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By Root 307 0

Crouched on the ground, gazing into vast yellow eyes that often blinked and turned away from me, I struggled to make that absurd and illogical connection that humans often attempt when confronted with a representative of the waning wild. We are so sure that if we just try hard enough we can understand, we can communicate with wild animals. Everyone likes to think they are special, especially when it comes to establishing a relationship with other species. The thing of it is, other species usually don’t want to establish a relationship with us. If they did, they would no longer be wild. We have domesticated enough of the natural world, to serve us both as companions and as food.

Straightening, I bid our enigmatic guest good night, rose, and made a wide circle around it as I walked down to the house.

An hour later and still consumed with curiosity, I returned to check on our visitor. It was gone. Searching the area with my flashlight, I could find no sign of him. No dropped or plucked feathers, no blood, nothing to indicate it was in any way injured or had been harmed. A mystery, but one with, to all intents and purposes, a happy ending. Returning to the house, I felt a lot better about the situation.

Maybe, I told myself, the owl had swallowed a mouse that hadn’t agreed with it. Or eaten some spoiled food a thoughtless homeowner had left out for neighborhood cats. Or maybe it had just been in the mood to sit on the ground for a while and stare at whomever happened to amble along. Hoo knows?

Two final owlish observations: the great horned owls, like the hawks, are permanent residents in our canyon. Many a summer’s night, we see them sitting in their favorite trees and hear them hooting back and forth. I have tried hooting at them in turn, and flatter myself that they answer me. In reality, they are doubtless just continuing to call among themselves, no doubt saying something like, “Don’t you wish that stupid mammal would just shut up?”

And the other thing I have learned about great horned owls . . . ?

You cannot imagine the sheer volume of their nightly defecations, the kitchen-sink whiteness of it, and how hard it can be to try and remove the stuff from patio flagstone once it has had a chance to dry. It sets like tub grout. The daily output of an entire flock of pigeons does not begin to compare.

IX

EYES ON THE TRAIL

Central Gabon, January 2007

CARNIVORE OR HERBIVORE?

When you walk through the rain forest and suddenly encounter nothing but an eye or two staring back at you, when you can see nothing but unmoving pupil and glassy reflection and no body, how do you tell whether the animal behind the eye desires to eat you, avoid you, or a little of both? It frequently depends on circumstance, conditions, your presumed palatability on the part of the eye’s owner, and a dozen or more other variables. All of them usually beyond your control.

The forests of central Gabon are among the least disturbed remaining in Africa. This is because Gabon is fortunate in having a low population-to-land ratio compared to many of its neighbors, boasts a fair amount of mountainous terrain unsuitable for easy slash-and-burn agriculture, and has managed to utilize at least some of the money acquired from the sale of its oil for purposes other than lining the pockets of its leaders, or “big men” as they are often called in Africa. The country also generates substantial income from the sale of forest products, yet remains percentage-wise one of the most forested countries on Earth.

All of this allows for the existence of national parks that in many places actually serve the function of national parks instead of private preserves for local exploiters. Within their boundaries, I have been fortunate to see some of Gabon’s many animal wonders: elephants foraging on beaches fronting the surf-tossed Atlantic; large primates like the black-capped mangabey and black colobus monkey that do not automatically flee at the sight of a human; the forest buffalo (smaller than their Cape cousins); and the outrageous red river hog, which with the