Wild life

Often when I travel I notice the different kinds of wild life around me.  In Alaska I got to see some moose up close.  They are fascinating to look at.  They are huge and not at all handsome or pretty, yet they are compellingly honest when they finally turn and look at you. 

We were in Alaska in late August, and the salmon were running.  There were so many of them swarming that they appeared to be wiggling pathways that one could use to traverse the rushing streams and rivers in Fairbanks. Hawks and eagles flew overhead as we visited the beachfront forests with Tlingit totems dotting the landscape.

I have seen whale pods off of the beach at Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.   A familial group of cows and calves swimming off a secluded beach where we had driven on dune buggies gave  us a thrill as we stood on the sandy shore. 

Sitting in a small fishing boat off of Cancun where the Gulf met the Caribbean, we were suddenly surrounded by a huge group of dolphins swimming and diving under and over our boat.  We sat dumbfounded clinging to the sides in both awe and amazement.

And I have also had encounters with wild life here at home.  We have been invaded by those neighbors of ours from the North: Canada geese. They have found a nice home here in the metro area...plenty to eat and not as cold as their original hunting grounds.  I dare say, the current generation of local Canada geese have never been any closer to Toronto than Westchester.

Lately they have had newer competition in a ever growing population of turkeys...not pure wild turkeys, they have hooked up with some local domesticated turkeys and created their own kind of crazy hybrid.  The City of New York recently took a lot of flack from the local humane society when they rounded up a large number of them and sent them off to a local slaughter house.  I am not sure how they will be marketed for Thanksgiving consumption: "Big Apple Birds"??  Well, after the uproar, the Catskill Wildlife Preserve offered to house the remaining birds. So off went about seventy of them to the Hudson Valley. (Aside to my friends in that area: these birds have a serious attitude problem. Stay clear of them!)  There are still some stragglers around as I recently saw a tom and a hen on the grounds of Staten Island University Hospital.  I think the cycle of life will continue.

At a recent meeting in Richmondtown  in a house bordering the "landfill", I looked up to see three young bucks noshing on a few scraggily basil plants, the last of an attempt to grow a kitchen garden. It seems they are frequent visitors to this secluded spot that also contains a church and a graveyard.  It gives them a nice area to lunch on.

Even where I live down  the ferry, interesting wildlife show up from time to time.  I am, of course, surrounded by birds: pigeons, seagulls, sparrows and crows are constantly flying around looking for something to eat.  They often are seen pecking at the discarded remains of French fries and burger bun bits. Barn sparrows were seen swooping down onto the surface of Lyons pool in the early morning to sip the cool summer water.

But the most spectacular aviary visitor I had was a peregrine falcon who landed on my balcony railing three days after Hurricane Sandy.  I was on the phone with a friend looking out the balcony doors when he /she swooped down, sat on the railing, looked around, looked at me on the other side of the glass door, and took off to parts unknown.

This all goes to prove that there is interesting wildlife all around us, we just have to pay attention.