Mother Nature Is a Serial Killer
Again low on time, so I'm posting an anecdote I left in a comment box at Snarky Girls:
It was fall. Chilly. There was a strong wind. A heron had been standing on the bank watching the hill that morning. Leaf litter rushed along around it. Eventually, it wandered up next to the pumphouse. He stayed there, stock still, while I sat in the little front room by the fire just watching this bird and writing. I'd never seen herons leave the water. I'd never seen this one move about along our shore other than late at night. He normally stayed on the island during the day and walked our shoreline between midnight and 3 a.m., stalking between the piers, while most everyone was asleep.
Hours passed. The heron stood still on the side of the pumphouse, a three-foot-high brick structure with a plywood roof fashioned crudely from two panels. (The family motto is THIS 'L DO. We've had that sign up for at least 50 years.)
Suddenly a chipmunk ran past the pumphouse, apparently not having noticed the heron, or perhaps having decided his stillness was a sign of the big bastard having just died on his feet.
No. He'd been waiting, that's all. He speared the chipmunk and flew off. All the while the little rodent squirmed. The bloody beak had gone all the way through.
I was horrified...but fascinated in an A&E documentary way. Nature is incredibly violent.
-cK
It was fall. Chilly. There was a strong wind. A heron had been standing on the bank watching the hill that morning. Leaf litter rushed along around it. Eventually, it wandered up next to the pumphouse. He stayed there, stock still, while I sat in the little front room by the fire just watching this bird and writing. I'd never seen herons leave the water. I'd never seen this one move about along our shore other than late at night. He normally stayed on the island during the day and walked our shoreline between midnight and 3 a.m., stalking between the piers, while most everyone was asleep.
Hours passed. The heron stood still on the side of the pumphouse, a three-foot-high brick structure with a plywood roof fashioned crudely from two panels. (The family motto is THIS 'L DO. We've had that sign up for at least 50 years.)
Suddenly a chipmunk ran past the pumphouse, apparently not having noticed the heron, or perhaps having decided his stillness was a sign of the big bastard having just died on his feet.
No. He'd been waiting, that's all. He speared the chipmunk and flew off. All the while the little rodent squirmed. The bloody beak had gone all the way through.
I was horrified...but fascinated in an A&E documentary way. Nature is incredibly violent.
-cK
posted by cK at 06:28
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