Life and Death in Spring Wildlife
As Spring continues to wind into summer I had an absolutely beautiful weather day with no wind and so many of the birds that were passing us by stopped instead to rest on their journey. I got to see all 3 species of Egret we get here and a Heron flew past me with a large fish impaled on its bill. Warblers all over the place including a beautiful Prothonotary warbler and a pair of Yellow Warblers in their newly constructed nest. Unfortunately the day turned emotional as I encountered a blind Raccoon trapped in the middle of a large and deep body of water and I was unable to do anything or look away as it swam in tight circles until it's strength gave out and it drowned. While I would have like to have helped it from this pretty awful way to go, I was powerless to do anything. I wasn't armed with a weapon that could have reached it and ended it's torment and there was no way for me to reach it. I couldn't watch the end so I instead came back to check on it several times hoping that it would stumble into the shore finally or even hoping a passing Eagle would seize the opportunity, anything to stop the constant circles in darkness but on my last check it had drowned. This moment reminded me strongly of another time I was helpless in Iowa where a buck had been poorly shot by a hunter and was trapped out on the ice. The reason I shared that story in this video is because the young buck was a twin (common in deer) and it's twin brother was with it almost to the bitter end, refusing to leave it's side until it was hopeless. I remember the first night I saw them there I thought that it was just a cute picture and it wasn't until the next morning when daylight revealed the blood on the ice that I truly understood what I was seeing. What I was seeing was evidence of caring in my mind. A young buck sleeping in plain sight on a frozen lake next to its brother with Coyotes and Eagles standing by and in the middle of Iowa's deer season no less. Pretty amazing when you think about it. Luckily after the shock of the raccoon and (I'm a bit of a softy) I did find that new bird nest and I just thought a video of Death and then New life would make a pretty good nature video.