Randy’s Blog

Several months ago I got this awesome book called Animal Speak:

It's an incredibly thorough guide to interpreting the signs of nature through the animals you encounter. What does it mean when a fox crosses your path? Or a particular type of bird keeps catching your attention? Or you dream of a certain animal? According to the author (Ted Andrews), "nature -- in the guise of animals -- is a means by which the spiritual links to the physical." Throughout the book he examines "the symbolic and mythical aspects attributed to animals and how that should speak to us personally."

He also says:

When we learn to speak with the animals, to listen with animal ears and to see through animal eyes... it is then that the animals are no longer our subordinates. They become our teachers, our friends, and our companions.

Fish Kill

On Tuesday, March 8, I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch. I noticed a surprisingly large dead fish on the shore of the pond:

Then I looked further along the shore and was horrified to see hundreds upon hundreds of small dead fish along the edge of the pond:

At first I didn't believe they could all be fish, so I started to get closer for a better look. I didn't get very far, though, because the stench was overpowering. That answered my question. It really was a bunch of dead fish. Apparently fish kills like this occur when there are large temperature swings that affect the oxygen levels in the lake. A few days before this it was unseasonably warm, so that likely explains it.

I think our HOA must have hired a company to clean up the mess. Several times I saw buckets, shovels, and large plastic bags sitting by the edge of the lake. The awful smell lingered for weeks, even after the dead fish were gone.

I haven't found much mention of fish in Animal Speak, other than a reference to fish and water symbolizing intuition and the creative element of life. There was an entire chapter, though, on signs and omens. People around the world "have held strong the idea that the changing aspects of Nature reflect changes that are likely to occur within their own life." In other words: "The divine forces speak to humanity through Nature and its varied expressions."

The book cautions that there's a difference between omens and superstitions. Reading omens is based on reason and a strong knowledge base of the environment and animals within it. Superstition is based on irrational fears. Having taken many walks around our neighborhood over the last decade and a half, I know from first-hand experience that a fish kill like this is unusual. Given what happened with both my dad and Wendy's grandfather right after this event, I can't help but think it was an omen.

Hawk

Exactly one week later, on March 15, I was in the kitchen and heard a loud thud from downstairs. I looked around the corner and saw a hawk right outside the basement window!

It must have flown into the window and been momentarily stunned. Fortunately, it was stunned long enough for me to grab my phone and take a picture. It flew off shortly afterwards. Later, Wendy did some bird sleuthing and determined this is probably a Cooper's hawk. It eats other birds, so it makes sense that it would be around our backyard bird feeder!

Animal Speak says that, in general, hawks possess great visionary power that "awakens our vision and inspires us to a creative life purpose". Also: "the ability to soar and glide upon the currents is part of what hawk can teach." There are many different species of hawk, so the book picks only one to look at in-depth (the red-tailed hawk). It encourages study of the specific species you encounter, but it does mention Cooper's hawk briefly, saying that since it mostly eats other birds, it "reflects the old idea that what you eat, you become." 

Skunk

Around the same time, on March 12 and March 14, my trail cam finally recorded video of a skunk! I've smelled their presence numerous times over the years (and once I even caught a skunk in a chipmunk trap!), but it took almost an entire year for my trail cam to record one:

According to Animal Speak, the skunk is an animal of great respect ("Just look at how people respond to it") and it can teach us to give and expect respect by recognizing and asserting our own qualities. "The skunk does not get out of the way of any animal... It is self-assured and confident in itself." Skunks are fearless, but very peaceful, and always give warnings before spraying. Those warnings include:

• Stamping its feet and turning its back on you.
• Raising up its tail
• Looking back over its shoulder.

However: "Once the skunk has seen you over its shoulder, it is too late. [It] can spray 12-15 feet with tremendous accuracy." It can also "repeat the spraying five to six times before it must build up again naturally."

A skunk can also indicate a need to use or study fragrances and aromatherapy. Since skunks are mostly solitary animals, they can also represent a need to balance attracting people and spending time alone.

There's a great deal more about skunks in the book, but it concludes by saying "When skunk shows up as a totem you are going to have opportunities to bring out new respect and self-esteem... Remember that people are going to notice you. How they notice and remember can be controlled by you. This is what skunk can help teach."

Cardinal

It's fairly common to see cardinals in our backyard and at the bird feeder. What is slightly unusual is that a couple of weeks ago, as I went outside for a walk during lunch, I saw two male cardinals in one of our trees, chattering away at each other:

Animal Speak says "That which you most notice when out in nature has spoken to you." So what do these two cardinals have to teach? The book summarizes these birds as "Renewed vitality through recognizing self-importance". It also says that while most female birds are quiet, the female cardinal joins in on the whistling with the the males, which is unusual. "This reflects that we should be listening to the inner voice (the feminine) more closely for our own health and well-being."

Also noteworthy is that cardinals eat many weed seeds and injurious insects, such as the 17-year cicada. This "can reflect a need to be more careful about your diet, that what you are eating may be injurious to yourself and affecting your overall vitality." It did not escape my attention that I saw these two cardinals right after eating a Jimmy Johns sandwich for lunch!

"When [cardinals] appear as a totem, they do so to remind us to become like them. Add color to your life, and remember that everything you do is of importance."

Wrapping up

I could go on with the coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, and turtles I've seen recently, but I'll wrap up this post here. I'm not done reading the book, so there is still much more to learn. I'll end with this quote, which I quite like:

Humanity has lost that instinctive tie to the rhythms and patterns of Nature, and with that loss has come a loss of the reality of magic. Nature tries to show us everyday that all forms of life can teach us. As we learn to listen to Nature, we break down our outworn perceptions. We find that magical creation is the force of life inherent in all things. And it is this, above all else, that Nature teaches to those who will learn from Her.

Last week we drove down to Kentucky to see Wendy's family for Christmas. It was cloudy for most of the drive; towards the end the sun finally made an appearance and I was surprised how much it lifted my mood. It was just nice to see a bit of sunshine.

A couple of days ago, while running some errands around town, I heard the song "Sunshine On My Shoulders" by John Denver:

That perfectly describes how I felt seeing the sun on the drive to Kentucky!

Yesterday the new year greeted us with close to 4 inches of snow. When I shoveled the driveway this morning, the sky was clear and the sun shined brightly. I thought again of the John Denver song, especially the line "Sunshine nearly always makes me high".  It occurred to me that it's pretty much the polar opposite of the song "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down" by the Carpenters.

This afternoon, as we took down the Christmas tree, I streamed some John Denver songs through the speaker, including "Sunshine On My Shoulders". Great music!

In other news, we've adopted two kittens! They are 5 months old, both male. We're keeping the names they had at the shelter: Chili and Jalapeno. Wendy has nicknamed them the "Spicy Pepper Boys", which I quite like. So far Chili seems to be the more outgoing of the two, and Jalapeno the cautious one.

When we adopted our previous cat, Gordon, he was 6 years old. This is our first experience with kittens, and I don't think we realized just how much energy they would have! The first couple of days we alternated between "They're so cute!" and "What have we done?!"

They've just about fully explored the lower level of our house, and identified the best running lanes when sprinting all around. It's so funny when they spot each other from across the room. They'll crouch down and stare intently at the other one for a few seconds. Then they'll wiggle their butt, run full speed, and jump up and attack each other mid-air. Yesterday one of them landed in the trash can! It was hilarious to see the confused look on his face, with his head and paws sticking out of the trash!

Bird Feeder

A few posts ago I wrote about the trapped bird and how I bought a new bird feeder called the Squirrel Buster Plus. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out, and I have no idea why. The birds seemed to like it at first, and ate a decent chunk of the food in it, but then they just stopped coming by. Week after week went by without any birds, which turned into month after month. It was kind of depressing. I never had this problem with the old feeder.

So a couple weeks ago I bought another SquirrelAway bird feeder, which is what the old one was (this post was the first time I mentioned it). Here's what it looks like:

As you recall, the problem with the old one was that two times a bird got stuck in it (the first one died, detailed here). But that didn't start happening until after squirrels managed to grab hold of the feeder, gnaw on some of the port holes and make them wider. I'm hoping that birds won't get stuck on the new feeder with normal sized holes, and that the baffle I installed on the pole a few years ago will prevent squirrels from ever gnawing on it again.

The day after I put out the new SquirrelAway feeder, the birds were back in full force, and I was happy to see them! For whatever reason, they seem to really like this feeder, and as I type this I see a cardinal eating away at it. So, hurray! The birds are back!

Trail Cam

I didn't check my trail cam for videos Saturday morning because it was cold, wet, and snowing (we got almost two and half inches of rain that night before a cold front moved through). When I checked it this morning (Sunday) there were 11 videos on it. Normally when it captures a bunch of videos they're almost all of rabbits, patiently hopping around our backyard and eating away at the grass. So I asked Wendy to guess how many of the 11 were rabbits. She guessed 8. I guessed 10.

It turned out to be zero! There were 6 videos of raccoons (some quite fat) and 5 videos of coyotes. Here are some of the better ones:

A fat raccoon:

A curious raccoon:

Coyotes:

Bike Ride

Finally, the weather today was sunny and upper 40s, so Wendy and I went on a rare December bike ride around our neighborhood. We rode for 3 miles. I bundled up with a jacket, ear muffs, and gloves. It was cold, but still enjoyable. A week or two ago I went for a bike ride at lunch because it was in the 50s. I may actually have another chance this week, because Wednesday the predicted high is 62.

A couple days ago Wendy was reading through old posts on this blog, and she came across this post from several years ago, where I mentioned we had gotten a lot of rain and that the pond near our house was the highest I'd ever seen it. Here's the picture I included in that post, which was taken in May 2019:

How times have changed! Our section of northern Illinois is currently having an "extreme drought" that's lasted most of this year. We didn't get much snow last winter, then had a dry spring, summer, and now fall. Here's what the same bench and pond look like today:

The pond is now the lowest I've ever seen it!

Last week the Illinois State Climatologist blog had an interesting post comparing this year's drought to the severe drought years of 2012 and 1988. I was surprised to learn that this year's drought hasn't been as bad. There are several reasons for it:

• This year had less rain in the spring, which actually helped crops. Dry springs allow plants to develop longer roots so they can reach deeper moisture. Some trees also produce smaller leaves, which leads to less water loss later in the year.
• This year didn't get as hot as the other 2 years. I was very surprised by this, since temps were warmer than normal this year. But the daily high temperatures never got really hot, like in 2012 and 1988.
• It was more humid this year, which led to less evaporation.
• The little rain we got over the summer came at just the right time to prevent widespread crop damage.

The article points out we got a decent amount of rain in October, but we're still up to 10-inches below normal. The long range forecast predicts a warmer and wetter winter for Illinois. The more precipitation we get before the soil freezes, the better shape we'll be in next year.

In the meantime, I'll continue my daily precipitation measurements for CoCoRaHs. Just for fun, I ran a report comparing my measurements for the months of March-October in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 I recorded 31 inches of precipitation. In 2021 I recorded 18 inches! Here's hoping for more rain.

I don't like horror movies, and it's all because of The Exorcist. I watched it during college and it scared me out of my mind. For the most part, I swore off horror movies after that. There are a couple of exceptions, though. One is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which I always enjoy watching. (Funnily enough, one of my coworkers says The Shining is what made him stop watching horror movies.) The other exception is vampire movies. For whatever reason, I still enjoy watching them. Here's a list of some of the more obscure vampire movies I've watched.

We Are the Night (2010)

This is a German lesbian vampire movie. I watched it years ago, and while I don't remember much about it, it was really good. From what I recall, the music and cinematography are excellent, and the movie drives home what is lost when one becomes a vampire.

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

A young Nicolas Cage stars in this movie. I kind of love Nicolas Cage because he's so crazy, and this is one of the craziest movies of his career (he famously eats a live cockroach in this one). He plays a man who thinks he's been bitten by a vampire, and thinks he's slowly turning into one, but really he's just going insane. It's kind of sad. Parts of the movie haven't aged well (his character continually harasses his secretary), but overall I really liked it.

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

This is directed by Werner Herzog, who has made some fantastic movies in his career (e.g., Fitzcarraldo). I cannot describe, though, how bleak and depressing this movie is. If you are ever in the mood for bleak and depressing, this is the movie you MUST WATCH. A lonely Dracula leaves Transylvania and brings death and the plague and lots and lots of rats everywhere he goes. I think I liked this movie, but I'm not actually sure. It is so depressing.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

An Iranian vampire movie. It moves along at a glacial pace, but has an awesome soundtrack to make up for it. A young man falls in love with a lonely woman. What he does not know is that she's a vampire who's been terrorizing the town at night. She tries to warn him she has a darker side, but the two fall in love regardless. Gradually, the young man realizes who and what she is, and their relationship is put to the test. An excellent movie.

Ganja & Hess (1973)

I saved the best for last. With a black director (Bill Gunn) and an almost all-black cast, this offers a much different take on vampires. It is slow, meditative, and very surreal. One reviewer described this as a "scholarly" movie, and I think that fits. An anthropologist (Hess) is stabbed with an ancient knife that turns him into a vampire. As he adjusts to his new blood lust, he falls in love with a woman (Ganja) and turns her into a vampire so they can live together forever. Religion figures prominently in the movie, with several scenes at a black church. There is also a lot of emphasis on the blood references within Christianity; by the end it's almost overwhelming. I loved this movie, and kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards.

Here are some notable videos from my trail cam over the past few weeks:

Fox videos

Two foxes in the same video! This is the only time that's happened.

A nice closeup view:

This is rather rude, but funny:

Raccoon videos

The family of raccoons is back! The little ones have grown a lot since the previous video.

A few weeks later they return again, this time for a nice closeup.

Three years ago I posted about a bird that died at our bird feeder, with its head stuck in the food hole. That was very weird. A couple of weeks ago, in the evening as it was getting dark, Wendy looked out the window and saw a bird at the feeder with its head in the hole. She looked again a while later, and the same bird was still perched in the same position. "Is that another dead bird?" she asked.

We both watched the bird for any sign of movement. Suddenly it flapped its wings, so it was alive! But it also didn't change its position. Its head was still in the hole. We realized then that the poor thing was stuck, and we had to do something to help free it. Otherwise it would stay stuck until it died. Probably just like the bird from 3 years ago!

We went outside and tried to figure out what to do. The bird made no effort to fly away, so it was clearly stuck. I got a stick and tried to gently nudge the bird from side to side, hoping that would help. But it didn't. All that happened is that the bird flapped its wings every so often. I needed another course of action. So I went inside, got some gloves, and very gingerly took hold of the bird and tried to gently pull it out. This was terrifying, because I was afraid I was going to hurt it. But I couldn't get the bird out. It was really stuck in there. A couple of times as I held it, the bird squawked at me, at which point I immediately let go. I needed to try something else.

At this point I took the feeder off the pole it hangs on, and tried turning it this way and that, thinking that maybe a different angle would help the bird get free. But that didn't work either. I tried again to nudge it with a stick, but still no luck. Wendy was watching all of this, holding a flashlight for me, and offering suggestions and moral support. The only other thing I could think of was to remove the bottom of the feeder, which was held on by screws. I didn't think it would help, based on where the bird's head was stuck, but I couldn't think of anything else to do, and neither could Wendy.

So I set the feeder on the grass, went inside, and got a screwdriver. When I came back out, I walked up to the feeder and started to kneel down. The feeder was sitting slightly unevenly on the grass, and as I was kneeling, it suddenly lost balance, and started to tip over. Wendy gasped, and I watched in horror as the feeder seemed to tip over in slow motion.

When it hit the ground, somehow the bird popped free! It flew a foot or two off the ground, hovered for a few seconds, and then flew off above Wendy's head, at which point she screamed. I watched it fly to the very top of one of our trees. It's flight path was slightly wobbly, but only slightly, and it was able to fly to the top of the tree.

Wendy and I both breathed a huge sigh of relief! The bird was free and seemed to be mostly unharmed. We were so worried it would be badly injured, or that we wouldn't be able to free it. I'm not sure how exactly it popped free, but I'm so glad it did. I decided right then and there to throw the bird feeder away. One dead bird and almost another one was enough, so into the garbage bin it went. When we got back inside, Wendy said "That was stressful!" Yes! Yes, it was! (I'm exhausted from just typing up the story for this post.)

The next morning I got to relive a few scenes of the trapped bird, because my trail cam dutifully recorded videos of the event! It didn't get any particularly good videos, though. There's one of me nudging the bird with a stick, one of me looking at the feeder while Wendy holds the flashlight, one of me taking off my gloves to go inside and get the screwdriver, and one of me watching the bird fly away right after it got free. I was hoping it would get a video of the bird popping free, but it didn't.

Here's the best screenshot I could get from the videos of the trapped bird (it's on the left):

Later that evening I started looking online for a new bird feeder. I found two different feeders on Amazon where someone left a review saying the same thing (a bird getting stuck) happened to them! One of the reviews even had a picture of it. This is crazy; I never knew such a thing could happen!

Eventually I did buy a new bird feeder, the Squirrel Buster Plus from a local wild bird shop. It took several days for the birds to get used to it, but they're now starting to use it more:

I sure hope this one goes better!

In my recent post about Wildlife, I mentioned a bunch of different animals: raccoons, ducks, fish, foxes, toads, and turtles. But I did not mention egrets, despite seeing them frequently at the pond near our house. The main reason I didn't is because I couldn't get a picture of them. They often hang out along the shore of the pond, but every time I got close enough to take a picture, they would fly away as soon as I pulled out my phone.

Finally I realized I should get my phone's camera ready in advance. A few days later, while I was out walking, I saw an egret on the shore in the distance. I pulled my phone out, started the camera app, held it up for a picture, and kept walking towards the bird. Once I got close enough, all I had to do was press a button. It still flew off when I got too close, but at least I got some semi-decent pictures:

A couple weeks ago, I was out for a walk in the evening, and I noticed an egret with a fish in its mouth! I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. Apparently it was too focused on dinner to fly away this time.

As I was looking at my phone and taking this picture, I heard a crunching sound. I looked up, and it had swallowed the fish!

Last summer I wrote about some new trails we explored, which included the Long Prairie Trail. That's become one of our favorite trails to ride; we've gone there a couple of times so far this summer. It runs east/west for 15 miles. At the western edge, when the Long Prairie Trail ends, the Stone Bridge Trail begins. A couple weeks ago we rode a portion of that trail for the first time, and we really enjoyed it. There were several noteworthy things from the ride.

Turkeys

First up, are turkeys! There were a couple of turkeys out for a stroll on the trail. As we rode by, they quickly moved off the road and into the bushes. I tried to take some pictures, but they mostly turned out blurry. This zoomed-in photo is the best I could get:

Kind of fun!

Deer

Next, we saw a couple of deer on the trail, well ahead of us. One of them had very impressive antlers! We stopped to watch them from a distance, and they watched us back, suspiciously. When I took out my phone, they started to run away down the trail and then into the woods. Here's another zoomed-in photo, which is the best I could get:

We rode a bit further ahead, and then stopped again because we could still see them through the trees. From the glimpse that I got, they looked enormous! A few seconds later they ran further into the woods, out of sight. I wish I could have gotten a better picture, because they were much larger deer than I'm used to seeing. The photo above doesn't do them justice.

I think we were really lucky to see them, too, because other bikers appeared a minute later. They would have scared off the deer had we not done so first. Anyway, it was very cool!

Stone Bridge

Finally, the trail took us over a stone bridge, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

After we rode across it, we parked our bikes and went down a very steep and twisty walkway. Here's the view from halfway down the walkway, looking towards the bottom and then looking up towards the trail:

 At the bottom was an observation platform, with a display stand that had lots of history of the bridge and the area. Here's the bridge as it is now, and what it used to look like back when the trail was a railway:

After returning to our bikes, we rode back to our car and drove home. It was a fun trip!

A few days ago my trail cam recorded a family of raccoons marching through our back yard in the wee hours of the morning. It was kind of cute:

Last night, I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I saw a mama duck watching a bunch of little ducklings frolic about in the water. It, too, was kind of cute. So I took a picture, but as soon as I pulled my phone out the mama duck turned around to look at me, so the final picture wasn't as cute as I'd hoped:

Several weeks ago, while on a walk around our neighborhood, Wendy spotted an unusually large fish in the pond by our house. I recorded this video of it:

Several blog posts ago (here), I posted a video of a fox jumping over our neighbor's fence. Since then we've gotten 2 more videos of that happening. Here they are:

Finally, a month or two ago I went out for a walk shortly after it stopped raining. Walking down our driveway, I was startled by a splash in front of me, and then I saw this big toad:

Those are the notable wildlife encounters I've had recently. Haven't seen any big turtles so far this year, but one of our neighbors said they saw one sitting in our driveway early in the morning about a month ago.