, must come out, and that would just make more turkey poop except it wouldn't necessarily have to be deposited anywhere near our yard, such as it is, seeing the wider distribution of both deer and rabbits. I suppose it’s a turkey’s nature to always keep moving, having the high metabolism they have, and I’m guessing if they ate deer and rabbit poop they wouldn’t have to move far or often enough, and then end up being sitting ducks, plump for the picking by predators and raptors, who, by the way, we’ve seen fewer in number of both since 2021, strangely. There have been crows aplenty; ravens too; a rare bald eagle, but not as many in past years; and though I may jinx us, I haven't seen a canine track since before deer season.

As for predators and raptors, we’ve seen fewer in number of both, since 2021, but I'm not complaining.

   In fact, haven’t all bird numbers, save for maybe Canadian geese, gone down or is it my romanticized view of the wild places where, once upon a time, many more birds prevailed on a daily basis?

Where, once upon a time, many more birds prevailed on a daily basis?

   I confess I may have shot a fair number of birds during my youth in Iowa, but not so many I’d think that I alone greatly impacted the gradual demise of English sparrows, pigeons, robins, starlings, and pheasants; the latter, plus a few pigeons, I ate fried, with a crisp green tossed salad with Wishbone Italian dressing on it, and French fries on the side; the songbirds, not so much.

   At any rate it seems to me I have long taken for granted ‘birds’ in general until the wife recently broached the subject, “Where are all the birds?” Sure I moved north for the solitude and serenity; but silence (as far as human ears are considered) is unnatural. Over the last 44 years I’ve become acclimated to the sounds of birds in the wild, and grown just as complacent about  their absences.

A visit from a sharptail grouse and friends

   Sure we have still have a smattering of chickadees, blue jays, crows, ravens, and pine siskins and pine grosbeaks, common birds all, but few in numbers; fewer in song.

A lone chickadee appreciating a fine view.

   Last fall’s goose migration seemed like days of old; hundreds reconnoitered the creek basin and wetlands openings and settled on surrounding  harvested farm fields to feed, frequenting nearby Thief Lake and Agassiz Wildlife refuges on their migration routes.

   When the waterfowl migration ends, resident bird numbers become apparent if you’re listening-- and likely, given the fact that so many peoples are rivited to their cellphones and devices, that unless natural disasters happen in such frequency, we are not.

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