In Africa, tourists yearn to see the Big 5: African Elephants, Cape Buffalos, Leopards, Lions, and Rhinoceros. I was lucky enough to see them on a wildlife tour in Krueger National Park several years ago. People coming to Rocky Mountain National Park are often most interested in the big animals including Bighorn Sheep, Moose, and Elk. I love seeing them too.
Sometimes it feels like folks are checking these big ones “off their list.” In my travels as well as in Rocky, I have also become excited about other animals including dozens of birds as well as the flora that covers the landscape. Seeing big game is fun, but ecologically the little critters and the small plants enable those big mammals to exist.
Small is beautiful. Spring is the time of babies. Goslings follow their vigilant parents around at Sheep Lakes. Marmot adolescents make their appearances in rocky spaces along Trail Ridge Road. Female elk are forming nurseries to protect their young ones. All sizes of ground squirrels scurry everywhere. I never get tired of seeing babies as I say a silent prayer for their good long lives.
Spring is also the time of tiny wildflowers. As the days lengthen, larger flowers emerge easier to see and add to the diversity of the land.
One of my hiking friends, Susan, has helped me to see the uncelebrated smaller aspects of the natural world—butterflies, bees, mosses, slime molds, and birds. I do not know the names but am recognizing their importance in creating a kind landscape.
I just finished reading an interesting book, Raising Hare, which was recommended to me by another Susan that I know. This memoir is about a young British woman who co-exists with a rabbit in her home during the pandemic. She does not give the hare a name and lets it roam free in and out of her house. Over time, the rabbit teaches her to slow down and observe nature all around her. The book is a plea for people to be gentler with all creatures by granting them room to live. The author, Chole Dalton, emphasizes that “Coexistence gives our own existence greater poignancy, and perhaps even grandeur.”
I value fauna and flora in my life. I am blessed to co-exist with the big things as well as the small.
Glad you enjoyed the book. Almost as good as your writing