We're strange people in that we want to see as many wild animals in our space as possible. We've been waiting for the first sighting of "our" black bear which came on Friday afternoon. My mother was at the rock pile and when she looked up, the bear was standing in the lane, not in front of her but close.
By the time my peripheral vision caught the movement of large and black from the window next to my desk, he was already running across the field.
The bear came out of the clearcut. I wonder if he stood in the lane thinking, "WTF? Where did the woods go?"
Our neighbour cut down 65 acres of woods right next to us last winter and we remain oncerned about where all the birds and porcupines and raccoons and skunks, and insects, that lived there have gone.
So many WTF moments in the last few months.
We do know the porcupines moved to the plantation that's just behind those trees in the photos because they chewed the bark off dozens of trees, which will eventually kill the trees.
It's such a struggle to walk up the unimproved lane that runs between our property and the clearcut but it's been my favoured walk for seven years, leading up to the beaver brook (beyond that, there are two more clearcuts; nearly 200 acres of woods levelled in the seven years since I moved here. Idyllic country life, my ass).
This morning, as I left the devastation, and the silence, of the clearcut, and walked back into woods on both sides of the lane, my ears were filled, filled to overflowing, with the songs of birds. I just stood there and listened. Appreciated. Lamented. Counted several different songs but knew there were dozens of birds singing.
I try not to ruin the moment by wondering when this landscape, these songs, too, shall disappear.
If the bear had walked out onto the lane at that moment, I would have said to him what I say every time I go for a walk: "I'm sorry."
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