March 26, 2024

Eye To Eye

This morning, my wife and I woke up feeling energetic. As we sipped hot coffees, we talked about how we were both off work this coming Friday. A three-day weekend was a godsend. She proposed we go fishing, and I was all in. Twenty minutes before my wife left, I went outside to warm her car. Twilight was in process and the sky was lighting in thick bands of pink and blue, cutting the vast sky into layers. After I started her car, I went inside the house and grabbed my camera. Then, I headed into the pine grove, over to the crop field to take some pictures. Twilight was dressed to impress.

This morning, I started my morning walk in the woods on the westernmost trail. Although I didn’t use the trail often, I loved taking it now and then because everything seemed so new. On my normal route, I could tell if a branch had fallen, or if the trees looked different from the day before. Here, however, everything was unknown, which made the walk exciting.

During my walk, I found two large sections of pine tree that had fallen on smaller trees. I stopped to prop them up on their ends and then swayed them back and forth until the tree’s branches untangled. Then I let the dead sections of the tree fall, freeing the saplings that were being crushed. When I approached the west side of the creek, I heard fluttering noises, and when I came down the hill, a large covey of birds took flight, their wings flapping loud enough to startle me. I saw the large birds fly off through the branches but could not identify them.

It was time to head back to the house so I could shower and get ready for work. I knew, however, I would be back in the evening. During lunch, I dropped off the trash at the trash service center. Someone was visiting the location for the first time and had entered the small loop going the wrong way. This seemed to cause a lot of disruption. Small town problems. For lunch, I picked up a white pizza from Pino’s Pizza, which was made of mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, basil, and fresh garlic. It was outstanding.

When six o’clock rolled around, I shut down my computer, grabbed my camera, boots, a jacket, and headed into the woods. The longer days made for exciting evenings, giving me more time to explore before dark. Yesterday, I ran into a beautiful pileated woodpecker near the creek, so this evening, I had my camera and large telephoto lens with me. I thought the bird might be back in the area, or maybe the mallards would be at the creek. Walking quietly through the forest, I arrived at the location. It was quiet.

I moved east toward Beaver Tooth Rock. Out of habit, I climbed onto the large boulder without paying attention to my surroundings. I had sat on this large rock a hundred times, seeing nothing interesting. So, imagine my surprise when I was halfway up the rock and saw a deer herd standing in the ravine just twenty yards away. They were all staring at me. Like a pro, I pulled up my camera, flipping the power on simultaneously, aiming for the shot, and like an amateur, the deer were gone before I could fire off a single shot. It was a hard taught lesson. For humans, habits replaced awareness, but for an animal, awareness was a habit.

The herd ran east, quickly disappearing into the thick trees and brush. I sat on the rock quietly, feeling disappointed by my carelessness. Repeated experiences, it seemed, locked us into a false sense of reality by controlling our expectations. I had been to this rock a hundred times without seeing wildlife, so I approached it on the hundred and first time expecting to see nothing. My expectations had guided my behavior in a way that hindered the exact goal I was trying to achieve. This was a perfect example of how we got in our own way. This was how we made mistakes, by being ready for what we expected instead of being open to new experiences.

I watched the ravine for half an hour. Finally, to my right, I saw something move. The herd had circled back and was passing in front of me, this time at a greater distance and behind the vegetation. I watched them ease through the forest. One by one, they cut across my field of view. The light was dimming, but I still shot a few photographs, using the manual focus to find the deer that were hidden between the thick layers of trees. It was good practice, and I felt lucky to see them move naturally through the forest. After they were gone, I walked up the trail toward my house, feeling enthusiastic about the entire experience. But nature still had more in store for me.

When I arrived back at the pine grove, I glimpsed movement to my left, just outside the tree line in the empty field. I froze, spotting a lone doe trotting ahead of me, moving in the same direction. As luck would have it, my ground blind was about thirty yards in front of me, so I moved toward it, hoping the blind would block the deer’s view of me. When I arrived at the blind, I leaned out to the side with my camera up and ready. A minute passed. Then two. Finally, the lone doe walked into the empty lane in the pine grove. She stopped to feed and then looked toward me. She could probably smell me, but she could not see me since I was hiding behind the blind. I fired off several photos, hoping there was enough light to produce a decent image. She finally spotted me and we stood frozen, staring at one another. The doe’s belly was enormous, and she was likely pregnant. The entire scene lasted for about a minute, but it felt like an eternity. 

I was not superstitious, and I didn’t think luck was anything more than chance intersecting with preparedness. And I didn’t believe there was any divine intervention that brought the moment to pass. But being locked eye to eye with a wild animal was special. There was a sense of gravity and respect. The animal did not trust me, and if it was up close, I would not trust it. But I trusted in my role of the predator just as the deer trusted its instincts as the prey. But for a moment, we let those roles drop away, looking at each other with curiosity, immersed in each other’s presence, becoming a part of each other’s personal experience, a part of each other. Today was a good day.