Call of the Wild

Photo – library.thinkquest.org

Tonight I stood on my “Whale Rock” and looked up at the night sky.  There was the occasional airplane, a car driving on the road below my perch, and the joyous sound of frogs and peepers reclaiming the last days of summer and reveling in the thunderstorm  rolling by to the south.

Across the valley I heard a lone coyote call his joy to the world.  Yip, Yip, Woo Hoo, Woo Hoo, he sang. I was thrilled to be privy to his concert.  It brought to mind one Sunday years ago when we showed up, as a family, for a Sunday Fox Hunt in Barre, MA. The parking area was littered with bodies of the coyotes someone had hunted the night before. Their tongues lolling and fly blown in the early morning heat, so many animals killed for no reason but they were deemed a pest. They resembled a troop of German Shepard dogs, with their beautiful gleaming fur.

I’m glad there is a pack making a den in the back of my property. I’m happy to think they are existing, as they always have, in balance with the environment that supports them. I try not to think what a snack my one wiry little cat, who insists on staying out all night, might be someday. She is smart and so far has learned their ways.

The sounds from my home, the fans, refrigerator, the electricity that sustains my life, drown out so much of the nature around me. I walked further into the yard to escape my noise pollution. A bat zipped by. A nighthawk trilled. The coyote began his song again.