Good morning. I have a quick update to yesterday's post about the disappearance of animal life. Since writing it, I've had three surprising encounters or sightings.
First, I was sitting outside and there was a loud "klunk" next to me -- it was a stubby caterpillar, brownish-green, maybe about 4 inches long, that evidently fell off the tree above me and missed me by about two inches. I'm not 100% certain what kind of moth or butterfly it will eventually turn into (he was re-placed on a bush, hopefully to survive) but I've never had a caterpillar nearly fall on me before.
Then, another first. I went swimming in the rapidly-drying Mohawk River, and kept feeling like I was being tickled. When I finally stood up and looked down under the water, darned if there weren't one or two dozen 3- or 4-inch minnows nipping away at my legs! It was so comical that I burst out laughing, although not quite knowing if I would receive actual "bites" I hurried out of the water. Again, a totally new experience. I remember tiny minnows up on Lake Champlain when I was young, but not these teenage ones.
Lastly, there is a glut of one kind of birdlife in the area -- seagulls, and they are congregating on sandbars being created by the lowering of the river level. It seems odd, so far from "sea" -- but hey, they follow ships and boats up the Hudson, and west on the Erie Canal, no doubt.
I realized this morning that I haven't seen (or heard) a crow in weeks. In the summer, no matter where I have lived, they usually congregate and create quite the racket. It is absurdly quiet.
I guess it is emblematic of this time that when I am having encounters with wildlife, they are novel, strange, not the norm.
