Predators I Have Known (17 page)

“Get down here.
Right now
.”

JoAnn’s words alarmed me. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Her tone turned taut. “Your
friend
is in the house.”

“My . . . ?” It took a moment before realization dawned. “That’s impossible. With the air-conditioning on, everything’s closed up, and it’s too big to get under the screen doors.”

“Maybe it used the handle. It’s big enough for
that
.” My wife’s words were joking but her tone was not. “Get down here
this minute
and get that tarantula
out of my house
.”

“It won’t hurt you.” My guarantee fell on deaf ears. Or rather, on no ears. JoAnn had hung up.

The tarantula was in the kitchen, feeling its way methodically along the base of the cabinets, probing for suitable openings. Unlike other youthful visitors to our home, I knew it was looking for a cricket, not a cookie. “The tarantula in the kitchen,” I murmured to my wife. “Nice title for a story.”

“How about ‘dead tarantula in the kitchen’?” JoAnn glared at me. “It’s your friend.
You
get it out. Or I’m getting a shoe.” Her nervous gaze returned to the spider, which was attempting to find a way into the space beneath the sink. “Make that a boot. A big boot.”

“Calm down. I’ll get it out.”

All it took was a large jar and a piece of cardboard. Eye to eyes, I studied the tarantula up close as its front legs pawed at the inside of the glass.

“Naughty, naughty,” I told it. “You need to learn to knock.” I looked over at JoAnn. “Look at it this way: You didn’t find the tarantula in bed.”

My wife stared back at me. “If I ever find that thing in bed with me, there are gonna be
two
dead bodies to throw out.”

I placed our intruder in the car and took it far, far away. To the shore of Willow Lake, where I released it into a field of dense grass doubtless gravid with grasshoppers and other suitable chitonous prey. I watched until the tarantula had disappeared from view and hoped it would find an accommodating abandoned burrow in which to spend the night. In the course of our brief encounters, it had neither nipped me nor flung a defensive cloudlet of its kind’s urticating hairs. I still thought it was beautiful. My wife thought it was the stuff of nightmares.

Occasionally, in season (yes, there is a tarantula season), I see others of its species crossing the dirt road that leads to our property, and I wonder if my tarantula has returned. Do spiders have homing instincts? What was it looking for that drove it to somehow make its way into our house? If I looked hard enough at the right time of year, would I find waiting for me at the door leading to my study a little black-and-red valentine spun out of silk and the husks of dead insects?

When my wife tells friends that I’m a little strange, there are times when even I am compelled to concede the point.

* * *

Of all the carnivores that inhabit our fertile world perhaps none elicits such universal admiration as the bird of prey. Its actions are graceful, its profile noble, its devotion to mate and family admirable. So appealing are these birds in appearance and action that we often tend to forget that they are killers as ruthless and determined as any laughing hyena or spitting cobra. Perhaps part of this willful emotional disconnect is that they kill silently. A kestrel standing atop a dead vole with its talons embedded deep in the dead rodent’s body may emit a high-pitched squeal or two, but its terse declamation of triumph is a long way from the lion’s repetitive roars or the grizzly’s incessant snarl.

Of course, snakes also kill in silence, but like the spider and the army ant, they lack the innate visual appeal of their lethal feathered counterparts. Birds of prey make frequent appearances on the currency, heraldic shields, and national symbology of numerous nations. They are the supermodels of the predator world. How often do you see a snake heroically portrayed thus, let alone a spider or carnivorous beetle? A snake does make an appearance on the flag of Mexico—as it is being snatched up by an eagle.

We cannot help ourselves, I suppose. What appears strikingly attractive to the human eye might look otherwise to an alien, who would perhaps favor the silhouette of the lamprey to that of the falcon. Beauty is in the eye of the beholding species. I sometimes wonder what the birds of prey think of
our
appearance.

I’ve always dreamed of seeing a harpy eagle. Discounting vultures such as the condor, the harpy and the Philippine eagle are the world’s two largest birds of prey. Much larger, though, was the
Harpagornis moorei,
or Haast’s eagle. Living in New Zealand and preying on the large flightless moas, it is estimated the last
Harpagornis
died out as recently as
A.D.
1400. With a body weight of roughly thirty pounds and a ten-foot wingspan, it was big enough to bring down and prey on young humans. By way of comparison, a full-grown female bald eagle’s weight maxes out at fourteen pounds with a wingspan of maybe six and a half feet.

I know that I am not going to see a live Haast’s eagle any more than I’m likely to see a moa—though the rediscovery and resurrection of the turkey-size, flightless New Zealand bird called the takahe offers a last, lingering hope that a remnant population of small moas might yet somehow survive in the cloud-shrouded wilderness of Aotearoa’s South Island. Slim though it is, I have a much better chance of one day encountering a harpy or a Philippine eagle than one of the flightless New Zealand giants, which sadly are no moa.

Bald eagles, now, those are comparatively easy to see since the dramatic recovery of their breeding population in the United States. They even live in and around my hometown of Prescott. Visiting remote parts of the world has allowed me to see their close cousins, the other fish eagles, on multiple occasions. The most striking encounter occurred in the Raja Ampat Islands of eastern Indonesia. We were in a small boat wending our way through the remarkable karst landscape when a large sea eagle descended to its nest atop a jutting pinnacle of heavily eroded limestone. The eagle itself was striking, but its chosen perch even more so. The rock had been eroded to leave behind, from our viewing angle, the perfect silhouette of an eagle’s head.

Though they do not attract as much notice as their flashier relative the bald eagle, fish eagles and ospreys are just as attractive to watch in the wild. Skimming along above the shining surface of still water, salt or fresh, they strike sharply downward with their claws at fish that are swimming just below the surface. Their wing beats grow stronger and more determined as they fight to climb skyward with their prey while simultaneously keeping watch for gulls or other scavengers that tend to linger close by, eager to snatch away the catch of another.

Some fish eagles have it easier than others. Those patrolling the surfaces of lagoons in the Pacific have little to worry about. While hunting above rivers in the Amazon, fish-seeking raptors must keep an eye out for the occasional lurking caiman. I’ve always thought those that live in Africa have the hardest time of all.

Journeying upstream in a small boat on the Chobe River, which divides Botswana from the thin latitudinal ribbon of Namibia called the Caprivi Strip, I once watched a fish eagle hunting nearly parallel to our craft. Unlike its cousins elsewhere, it periodically had to rise and then drop down again in its quest for a meal, lest it run headlong into wrestling elephants, waiting crocodiles, migrating Cape buffalo, or the occasional gaping mouth of a yawning hippo. The eagle negotiated every one of these obstacles with equanimity, only intermittently venting its irritation with a piercing cry of indignation.

When it finally succeeded in snatching a fish from the roiling waters, it immediately retired to the top of the nearest suitable tree to consume its meal at leisure. As we motored past, the great bird looked up long enough to favor my guide and me with a suitably imperious glance before returning to its meal of fresh flesh and fish guts.

Residing where I do, on a small piece of undisturbed land on the fringes of an explosively expanding community, I have still had the occasional opportunity to observe such regal raptors at closer quarters than do my more urbanized friends. My study overlooks a small canyon through which runs a live stream. While like everything else that moves in Arizona the creek’s cheerful rush is sometimes stilled by the anvillike heat of high summer, there is almost always water present in shaded pools and secluded nooks in the sheltering granite. This permanent water source draws many prey species as well as those that prey upon them. Among these visitors can be counted the preferred diet of hawks, falcons, kestrels, and owls. Alas, the peregrine falcons that breed on nearby Granite Mountain prefer different quarry.

Over the years, I have grown intimate with an extended family of red-tailed hawks (
Buteo jamaicensis
) that nest in one of the ponderosa pines upslope from our house. I have never climbed the hill to the base of their tree in spring to observe the newborn young—I don’t want to do anything to disturb them. Perhaps in gratitude, the offspring and their parents show little shyness when hunting on the property we share.

It is difficult to imagine anything more capable of distracting someone from his work than the sight of a full-grown red-tailed hawk streaking past the window. As my chair sits but a few feet from the glass and the gimlet-eyed patrolling raptor rockets by barely a couple of yards away on the other side of it, the occurance is more than sufficient to break my concentration no matter how often it happens. Now and then, the hawk will glance through the glass in my direction. I treasure each such encounter far more than any work it may have cost me.

I have watched while the hawks dive on prey; sometimes successfully, more often not. Once, walking around to the rear of our house, I found one sitting on one of our patio benches busily disemboweling a rabbit. It stayed there, intent on its meal, until my motionless staring presence must have finally disturbed it enough so that it flew off, its ragged meal hanging limply from its talons. The reason for its departure was wholly mine. I take the blame entirely.

Nobody likes to be gawked at while they’re eating.

The roof of my study once boasted a large, old-fashioned, but at the time necessary UHF television antenna. After years of faithful service, the picture it delivered began to deteriorate until it became unwatchable. A technician I spoke to suggested there might be a problem with the antenna. There was.

Having apparently decided that at least for a change the feel of aluminum against its feet was preferable to that of wood, one of our resident red-tailed hawks had been utilizing the antenna on a daily basis as a suitable place from which to keep watch on the nearby creek. I tolerated the situation until it grew bored of the spot. Then I changed the antenna, opting in the process for one significantly less perchlike in design. My television reception improved immediately, and I am sure the raptor did not go hungry.

* * *

I frequently work on into the night. One cool autumn’s eve I emerged from my study to see something sizable occupying the middle of our driveway. In the fading light I at first took it to be a package that had fallen out of our car. I am sure the owl that I mistook for a misplaced grocery bag would have been grievously insulted at the gaffe.

It was a great horned owl
(Bubo virginianus)
, huge of eye and robust of body. What was it doing standing on the ground in our driveway? As I approached, advancing as patiently as I could, it continued to pose there gazing back at me. The body and the great wings were the color of steel flecked with obsidian. The bird was huge, stunning. As I came closer, advancing hunched over and taking short steps, it opened its beak and yelled at me:
Kree-elp, kree-elp!
Was it hurt? Its wings and body appeared undamaged. Perhaps it was sick, or just old. Possibly . . .

“It’ll take your finger off.”

Emerging from the house, JoAnn had come up the driveway to look for me and had instead come upon this entirely unexpected bird-husband encounter.

I halted my advance. The owl’s beak and talons appeared to be in as good condition as the rest of him. While I wanted to pick up the bird, to check it for buckshot or wire, to calm it, I knew that JoAnn was right. The owl was not likely to respond to my touch by lying back and closing its eyes. It was much more apt to react defensively.

“We could call the vet,” I suggested.

She sighed. “It’s after hours. Maybe the forest service.” She indicated the silently staring visitor. “If it’s still here tomorrow.”

I nodded. “I know, I know.” As usual, where animals were concerned, JoAnn had voiced the right thing to do.

She turned to go back to the house. “It’s getting dark. And cold. Are you coming?”

“In a little while.”

I stayed with the great horned owl for at least another hour. 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?