Bowerbird

JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work

Great Bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) bower, Mount Carbine, Queensland, Australia

Being a tenant of a big old house in the fertile Hudson River valley means you accept that nature and wildlife take precedence over you in this landscape. Birds nest in every nook and cranny of the house, with 4-5 types of animals living underneath the porch, resulting in wilderness showdowns that you have to be "country" enough to roll with in good humor, like the unfortunate weeknight when the large skunk of Franklin Avenue woke up from his winter nap to have a massive showdown with the bad ass groundhog at 3 a.m. The resulting stink was so bad, it permeated the entire household for days.

Right now, I can't even count the number of sparrows and starlings roosting in the eaves. They are very successful here, give or take a baby bird or two. I found a dead one this past weekend that barely made it out of its egg (see it here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarieDoucette/status/732274778774589441), but such is life. You can't escape the sights and sounds of nature in this more rural suburb of the greater tri-state area, which is just the way we like it. For more typical suburban experiences, we have Westchester County, New Jersey, Long Island, and parts of Connecticut, with much more accessible mass transit options available for commuting into the city.

Here, we have a state park that forms the third side of our county's triangular shape (http://bit.ly/253lsVk), the smallest in all of New York, which is also just the way we like it: easy to patrol and traverse, to the civilized housing developments and their developed shopping districts right up to the beginning of mountain after mountain, easing on up to the bigger peaks. I can disappear into the back country very quickly, and the wild side of me likes that, too. See ya! I'm already gone.

I can't imagine not having an infinity for nature and life in its astonishing diversity. It's strange to me when I meet urban people who are challenged by that. What could be better than hearing call of the wild? No more bumping elbows with a bunch of gross strangers crammed into tightly packed subway cars, in a fetid heat that reeks of urine and sweat. Personal space, anyone? They just don't get it, or worse, they get it and they like it. Creepy...to be that desperate for touch, like a common criminal. Ugh! Makes me want to look at trees instead.

And so I do, as you can see from my photographic feeds on social media. My favorite type of programming is public television, and "Nature" is my favorite show. I love it! Gorgeous photography and wildlife: what could be better for a nature lover to watch than that, outside of the real thing? Not much. So, with great interest, I watched one dedicated researcher create a makeshift roost of her own, with which to observe the male bower bird during its ritual mating season. You'd think they'd perform on cue (like an actor), but you'd be wrong.

Science requires a patience and discipline that belies the instant fix most t.v. junkies have come to expect from their level of programming, which looks to me like an ADHD ten year-old just consumed a pound of highly-sugared cereal (but skipped the morning Ritalin), and is now running around madly because his babysitter is a rather dead 21 year-old more interested in shoe shopping and gossiping with her bitchy, bipolar (and occasionally bisexual), pill-popping, pink drink-consuming "tanorexic"* girlfriends, similarly rabid on a toxic cocktail of awful t.v. and addictive caffeinated drinks from the nearest strip mall. Your t.v. shows hurt to watch, suckas, and that is a very bad sign.

So, watching my type of programming would necessitate a lot of adjusting for someone like you, living out there in "T.V. Land", as a barren place replete of vomit-colored attitudes with overly saturated clothing made for cameras instead of life itself, which means you might die quickly, and I don't like that. Go away! But for me, the courtship of the bower bird is just the sort of thing I don't have time time to do in real life, but I would totally do with a guide. It's like camping to me, with the added bonuses of bird watching and photography (which I do anyway), minus the leg cramps and a bit of stretching, intermittent with trips to town over the course of a month-long shoot.

I'd love it! Without further ado, I present to you one of the most beautiful courtship rituals in nature, helpfully provided by one very special male bird of the wild, patient and kind in his adjustments made in anticipation of his potential mate, as normal in this springtime of our lives as any other facet of life. Life can be short and sweet.



* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning_dependence
 

Otter Baby

People tend to have an overly romantic view of animal life, like they are perfect little beings eating, grooming, and mating out in the wild without interference from man, which is about as plausible as this: I came out of my mother's womb wreathed in a cloud of fluffy pink cotton candy. No? It's some of the worst ignorance, and naivety at its crassest, often greatly acerbated by the idiocy of those who are most public with their views, the dreaded high school drop-out that is the bipolar bisexual former cheerleader, and now "Hollywood's Newest Sweetheart"!

I saw a film with a well-known, spray-painted, bobblehead blond floating on a surfboard in a Japanese sea (she was there illegally) to protest dolphin deaths from fishermen while the documentary was being filmed, of course, which is kind of like applauding a hooker walking by you on the street dressed in a furry dolphin suit, just for handing out XXX flyers to the tourists milling around Times Square. Something doesn't fit, and who cares about you, anyway? No one wants you here! It's a pointless protest designed to highlight an illicit business through the pointing out of another more immoral practice, which is like washing your muddy hands in filthy sewer water. Who has the higher ground here, anyway: the hooker, er, actress, or the dolphin-killer? Dirty business, indeed.

The animal kingdom is rife with crime. We learned about the other side of nature with our guide Mike, during our Yellowstone adventures off the beaten path (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2010/07/american-bison-of-yellowstones-lamar.html). By the way, you should always travel with a certified guide before embarking off-trail, and those Indian students still living in New Jersey, this definitely means you, because bears hunt in the woods, even wealthy students from their richer dads who are sent here from overseas for school (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/nyregion/black-bear-kills-rutgers-student-during-a-hike-in-new-jersey.html?_r=0). We have our towns to live in, and they have the world. Get it? Anyway, Mike told us the story of an evil bear he saw killing without any need for hunting, just to do it. Yep, a psychopathic killer bear roams Yellowstone National Park. Have a safe trip there this summer, by the way!

And so, it was with little surprise that the cute and gentle otters of my youth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmet_Otter%27s_Jug-Band_Christmas) turned out to be criminal masterminds of their own kind. Otters are extremely successful in the wild, except when their parents are dead, which has launched a rescue effort of its own, too, because pups left marooned on their own in the water will die. I'm not saying you shouldn't assist in rescue efforts if you live near the water, nor should you club them to death, either. It's just that otters live larger lives than you thought, though cuddly stuffed animals at Christmas are just adorable, with some of the proceeds going towards rescue work.

It's just that some single male otters grab pups from out of the arms of their smaller mothers, to hold them hostage by threatening drowning, if she doesn't feed the bigger male first. Oh? Don't know that one? Okay, well here it is: male otters sometimes grab a pup and push its head underwater until the mother hunts for shellfish to satisfy its hunger, upon which the pup (hopefully) will be released back to its waiting mother, who now has to fish for the both of them. It would be weird to me, except for this: how many single mothers do you know who are underfed, underpaid, and extremely overworked? Not ringing any bells?

Okay. How's this: when was the last time you met an overwrought rich white Rep...er, male, in business? In fact, every time a single woman is "let go" from her job, she now has no health insurance for her dependent children, because women are overwhelmingly given custody of their children in divorces. And why is that? I think we all know why that is, but I'll spell it out for you here: because we don't murder our own children as often as men do, or the children of other people. It's counter-intuitive to our nature; to labor so long to produce a child that someone else can quickly take away from you. Uh uh. I don't think so.

Mothers fight harder for the children they love, and by extension, the children of the world, animals and human alike, though if the choice was down to my own kind and the otter pup, I'd like to think I'd choose a human baby first! That's what my mom did. What would you do? Think about it, especially during your next "cruelty-free" vegan sandwich, packaged by...well, you don't really care about the "who, how, or why" of it, do you? As long as none of those cute furry lil animals were hurt, right? That way, if they do get hurt, you can swoop in as their champion to save the day, while the cameras are still rolling!

Oh, well. Shooting starts at 6:00 a.m. for the newest "save the animals" commercial, and you need to hire your own driver for going to the set and back, and, well...this is uncomfortable, but...we've been having a resurgence of "homelessness" in New York City recently. Maybe you should hire a bodyguard? Just for the ride into town and back, though. Or, I don't know, you could just step over the bodies you see on the street every time you come into town, like you normally do when you're horrified to find yourself walking on the same city streets as those other people much lowlier than you. I bet they'd even eat real meat because they're so hungry, those filthy animals! Where's my cute little otter doll for the ride into the city? "Save the otters for me!"

Balls Out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_sage-grouse

Last week I was lucky enough to catch a "Nature" special, and you know how I feel about PBS-type programming: LOVE IT! When you channel-surf using "free t.v." technology like I do (a digital antenna with an adapter made for a flat screen t.v.), you get what you get. Just like those old "rabbit ears" of old, reception becomes a challenge, and just like then, you can tune into different stations by moving the digital antenna around. When I saw the infamous "Nature" graphic come onto the screen, I got excited as I always do, knowing that beautiful photography is their standard, and I wasn't disappointed. Sleepy, yes, but also very interested.

This special focused on the amazing adaptability of the American West, a place often referred to as 'The Great Empty", which the host argued differently. Vast and human-free, but very much alive. These motherfuckin' birds are the jam, so good are the males at mating. 
I know crazy dudes who can't even tie their own shoelaces, let alone approach a decent woman, but that's how it goes for the disordered of our kind. In the wild, there's no such deception: you either got it, or you don't. The male who fights and wins against each and every opponent steppin' up to him gains entry to any female grouse he wants, with the stats to go along with his champion status, too: a record 31 lays was recorded by a group with one male. He managed to mate every 1/2 an hour with a different female grouse. That's impressive!

And not problem-free. A lot of the males are crippled, maimed, or dead at the end of mating season, and that's part of the point, too. The females want the best genes for their offspring, and these are not animals with complex sexual responses like humans. It's something to be fought for, won, and moved on from very quickly, as is suitable to their much shorter life span and lower brain capacity. But, I loved the strutting bravado of their ornate mating rituals and showy displays. 
If you got it, flaunt it! Very simple, isn't it? And so it was: the bird with the best ballsy performance got all the girls. Makes your dating life seem like a breeze in comparison, doesn't it?

At the end of every day, each individual is responsible for mating successfully, to the advantage of their species. If some jerk-off can't figure out how to speak to you properly, what good is he to you, girl? Not much. Even a birdbrain could tell you that, if only it would speak, right? Wrong. What messages are you not getting with his chest all puffed out? That bird's got his balls way out there, man, so why don't you grow a set? Grow up! Life is short, much shorter than you and your rinky dink, so get over it. It ain't all about you, bro. There's plenty of other males out there in the world. Respect your woman like you respect yourself, and you may just get the woman you deserve, instead of the woman you pay for. Mother Nature always wins.
 

For Takoda: I'm always on display, kiddo!