I'm going to skip to the exciting stuff.
Today I received the expected envelope. The one that says "College Board..AP.." etc. Nervously, I opened it and found my English test report inside. I got a freakin' 4, I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. My essays were so shitty. But maybe I did pretty good on the multiple choice, so somehow I pulled it off.
This evening I decided to go on a hike. Was considering a trek to the meadow but that sounded much too boring with slight chance of even seeing anything exciting. So I went for the logging road. A pine squirrel carrying a bunch of vegetable matter was the first living creature I encountered. It was scuttling across the bridge. About 15 minutes into the walk on the road a great horned owl flew from the timber across the road, circled around and flew back into the woods. Only the second great horned owl I’ve ever seen in the wild. Majestic. At the first good viewpoint I walked to the edge and heard some movement below in the brush. I couldn’t see anything because the vegetation is incredibly thick. I listened for several minutes and then crept as silently as my shoes and the branches permitted into the woods and towards the edge of the brushy area. I finally decided to just sit and listen for a while. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred yards away. Heard a lot of branches breaking and some thrashing as it moved through the brush, and jays screeching above it. Then I started hearing sounds at my feet, similar to paper crinkling. I saw what I’m pretty sure was a shrew-mole surface and then go back underground, and later I saw another one as it entered a hole. I realized that the noise I was hearing was a colony of shrew-moles moving about underground. Weird.
So I listened to this animal for about an hour, moved a bit as it seemed to be moving away, and then decided to begin hiking again. So I headed out of the woods and walked the road for another quarter mile, saw a red tailed hawk, and headed back. I was too curious to let this go, so I went back into the woods to see if that mystery animal was still in the vicinity. Sure enough I heard brush popping again. Listened for another 15 minutes and decided to try to increase my chances of seeing the thing. Back to the logging road, then headed down into the mixed thicket/forest above where the critter was. It was really tough going though, lots of fallen logs and scratching branches. I managed to get on a decent game trail which followed a small ridge top. Listened and watched the forest on either side of the ridge and decided to just head straight down as the sun was setting. I never heard the animal again even though I must have been fairly close to where I originally heard it. Definitely a large mammal, either an elk or a bear. Unfortunately I am not experienced enough with either animal to be able to distinguish their foraging sounds. Probably an elk, don’t know why jays would be screeching at it though, maybe it disturbed a nest. But I think I would have heard more vocalizations if it were a bear.
I knew roughly where I was...kinda. Basically can’t go wrong, just head down. Heard the reassuring sounds of a sprinkler and barking dog in the distance. Sheer luck that I didn’t stumble into a yellow jacket or bald faced hornet nest..that would have been unpleasant. Then I had to wade the canal. After dinner mom and I went to relocate a few young skunks. That’s about the extent of it.
Today I received the expected envelope. The one that says "College Board..AP.." etc. Nervously, I opened it and found my English test report inside. I got a freakin' 4, I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. My essays were so shitty. But maybe I did pretty good on the multiple choice, so somehow I pulled it off.
This evening I decided to go on a hike. Was considering a trek to the meadow but that sounded much too boring with slight chance of even seeing anything exciting. So I went for the logging road. A pine squirrel carrying a bunch of vegetable matter was the first living creature I encountered. It was scuttling across the bridge. About 15 minutes into the walk on the road a great horned owl flew from the timber across the road, circled around and flew back into the woods. Only the second great horned owl I’ve ever seen in the wild. Majestic. At the first good viewpoint I walked to the edge and heard some movement below in the brush. I couldn’t see anything because the vegetation is incredibly thick. I listened for several minutes and then crept as silently as my shoes and the branches permitted into the woods and towards the edge of the brushy area. I finally decided to just sit and listen for a while. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred yards away. Heard a lot of branches breaking and some thrashing as it moved through the brush, and jays screeching above it. Then I started hearing sounds at my feet, similar to paper crinkling. I saw what I’m pretty sure was a shrew-mole surface and then go back underground, and later I saw another one as it entered a hole. I realized that the noise I was hearing was a colony of shrew-moles moving about underground. Weird.
So I listened to this animal for about an hour, moved a bit as it seemed to be moving away, and then decided to begin hiking again. So I headed out of the woods and walked the road for another quarter mile, saw a red tailed hawk, and headed back. I was too curious to let this go, so I went back into the woods to see if that mystery animal was still in the vicinity. Sure enough I heard brush popping again. Listened for another 15 minutes and decided to try to increase my chances of seeing the thing. Back to the logging road, then headed down into the mixed thicket/forest above where the critter was. It was really tough going though, lots of fallen logs and scratching branches. I managed to get on a decent game trail which followed a small ridge top. Listened and watched the forest on either side of the ridge and decided to just head straight down as the sun was setting. I never heard the animal again even though I must have been fairly close to where I originally heard it. Definitely a large mammal, either an elk or a bear. Unfortunately I am not experienced enough with either animal to be able to distinguish their foraging sounds. Probably an elk, don’t know why jays would be screeching at it though, maybe it disturbed a nest. But I think I would have heard more vocalizations if it were a bear.
I knew roughly where I was...kinda. Basically can’t go wrong, just head down. Heard the reassuring sounds of a sprinkler and barking dog in the distance. Sheer luck that I didn’t stumble into a yellow jacket or bald faced hornet nest..that would have been unpleasant. Then I had to wade the canal. After dinner mom and I went to relocate a few young skunks. That’s about the extent of it.
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