Animal Antics

Animal antics are always entertaining, whether your
favorite outdoor recreation is hunting, fishing, camping
or a combination of them. You’ll see lots of wildlife as
you pursue your sport. Day in and day out they’ll be behaving
in ways that you expect. But, often enough, they’ll
perform in a manner that beats any man-made entertainment.

We were hunkered down in a myrkle blind when it happened. Myrkle? That’s what they call myrtle bushes, locally, in parts of North Carolina. We were hunting Tundra swan in one of Booger Harris’ fields.

For waterfowling, in that part of the world, they build blinds out of myrtle bushes laid over irrigation ditches. That way there’s room to stand up in a blind which, itself, doesn’t project too far up in the air. Not a bad system.

But it wasn’t a swan out in the decoys. It was a black bear. And the animal antics we then witnessed outperformed anything on television.

That particular field was edged by a national forest, a spur of which extended, like a pointing finger, right towards our blind. Blackie had appeared out of the woods about an hour before, and slowly made his way towards us.

He’d obviously been feeding in that field. And just as obviously sensed that something wasn’t quite right. He’d take a few steps, then pause to sniff around. Another few steps and he was up on his hind legs, checking out the blind.

Something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t figure out what. And each minute he’s closer to the myrkle concealing us.

Eventually he was in the decoy spread. Me, I’m hoping we can lure him right up to the blind. I’ve hunted bear a lot of years, and know just the sort of scaredy cats they can be. I wanted to suddenly stand up, say, “g’morning bear,” and watch him pancake in the air like they do in the cartoons.

It never got quite that far. Whether it was the clicking of the cameras or something else that spooked him, he suddenly turned around and took off running. Amazing how fast something that big can move when it wants nothing but distance between you and him.

It’s a truism. If you spend enough time outdoors you’ll see lots of wildlife – and lots of animal antics. Indeed, they’ll put on a show that no man-made entertainment can compare with.

Animal scientists constantly warn us against anthropomorphisim. That’s a tongue-twisting way of saying we shouldn’t attribute human feelings and behavior to animals. It’s all instinct and learned behavior, they insist. Animals, they say, don’t feel happy or sad, don’t play as adults, don’t interact in ways that don’t contribute to survival.

You have to wonder how expert those zoologists really are if they think dogs, for instance, don’t have emotions like ours, or that wild animals don’t do things for the pure joy of it.

While animal antics can be dramatic in all forms, birds really take the cake. Take Canada geese, for instance, among the smartest birds in the world. You know American Airline’s slogan? Well they got it from the geese. Canadas love to fly, and it shows.

I remember one time in particular watching a flock of them play follow the leader. There were thirteen of them, flying in a straight line. All of a sudden the leader cupped his wings and dropped like a stone, falling twenty five or thirty yards before spreading his wings to stop the decent.

It was if there was a mark on the ground. In turn, each of those geese, at the same spot, cupped and dropped, all the time emitting honks that sounded just like laughter. Soon enough the whole line of them did a sweeping circle, and repeated the performance. Then repeated it once more, before flying off.

Maybe you think they weren’t flying for the sheer joy of it. But you’ll never convince me.

Birds can always surprise us, even when they’re behaving the way they’re supposed to. There was that time on the Madison River, for instance. When Friend Wife and I fish that part of the world there are two things we always do. We fish the Firehole River, just because it intrigues us. And we fish the Madison inside Yellowstone Park, because it’s a tradition.

So, we’re fishing the section along Buffalo Meadows. We’ve got the place to ourselves; just us, and the bison, and a small herd of elk watching from the hillside. And the trout; beautiful rainbows averaging 14 inches long, hitting on hopper patterns along the weed-lapped shoreline, and spent-wing tricos in the scumlines.

We weren’t the only ones interested in catching those trout. A Bald Eagle wanted its breakfast. And two strangers waving sticks wasn’t going to stop him. From who knows how high he set his wings and dropped in that screeching dive only raptors can do. Not twenty yards from us his talons hit the water, closed on a fish, and in an incredible reversal the eagle, and trout, rose into the air.

Seeing that was worth the trip alone. The fish we caught were just icing on the cake.

Big animals always are impressive, if only for their size. But they can impress in other ways as well. There was the grizzly, for instance, as we came south on the Alcan Highway. I still believe his animal antics were solely designed to entertain us. He was, I presume, chasing ground squirrels when he became aware of the cars lined up on the shoulder. He suddenly sat up on his hanches with a buttercup dripping from each side of his mouth like a golden Foo Man Choo mustache. All this a mere 40 feet or so from the edge of the highway, and if you think he wasn’t posing for the cameras your more of a wildlife scientist than me.

The world is full of such animal antics. Seeing them often makes the difference between an exciting day afield and a ho-hum experience. So, as you enjoy your hunting, and fishing, and camping adventures, pause now and then to see what’s going on around you. You might be pleasantly surprised at what sorts of animal antics you find.