Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

A bear at night in the fog in the Sacramento Mountains
June 5, 2002

With the coming darkness a damp, shivering wind oozed into camp. The clear whistle-hoot of a pygmy owl grabbed my awareness with a lurch. My bird watching mother (with most of the birds of North America on her life list) never saw one. Nor had I, though I have heard them a few times. I just had to try to see this one.

I waited, staring into the dark trees, their outer branches silver in the post-twilight. There! Again! I followed the sound of the hoot, walking across the meadow to the nearest Douglas fir tree on the other side, and stood silently, waiting, hidden in the darkness. Would he call again? Yes! I moved to the next tree – a Ponderosa Pine – and again waited for a minute or two. Again? Yes, and so I moved to the next tree, an aspen.

Then, no more whistle-hooting. The owl was watching where I had hidden myself – it might even have been able to see me. I slid to the ground, lying on my side, head propped up, peering at the spot where the sound had last emanated. Nothing. No sounds. Five minutes slowly passed, and finally my arm began to ache. I rolled to my back to get more comfortable and WHOOSH! Swooping over me – not much bigger than a sparrow, its rounded wings silhouetted against the stars and softly beating, the little owl was curious, circling back to fly over me again, swinging low as if to identify me (and not the other way around). It flittered among the trees festooned with long banners of moss hanging from their branches.

I watched it arc away into a dark pool of tree shadows in the starlight. I closed my eyes, visualizing the scene that had just transpired. I took deep breaths to calm myself. “Holy mackerel – by golly! I just saw a pygmy owl!” I exulted. For some reason I just lay there. After a few minutes, I yawned sleepily but I did not get up to head back to camp. Instead, I must have dozed off, for when I opened my eyes, thick fog disoriented me. “Where is my camp – how do I get back?” Stupid me, I had not brought a flashlight! I did not even know the direction of the meadow I had crossed. Where was I?

I knew I was in the mountains where Magoosh died. The last third of his ninety-plus years was spent on the reservation just north of me. He had brought the last of the Ipa-nde to the mountains to join the Indeh a few years after Victorio died. The next day I planned to visit the cultural center there, hoping to glean more little tidbits of information about the man that symbolizes (for me) the struggles of the last free Native Americans of my homeland.

Such general information about my location, however, did not help the situation at hand. I did not know what to do, besides standing up and orienting myself as best as possible. How long would the fog last? Should I try to find my way? I heard a muffled sound, and despite its low volume, I sensed a certain substantiality. My imagination, becoming a “mite frayed,” jitterbugged to a frenzy. UH-OH! What the heck? Something scratching – on wood? – and then a slurping sound, like lips smacking. I stayed frozen. Tendrils of fear slithered around my heart. Very carefully I knelt, still peering toward the sounds. With blind hands I felt around for a good palm-sized rock for defense. No luck!

The sounds had ceased. I stayed curled in a tense crouch. UH-OH! Soft sounds, like the footsteps of a large animal mashing grass underfoot. The squishy rustling came closer. The animal in the fog had to be a bear. They usually run at the sight of a human. Would this one run at the scent of a human? I could only hope. Hopefully, this was not a campground habituated bear, unafraid of man. The trash receptacles at the campground were bear-proof.

Not far in front of me, maybe twenty or thirty feet I guessed, I heard three sniffs. The first sniff to clear the nose, the second for a good long whiff, and then, after an interminable moment of disbelief, a third nasally oriented sound finally came, an exhalation. I could scream and run in panic, or I could stay frozen, waiting to see what the bear might do. To distract myself from the tide of fear threatening to overwhelm me I had to think of something.

I remembered the Indeh beliefs. Bears are not to be killed for they are too human-like. The Indeh banished their worst criminals. I remembered the story of Bishido, a member of that tribe to the north of me, who was banished after the reservation had been established. He wandered these mountains for thirty years, all alone, forced to turn away from his people at every encounter.

Some of Bishido’s people said he turned into a bear. If you kill a bear, you might be killing a banished relative. Such transformed souls were said to live forever, lost in asocial purgatory, never again a part of the tribe, unable to die. I dwelled on that lonely image as I waited for the bear to decide what to do.

The seriousness of the situation became overwhelming. I had chosen to not move, and the decision to quell the fear was becoming more difficult. In desperation my mind associated the situation with something I had read.

Humanity’s intellect was honed and shaped by wildness, according to Paul Shepard. For most of our existence as thinking beings, humans were hunters and gatherers, attuned to the patterns and rhythms of the natural world. As a means of survival, we are blessed with the ability to connect two dissimilar occurrences and thereby attain awareness of new relationships.

It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if pygmy owls use bears as big hunting dogs. Bears go where they wish because they are nearsighted and are confident they will be victorious in any confrontation. As the blundering ursine went its merry way, birds would awaken in panic and fly clumsily right into the talons of the opportunistic little owl following lackadaisically along.

I never heard another sound. I remained on one knee for another minute or two, until the cloud left the mountain ridge and starlight brightened the meadow. No large animal was anywhere near.