In “Goose Music” Aldo Leopold writes about the non-economic values of wildlife (somewhat ironic now I suppose, considering the population explosion of Canada geese in the last two decades).
Consider the monarch, what good is it to humankind? A whole lot, this tree-hugger would argue. So this is welcome news:
“High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shake the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes. At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of the sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.” – Aldo Leopold, Marshland Elegy
Some photos from Cosumnes Preserve, CA:
this is the spot we were planning to hike to two weeks ago (pic stolen from the Catskill Native Plant Society facebook group):
Stilgoe would have something to say about this…
You need to be up around 6:15 to see one. Its worth it
“Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation” – you know who
On the wall in front of the library yesterday afternoon:
Dying hummingbird in front of Skillman
Notice the broken wing feathers and foot. Sorry if this turns your stomach, but imagine what its like to be him
Matt Ritchel’s piece regarding the camping trip undertaken to explain media connectedness reminded me of the evolution of an area that I spend a majority of my time, and how it has changed based on cell phone connectivity.
Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard, is home to some of the most desolate beaches and clearest night skies I have ever known. A fisherman, I would go out to the beach with my father in hopes of catching striped bass and bluefish under the cover of darkness, when the fish feed and the light is low. The scene is hard to describe to this day; the calm crashes of the waves, the moon and the stars providing all of the illumination that is needed, the occasional splash indicating someone had hooked into a fish. The most beautiful thing was that there was no cell service, allowing for more focus on the fishing, the stars, and the place itself. Fishermen would pass the slack tides by stargazing, talking with one another, and walking the beach. Comparing intelligence on where the fish were around the island is a pastime of the Vineyard fisherman, and people shared in their success with others. But, times change.
Today, cell phone service has been extended to Aquinnah, as more and more houses have come up and wanted cell towers around their residences. This has completely changed the environment, and even the activities of the people who are there. The most beautiful pictures nature can offer human, the clear night sky, is ignored in favor of checking email, social networks, and calling friends to pass the time between fish strikes. As Ritchel explains in his piece, phones can even be used as a means to be purposefully antisocial, and this is certainly the case amongst the new guard of fishermen, as conversations regarding any life topic have been exchanged for the self-imposed solitude that people are placing on themselves when they engage their phones.
I am fortunate enough to spend large amounts of the year on Martha’s Vineyard, but I can never understand when I meet people who are there for the first time or are only there for a few days out fishing who are staring at their phones. It seems to me that the regulars, the locals, the experienced are those who leave their phones behind, rather than those who are experiencing this beautiful terrain for the first time. Perhaps it takes a connection with nature and beauty to have one later on.