Karen connects with critters. Encountering virtually any pooch during her frequent walks, it will "melt" in her presence. She constantly hears "Grizz," or whatever the usually wary or shy dog's name is, "never does that for anyone. Never!" Karen's an "animal whisperer" and their 6th sense "reads" it. That's why she gets such natural photos of everything from bears to slugs to, well, greater yellowlegs.
And so, during a recent outing, Karen heard a racket. The source: a raucous handful of crows, the creaky door-hinge screech of a bald eagle and frantic alarm cries from two greater yellowlegs, a shorebird that nests in our local muskegs. Aha, thought Karen, a photo op.
Slogging towards the sound through the muskeg she discovered the three vocal species in trees bordering a small pond while three naive fledgling yellowlegs set about their daily chores among the sedges surrounding the pond. This scenario's natural progression might have been the eagle would swoop down to kidnap one of the young yellowlegs. With dinner secure in the eagle's talons, the crows would charge forth in a well orchestrated attempt to appropriate the raptor's feast for their own dining pleasure while the adult yellowlegs vocalized extreme displeasure as they pursued in a futile rescue mission.
But a guardian angel arrived to change the narrative. And that angel, Karen, had neared the yellowlegs family. In such situations frantic yellowlegs, being vigorous defenders of their nests and fledglings, dive bomb to within inches of we humans with incessant no trespassing warnings that make us duck or perhaps consider donning a World War I helmet for safety. Always.
Instead, these adult yellowlegs quieted down, surveying the action from trees as the crows and eagles lingered in "theirs." Somehow those extremely protective shore birds sensed Karen was an ally. I can be the distance of three end to end football fields (with the end zones tacked on) from a yellowlegs nest or chick and I'm going to be under siege.
Karen stealthily inched forward to where she could clearly see the entire family. Reaching perhaps the length of a bowling alley from the birds, she sank down into the muskeg with sundew practically towering above her, and paused. Wait a minute! There are no bowling alleys in muskegs or football fields nor can Karen hide behind a sundew plant. Sorry about that!
There she waited next to the yellowlegs brood while no warning calls, no threatening dive bombing -- just silence prevailed. Soon one of the birds waded towards Karen and the frustrated predators exited stage left while Karen, now adopted by the family, seemed no more threatening than a blueberry.
Karen writes, "It was an experience I will never forget, watching the interactions of three fledglings splash with great abandon, water droplets flying everywhere. They dunked their whole body under and bobbed to the surface, only to repeat, shimmering in the golden sunlight, paddling close to one another while the third bird preened and closed it's eyes."
Yes Karen's "aura" once again reigned and something that "never happens," happened -- or doesn't it? Today she reflects on the time when a mother hoary marmot on a wild ridge in the Yukon left Karen to babysit her playful pups while mama scampered off to another ridge to gather "hay." But, that's another story.
