One: around sunset.
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| Little Anna's humminbird lookin to the left. |
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| Liitle Anna's humminbird lookin to the right. |
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| OK, buddy, I ain't fixin for a fight! |
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| With your iridescent flashes in the last of the light. |
Two: One hour earlier.
Sitting on a low cushion on the soft ground outside the gate into the woods. Quiet. Looking at the oak bark. Looking at the dead poison oak vines in the toyon. I killed them maybe seven years ago and they're still there, rising and twining through the toyon from abrupt ends, which I cut. Should I take them out? Would that disturb the wood rats in their mounds, just below me? A soft noise to my left. My head turns slowly. Oh, it's a kittycat on a hunt - NO it's a small bobcat, six feet away, five feet away. Smooth body, strong, tabby marked, healthy, short dark tail held low, eyes on me, quickly assessing, then quietly continuing. Slips under the neighbor's fence onto our side and takes another look at me. Four feet away. Shall I be afraid? No, no. Almond eyes beautiful and in the suddenness of it all, I somehow can't really see them, can't feel the mutual gaze. Pads quietly down the steep slope, not fast, past the dusky footed woodrat mounds, and on into the foliage. Breathe. OK! Wow!
That was great! Wow!
I sit on, listening, looking for more.
A pair of scrub jays chat. A rustling far below.
Did the bobcat catch a rat? - I guess I'll never know.
Comments
Interactions with two fierce species!
The afterfeeling of that encounter with the bobcat, it does linger.