No, this is not a religious post about petitioning the
Lord...it's about battles for food and survival. Each day I take a walk or two in
the surrounding woods, following twisting and sinuous paths that I've forged over the years around trees and
other obstacles. I'm always accompanied by the
two dogs—one entering the twilight of her years and the other one young and very
energetic. In latter’s dashes off into the forest after one critter or another,
I've estimated that he manages to cover about 5-6 times the ground I do. The
older dog—wise to winding ways of the paths—cuts off a lot of extra loops and
manages to return home having traveled about half the distance that I
do. To each his own.
A few days ago, strolling near dusk, I watched the junior
hound suddenly bolt ahead, in hot pursuit of something. I saw him flush a large
bird into the air and noticed a critter scooting up a tree. He loves to chase
squirrels up into the over-story branches and bark excitedly at them, as if he
might call them back down to resume the chase. He never succeeds at it. This
critter seemed larger than a squirrel, however.
As I neared the scene of the action, I saw that it was a
raccoon, now some 30 feet up the trunk of a large tree. Then my eye caught
sight of the bird. It was a barred owl. It is one of the largest owls we have
around here—a few inches shy of two feet long. I watched it silently swoop from
one tree to another—not being inclined to fly away, which surprised me, because
they are quite shy.
Then I saw the owl head for the raccoon and whap it with
its talons as it flew by. A second owl appeared (its mate?) and the two of them
dove several more times at the coon, before they settled on a branch and
transformed themselves into statues. With no more action forthcoming and not
wanting to disrupt a natural event, I headed on down the trail—leaving the
drama to play out as Mother Nature wished.
I returned later along the same path and paused to see
what may have happened, but neither owls nor raccoon could I spot. As I moved
off, I could hear a faint plaintive call from farther back in the
woods—sounding more like an animal in distress than a bird call. Was it an
injured coon, wailing over its wounds, I wondered, or just my imagination?
What was going on? Returning home, I did a little
research to try to discern who might be preying on whom. Barred owls mostly go
after small mammals, and I'd not consider a raccoon to be small—not like the mice
or rabbits that owls prefer. So I doubt that the owls were preying on the coon.
Raccoons prey on many things, including invertebrates
(worms and bugs), plants, and vertebrates (fish and frogs). But good old
Wikipedia says they also go for bird eggs! Could that coon had been trying to
raid the owls' nest for a couple of tasty and nutritious eggs? This is the time
of the year (late April) that barred owls have mated and may well have a few
eggs about to hatch. The action I observed may have been mom and pop driving
off a predator trying to dine on their unhatched babies.
Maybe I don't want to know who was the predator and who
was the prey. I don't like to think about owls' eggs being eaten or a raccoon
being injured. Regardless of what I like or not, Mother Nature, besides being
incomparably beautiful, can at times be quite ruthless. Can't have one without
the other.
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