Animals

Winged Migration – A Spectacular Visual Treat

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

WingedMigration-flamingosThis movie, released in 2003, is one of the most spectacular I have seen. There is almost no narration, there are occasional notes on the bottom of the screen indicating the type of bird and the location and distance it flies during migration, and the most incredible music created just for the film. Not to mention breathtaking landscapes from one end of the world to the other. What is even more extraordinary, is how the birds were filmed – the view is most often from the bird’s perspective. For bird/wild bird lovers or just nature lovers, this is one to see. Available on Netflix.

Be sure to see the Special Features and you’ll be amazed at the 4 year chronicle it took to make this film and how the birds were filmed this way. I smiled in wonder all through the movie and again just watching the trailer. For a sneak peek, check out the trailer.

Dogsong – Gary Paulsen

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Dogsong-GPaulsen2There are times when I’ve finished a book, that I don’t quite know where to put it. In my head, that is. The book is so different from anything I’ve read, that it seems to be searching for a place to settle in my mental bookshelf, and meanwhile, it seems to hover in space.

Dogsong by Gary Paulsen is one of those books. It might be best defined  as a coming-of-age story where a 14 year old Inuit boy, Russell, restless in his own life, searches to find himself. In so doing he moves in with an elder where he is taught how to hunt, run the dogs and survive. And then he lives it, gradually becoming one with his dogs. This is an oversimplification and doesn’t do justice to the nuances in the story, so let me just say it was a very compelling read.

Perhaps why it hasn’t settled in yet is that it is a vignette of a life so totally different from my own or even what I could imagine an Eskimo tribe’s life in Alaska might be, that there is not a real frame of reference for it in my head. And yet, I could not help but be in the trance with Russell, in the dream, to merge with the spirits of the dogs, as he trekked blindly in the snow for days, never seeing a single soul or a source of food.

I read up on Gary Paulsen the author of Dogsong plus a good bunch of other MG and YA novels he has written. I suspect these have the greatest appeal to boys, but maybe not. Paulsen ran away from home at 14, and his life – he is now around 70 – has been a series of amazing adventures in all kinds of situations and locations. Among his experiences has been living in Alaska where he has run the Iditarod twice. And while I am no fan of the Iditarod because of the suffering of too many of the dogs, Paulsen has truly lived that life in Alaska so as to have written this book from a deeply authentic perspective. I have to truly admire Paulsen for how he has lived his life; he’s humble, adventurous beyond what I could imagine, and just … well … very real.

Reading about him explained a lot about the book in a way; my personal connection with dogs/animals deepened the meaning; my willingness to try “living” in such a different culture helped. Soon Dogsong will find a place and settle in.

Perusing my bookshelves once again led me to one of my many finds at the annual county library sale and to as different a book from Dogsong as I could get – one by Candace Bushnell of  Sex and the City fame. I loved the series, never read the book, but figured how far wrong could I go? We’ll see …

Freshness Expert

/ still a dreamer

FreshnessExpertwOne of the things that is so endearing about our pets is how they come up with these little quirky behaviors on their own.

One of my cats is the official, self-appointed Freshness Expert (and yes, that is with a capital F and E.) Just ask her.

Whenever I open a new bag of their food and am about to pour it into their little storage tin, Mewsette appears in a flash from anywhere. It’s her job to check the food, sample a few pieces, and assure the rest of us that it’s safe for consumption and, indeed, as fresh as the package dating promises. That done, she leaves the room and returns to whatever she was doing before.

FreshnessExpert2w“My work is done here!” she affirms.

Recently, she discovered that I had something 3-dimensional in my glass of water, although adding ice is hardly something I just started 2 weeks ago. She insisted on getting her little muzzle in there, (so yes, that was the end of that glass of ice water for me), and couldn’t get enough. Now when I give her fresh water after dinner, I add an ice cube to her bowl. Unlike the other two, who’d be playing ice cube hockey all over the kitchen floor in minutes, Mewsette does not want to play with it. She delicately laps the water keeping her tongue on the ice cube as much as possible. Ahhhhhhhh – refreshing!

So she has now expanded her credits to both Freshness Expert AND Ice Cube Connoisseur.

The Deer Ate Them

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Who was it that said “No good deed goes unpunished?” Seems so true on this count! Because I am so behind in getting flowers in pots around the house, I decided a couple of weeks ago to at least buy two big pots of lovely pink, dark-leaved begonias for the edge of my front porch. Left the impatiens behind because I know the deer love `em – begonias not so much. Or so they say.

BegoniasEaten

Looked out yesterday morning to see the begonias had been dragged down two steps and mostly consumed! This means that the deer had to literally come up a step or two to eat them. Now that’s a first! The irony of this is that even though I live “in-town” and am surrounded by farmland, fields, etc. the deer have PLENTY to eat. So they’re just cruisin’ for BegoniasEaten-2candy!

This is no surprise to anyone living in Hunterdon. If I come home late at night, the deer may literally be in the street, sometimes in my driveway. So my begonias are nibbled to the nub, and keeping anything on my front porch is out. Do I care? Nah. Not really. I love the deer – they are such elegant and graceful animals. I know they are considered one step down from vermin by many people out here. Not to me. I just have to be a little smarter than them in where I put my plants when I DO pot them and where the begonias will be recovering in safety.

The Gift of A Whale

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

blue-whaleThey heard him singing.  70 miles off the coast of Long Island and New York City, he sang …. a blue whale. This magnificent creature, nearly hunted to extinction in the mid-20th century, when nations created an accord to protect them, once swam these waters and sang.

Blue whales, at up to 108 feet in length and 190 tons in weight, are the largest animals to ever have existed on our planet. One can only imagine the excitement of the research experts of Cornell’s Bioacoustics Research Program when they heard a male singing only 70 miles offshore. Watch the video and read about this exciting discovery.

Among the most intelligent of all the animals on the planet, whales have been hunted and killed far beyond any need of subsistence; blue whales are an endangered species. Despite most of the world’s countries agreeing that these leviathans, especially those nearing extinction, need to be protected rather than killed, some nations continue the slaughter. It’s a wonder that whales come near us at all.

Yet they do. There are increasing numbers of true accounts of whales, (and dolphins as well), approaching man in every kind of friendly gesture. From choosing to swim with us to nudging our boats ever so gently and allowing us to pet them, they continue to approach us. Do they want us to know them? to save them? to save their ocean? These gentle creatures have no need of human contact, and yet they offer themselves to us – a gift.

Note: Photo is from free screensaver download from National Geographic.