Hi Ed and Tweets,



Ed's well-written post reminded me vividly of a hiking experience I had that was the closest I came to fully appreciating what a prey species feels like.? As the species on the very top of the food chain (except in unusual circumstances) we humans have pretty much lost touch with the life and death dramas that play out in nature constantly.?



My experience involved large mammals.? Back in the mid-to-late-90's when I had good knees (and weighed a lot less!) I would take an annual section hike on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) - solo.? It was my 'Thoreau vacation' - just me and the woods and the?trail.? My wife would drop me off at the southern end of a section of the PCT and I would hike to an agreed-upon meeting spot to be picked up seven to nine days later.? Depending on the location on the trail, you would sometimes see a fair number of other hikers, but there were numerous days (particularly in the middle of a section - a section was typically 80 to 125 miles - between easy trail access points) when you would see no one at all.? My experience came on one such day in which I had hiked all day without seeing a soul.?



In late afternoon, I came to a cross trail that led left to a lake where I planned on camping that night.? I turned left and just past the intersection had to answer the call of nature - of the standup variety.? While thus engaged, I had that very rare?situation that most of us get at some point in our life where I had the electric feeling that I was being watched from behind - and the hair on the back of my neck literally stood up.? Some primitive self-defense gene must have still been active, because when I turned around and looked behind me, no more than 20 yards away was...a wolf!? Complete with yellow eyes and that 'look straight through you' stare that wolves evince unlike any domesticated canine.? A look that appeared completely focused on me?to see what my fight or flight reaction would be.? My first thought, of course, was '...but?THERE ARE NO WOLVES IN OREGON; this can't be!'? Except I was quite sure I wasn't hallucinating, and having seen wolves before, this animal appeared to be the real deal.? About this time, a flash of movement caught my peripheral vision and I saw ANOTHER wolf running?through the woods.? Now my mental thought was, '...great, now I'll be famous when the news headlines read "Oregon hiker killed by?a wolf pack?in the first documented wolf attack on a human?in the US in umpty-ump years."'?



As I was contemplating my options, I happened to catch a glimpse of bright color on the running 'wolf' and realized it was a collar.? Then, from down the cross trail but still out of sight, I heard a whistle.? The two 'wolves' perked up at the whistle and shortly a?man and woman?hiking on the side trail reached my location and were greeted by the canines.? I was greatly relieved, but said to them something to the effect that I must have been hiking too long that day because I was convinced their dogs were wolves.? Whereupon the couple said that I was half right, because the two animals were wolf hybrids - half-wolves.? The one that I saw running in the woods looked more like a Malamute when I saw him up close, but the first one I saw that was staring me down looked?absolutely like a wild wolf.? The 'dogs' were not supposed to be off-leash in that area, and I'm not certain of the wisdom of hybridizing domesticated and wild animals, but at least it made me feel better that I wasn't simply imagining a regular pooch to be a wolf.



But to the point of Ed's post, until you have been in the situation where your primitive reactions tell you you are on?the wrong end of a food chain relationship, you can't really grasp what that feeling is like.? It is something we can all be glad that we don't have to deal with as a routine part of living.? I will never forget the moment I turned around and saw those yellow eyes burning a hole right through me.





John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA

johntubbs at comcast.net

www.tubbsphoto.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Newbold" <ednewbold1 at yahoo.com>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 11:17:19 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [Tweeters] Eagle decides against Ed for dinner






Hi all,





Delia and I recreate in the summer by swimming from one park on Lake WA along the shore a little way to the next park and then back again. ?





I take about 20 strokes and then spyhop for a while to take stock of approaching danger. ? What I?m thinking here is mainly speeding boats piloted by anyone from the Cleveland Indians pitching staff, that sort of thing. ? (Boat speeders ? have killed one person on Lk. WA and one on Lake Tapps in the last year ).





But it wasn?t a boat that got my heart rate going this time. ? When I brought my head out of water my vision screen was filled by a huge adult Bald Eagle that was about 4 yards away from me gaining altitude but still only a couple feet above the water line, flying toward me but angling safely off to one side. ? It was a view of a Bald Eagle that removed my normal reaction of admiration and replaced it with a certain amount of panic, since I felt so slow and helpless in the water and the bird seemed so fast and so massively much bigger than me. ?





Delia saw the event from about 40 yards away. ? She didn?t get a sense of peril (what does that tell you?) ? She saw an Eagle hovering very low over the water and at first didn?t see me there and then saw the bird suddenly dip down almost to the water with talons deployed, at which point she realized that I was right there because she saw my bright pink bathing cap (the waves were high today). ? She said it was amazing how small my head looked compared to how big the bird looked, which replicated my feelings exactly.





I?m reluctant to attribute things like this to mental or visual errors by the bird, but it did occur to me that my bright red bathing cap could look like a juicy spawning red Sockeye. It?s quite possible of course the Eagle had a fish in its sights that was very near where I was, who knows. I couldn?t tell if?she (I'm assuming) ?had payload because I wasn?t wearing glasses and was preoccupied, but Delia said the bird didn?t break the surface of the water, so maybe not. ? Afterward, she?flew in high speed flapping flight off toward Bellevue.





When I talk to folks about Bald Eagles, I realize that their real size, (a bird?s weight compared to a mammal?s weight doesn?t yield a meaningful comparison, since birds are engineered to be light) skill, ? speed, abilities and power are vastly underestimated by the non-birding public. ?





I got to see the bird today as its prey sees it?and underestimating it wasn?t an option.








Thanks all,





And oh, by the way---





RACING NEWS SOON!





JOIN THE YARDBIRDRACE ?!





? and help CONSERVE BIRDLIFE!





(email me with at the yardbirdrace address with your 2009 year yard list)





Ed Newbold ednewbold1 at yahoo.com or yardbirdrace at yahoo.com ? Beacon Hill , Seattle





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