nature

Crepuscular

/ Rowdy / Leave a comment

Today’s word: Crepuscular

skunk

In simple terms, crepuscular animals are those that are active during the twilight hours around dawn and dusk.

Many animals thought of by the average person as nocturnal are actually crepuscular. For example, skunks while often active at night, are crepuscular.

It is common “wisdom” that a skunk seen out when it is not dark is likely rabid; however, like many other “common sense” things told to us as children, it is not the case. While certainly if you see a skunk during daylight that is also acting strange (stumbling for a example) there there might be concern, but there is no need to kill every skunk you see before dark.

Change

/ Rowdy / Leave a comment

 We awoke with frost on our backpacks. As we brought the fire back to life our hands shook from the cold. We were both either 11 or 12 and I think it was our first winter camping trip without adults. There was not a budget for store bought kit back then. Our supplies consisted of school backpacks, ragged blankets, and the odd bit of army surplus gear. Next to the fire sat a 10 inch cast iron skillet I had been foolish enough to carry. The night before I spent nearly an entire box of matches getting the fire going. Our last match encouraged me to get it right. We spread out one blanket to lie on and used a couple others for cover. During the night we huddled under the same blankets trying to stay warm while listening to the wind and coyotes and the coals. I remember watching the stars disappearing as the front rolled in.

That morning the clouds were racing overhead. It made me dizzy to look at them for very long. We had nearly packed up camp when we first heard the noise.
 kar-r-r-r- o-o-o
Neither of us knew what it could be. kar-r-r-r- o-o-o  and trumpeting and rattling and almost clinking. We both moved to the west, trying to find the source of the sound. Through a barbed wire fence, over the railroad tracks and through a few more fences we went.
kar-r-r-r- o-o-o
 It seemed the faster we moved the faster the sound moved before us. It was always just beyond the next line of trees or over the next rise. After a while the sound was all around us.
 
kar-r-r-r- o-o-o
kar-r-r-r- o-o-o
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 I couldn’t see any tracks. The clouds still raced overhead and we were both a little uneasy. At the Mountains of Madness had kept me up a few weeks before and the story was fresh on my mind and on my arms as goosebumps.
 kar-r-r-r- o-o-o

Suddenly there was a break in the clouds and wherever there was a hole we could see the sky was filled with sandhill cranes. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of cranes going south.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o.

I remember laughing at the wonder of it all. We walked back to camp both feeling a bit more knowledgeable than before; our uneasiness and ignorance had been forgotten in our victory of discovery. I’ve seen a lot of migrating cranes and geese since, but I’m not sure I have ever seen as many or been as filled with wonder as that cold morning. It was just another experience that bonded us as friends, made us brothers.

I sometimes wonder if he still remembers that morning.

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