As an amateur naturalist, I can appreciate that even as we humans face a society-altering, life-threatening foe, the rest of the world is getting a chance to catch its breath without our continual, seething, frenetic activity impacting every aspect of its existence. Although many of
the reports are spurious or misunderstandings (the Venetian canals are primarily clearer due to a lack of constant agitation of the sediment, not a drop in pollution, although there IS a drop in pollution as well, and a mighty one), most are accurate enough. I’ve seen delightful photos of beavers on deserted city streets, doves nesting on car mirrors, an entire town taken over by goats. Yes, it is true, as a friend pointed out, that many of these individual animals will suffer when we return in our accustomed numbers; the bright point there is that new bastions will have been formed, new habitats colonized. Where a pond was inaccessible to frogs thanks to traffic both foot and vehicular, it will throb with their vocalizations next spring. Where pollution prevented birds from entering some cities and making it to the cleaner, more habitable parks, next year color and song will burst forth and brighten the world. New pockets of life will take seed, and some will thrive.
In my garden, the time of year isn’t right yet to find out how many hedgehogs will turn up this spring and summer, or how many bats or butterflies, or moths like this one that landed on me a few years ago, but bees of many kinds are already dropping by all day, and one truly magical thing is happening.
We’ve got borrowers!
Now, I’m not sure if that’s the correct term for these guys. I mean, “pixies” comes to mind but aren’t those supposed to have magical powers? These definitely seem to just be incredibly small, non-magical, modern-appearing hominids. To
be completely honest, I thought they were a myth, but there you go, here they are. They’re also significantly smaller than fiction and legend had led me to believe; could this be regional? Are there sub-types? I first started noticing them a little while ago, and I really hoped to bring this article out closer to the beginning of the month, but it was difficult getting the photos. They’re immensely cautious, of course, and yet my brief and insufficient observation of them also reveals an eerily (everything about such a homunculic being is eerie!) very human side: if they think themselves unobserved, they act with the self-assurance and even cockiness of a human just getting on with living his or her life.
Obviously I can know nothing about them yet; I’m still processing them being here in the first place, and have only had glimpses by staking out – from a distance – places I think they might be, based on signs I’ve thought I might be seeing. And now it seems to be paying off. It’s raised more questions than answers, I have to say; where have they been all this time, that they appear now complete with contrivances like vehicles and luggage? How did I miss the dilapidated dwellings which have apparently been falling to bits right in my own back yard, in the deep grass the place came with? Anyway. Because my knowledge is so limited, what I’m going to do is share the five pictures I’ve been able to take, and say a bit about each of them.
The first picture is the one at the top of this article. Those two appeared to be in a bit of a hurry, but they were walking briskly, not running. I was able to grab this shot when they paused to assess something coming toward them; it turned out to be a large ant, and neither the insect nor the humanoids paid each other any attention at all.
I don’t know if the ones I’ve been seeing have been in this area the whole time or have traveled from somewhere, but I will say that I think they haven’t been in my garden in a long time, at any rate, if ever; all their behavior seems so far to be exploratory.
This guy stood there for a long time. He was already there when I spotted him and I have no idea whether or not he knows about that spider up there. Maybe he doesn’t see it as a threat, maybe he’s well armed in some way I can’t identify, I don’t
know, but that is a hunting spider, one that doesn’t rely on webs, so if I were he I’d have been shitting myself if I knew it was over there. But how could he NOT know about it, being as he is as squishy and vulnerable as I am to fangs that would be, proportionately, as long as my hand? All I know is he stood there, seeming to me to be contemplating the view, as long as I dared stay where he might notice me.
She walked along there like a college student crossing a quad. What’s going on in my garden? I wish the wildlife camera I ordered from one of those shady knock-off sites a while ago worked. Oh well, I’ll just keep on with what I’ve been doing, which is going about my
daily activities and pretending not to notice any of the construction, the clearing, the… car. I photograph a lot of birds and fast-moving insects and the key is not to seem to notice them (but above all do not be seen to try not to be seen noticing them!), so maybe I can do this without frightening them off. Maybe I can learn something about them and their way of life.
It seems a complete no-brainer that cats would pose one of the greatest dangers to these folks. I was very lucky to get this shot of two of them discussing my orange cat, Vincent. I hope they mean him no ill; it seems to me that they wouldn’t – for one thing, if they dealt with cat dangers by poisoning them or something, humans would have noticed this happening long ago. Luckily for them, Vincent is a complete dork, even having been known to miss a dove standing directly behind him (none of the adult garden birds are afraid of
either of my cats, but don’t worry that this is desensitizing them: the whole neighborhood is full of ACTUALLY dangerous cats, and my garden is something of an oasis – possibly what impelled the borrowers (or whatever) to return).
This picture is why I say “return”. It was obvious that this man knew where he was going when I was lucky enough to spot him approaching this little house, which has hitherto escaped my notice (that whole area of the garden, small as it is, has been neglected since
before we moved in; I wonder what else might be in there). He went in, but I had to get out of sight so didn’t see him come out again. Obviously I’ve been out there several times since, just doing regular garden stuff like hanging up laundry and trimming the hibiscus and photographing birds, but there has been no sign of further activity. What intrigued me deeply at first is the jacket he’s wearing. I was puzzled as to why someone so small, so vulnerable to all the creatures that wander an urban garden, would wear a vivid thing like that. I was just being dumb though. I thought maybe he had a partner and it was like a hunter’s jacket, to distinguish him from the wildlife, but dismissed that as silly. It’s really obvious though when you think about it. This is still a THEORY, mind you, but this is a color sported by a lot of beetles to warn predators of a foul taste or toxin or caustic secretion, so what I think we’re looking at here is protective mimicry. Maybe.
Well, that’s all I’ve got, but believe me I’ll be watching these guys every chance I get (without invading their privacy, of course) and will share whatever I find out.
Add comment
Comments