I admit I have never thought about wildlife for the past 27 years of my life. Not counting the National Geographic features or Animal Planet funnies, that is.
Life until now was about beating the rush hour, friends, gossip, home and sleep.
Back in Mumbai, the only animals I actually came across were raucous crows (I miss them in Hamilton. Out here we have ravens. Sleek, black, beady eyed...they look formidable, not shrewd), abandoned cattle and mangy, feisty street dogs.
Not surprisingly then, the sighting of the fox kids made me realise how alive with animals Hamilton, MT is. I am not talking about an edge of the jungle experience here. This is my house, kitchen window, backyard sighting.
There we were, biologist husband and I returning from grocery shopping. Mundane enough. And out scuttled a bushy tail disappearing into a pile of logs in the backyard. Fox!! We shouted simultaneously. Vixen, I was corrected later by the biologist mistah.
So over evening coffee, we tracked her movements. The zoom on the camera didn’t help so out came the binoculars. I know what you're thinking. Geeky! But I am glad that biologist husband does have some pretty cool arsenal for sightings.
There they were. Four furry fox feet. (Okay eight pairs actually! I just love the alliteration.)We spent the evening watching them prance about, chase their mother, each other, run in when it started pouring, out again when the sun shone brightly.
I watch out for them every morning. Worry about them when the t-storms occur in the afternoons here. Soon they'll grow up and before I know it they'll be gone. I wonder about their food, what the vixen is up to, how they sleep, eat and play.
I don’t remember thinking about the cattle in India going about their ‘bovinely’ existence in the middle of crazy traffic. I don’t remember thinking about the mangy street dogs until one of them howled into the night giving rise to rumours that Death was on the prowl. I don’t even remember thinking about the crows too much, although I did feed them occasionally.
But here in Big Sky Country (Thats what they call Montana) the place is teeming with animals. I have seen beavers swimming in the pond, burrowing through dirt, slicing of trees at the root to build their dams, I have seen noisy geese, robins of every variety, mallards and more.
But it isn’t a mindless seeing of things anymore. I experience them every day. I stand and watch as a flock of geese waits by the edge of the pond waiting to glide in even as the beaver cuts its way across the waters creating a beautiful ripple. I watch the herd of deer graze in my backyard. Sometimes one of them will look up startled and I watch them through the kitchen window wondering what it is that they can hear or see. Did the wind carry the sound of a coyote or the faint smell of wolf? Will they be safe? I count them periodically hoping that the numbers would add up everytime. I fear but I also learn that nature takes its own course.
The fox kids are a continuing example of the cycle of nature. Its birth, growth, nurture and a return back to its wild nature. I have learned not to interfere. I do not want to hold, pet or feed it. But I do want to see it. It is like my own private sanctuary sometimes.
So this is my new home. Fewer people, more animals. Fewer conversations, but silences that teach so much more.
I moved here from a chaotic, breathless city over three months ago. I have seen, explored and heard so much or so little, whatever way one prefers to look at life.
But the fox kids- they inspired me to write again.That in the end, is what I shall remember them for.
