Last spring there was a moment that I realized that the animals were reclaiming the Earth.
Those early months, when the roads were empty of cars and downtowns had turned into ghost towns, felt like a reckoning. Most of our adventures were on foot and the occasional field trip to get takeout took on epic proportions. On the rare occasions when we’d venture onto the highway, we’d pass only a handful of vehicles. And the animals, freed from the caution conjured by cars, paid attention.
The quiet, the silence, the shuttering...unbearably loud in its pervasiveness...called to the animals. And out they came. Deer creeping into our yard from the woods behind my house. Not the one or two we have always seen at the edge, but eight, nine, ten. Coyotes, their otherworldly howling previously only heard emanating from deep in the night woods, ran down our road leaving their scat for us to count on our morning walks. Mountain lions, fisher cats, and foxes became common sights. Black bear sightings skyrocketed. And the birds. Our rural yard became a haven and their numbers tripled, quadrupled, filling our part of the world with song.
It seemed right to have the critters show themselves.
As the world has started to right itself in fits and starts, I’ve been worried that they’d slip back into the shadows. But early today, as I sipped my coffee and did my morning pages, I watched a family of foxes stroll through my backyard, my dog looking lazily on.
Maybe the animals are here to stay.
Those early months, when the roads were empty of cars and downtowns had turned into ghost towns, felt like a reckoning. Most of our adventures were on foot and the occasional field trip to get takeout took on epic proportions. On the rare occasions when we’d venture onto the highway, we’d pass only a handful of vehicles. And the animals, freed from the caution conjured by cars, paid attention.
The quiet, the silence, the shuttering...unbearably loud in its pervasiveness...called to the animals. And out they came. Deer creeping into our yard from the woods behind my house. Not the one or two we have always seen at the edge, but eight, nine, ten. Coyotes, their otherworldly howling previously only heard emanating from deep in the night woods, ran down our road leaving their scat for us to count on our morning walks. Mountain lions, fisher cats, and foxes became common sights. Black bear sightings skyrocketed. And the birds. Our rural yard became a haven and their numbers tripled, quadrupled, filling our part of the world with song.
It seemed right to have the critters show themselves.
As the world has started to right itself in fits and starts, I’ve been worried that they’d slip back into the shadows. But early today, as I sipped my coffee and did my morning pages, I watched a family of foxes stroll through my backyard, my dog looking lazily on.
Maybe the animals are here to stay.
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