Of brooks and wildlife dramas

On Monday I had to go to the hospital for a head CT scan first thing in the morning so I took Hapi along and we went for a walk in the local ravine afterward. We had not been there for over a year and the changes were substantial. 

Crossing the brook

The ravine is an old growth hemlock forest with a brook running through it and a long trail that follows and crisscrosses the brook in several places. Over the years trees have fallen in windstorms and the brook has found ways to go around or over blockages thus created. There have been several significant storms since we were last there so the brook has moved considerably. At one location the brook was undercutting the trail so that it had narrowed from six feet to less than three with one foot of that over the undercut. It was just a matter of time before the trail collapsed completely, but then due to a blockage upstream the brook moved so far away you could not even see where it had gone.

There used to be a bridge here

Originally the ravine belonged to the local agricultural research station, and the director of the station liked to take his dog for walks in the ravine; consequently it was one of the only de facto off-leash areas for dogs in the whole county (our reservoir is the other one). However maintenance of the bridges over the brook became a big problem, they were crumbling and the county's building code changed to the point that the research station could no longer afford repairs. So they gifted the ravine to the county, and the county promptly made it a requirement that all dogs must be leashed there. This was not really enforceable since the only access to the ravine was a steep slippery path, and an animal control officer would have to go down there regularly to ensure compliance. Dog walkers carried leashes and the lack of an understory in the old growth forest meant you could see someone (e.g., an animal control officer) coming from a great distance.

This ravine is where Hapi first learned how to get along with other dogs. Newly separated from her larger brother at 5 years old, all she knew about other dogs was how to fight them. She had a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde personality, gentle as can be with humans of all sizes but a ferocious beast with dogs that challenged her superiority. Here in this ravine she met a host of other dogs, watched them play together and learned to get along without fighting. Apparently other owners of aggressive dogs had a similar experience, this was the one place where an aggressive dog stood down.

The ravine brook used to have several ponds along the way where Hapi liked to immerse herself but they are all gone now, partly due to changes in the brook's path and partly due to a very dry summer and fall in spite of various heavy rainstorms. We met a few people with their dogs on this walk, leashes hanging over human shoulders.

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Falcon on dead tree pole

Later that day we walked in the woods behind the university. At a certain point I heard a raucous blue jay call and looking around I saw the jay in a nearby tree. Then I saw the cause of its warning cries, a small falcon sitting on top of a standing dead tree. There were hardly any branches left on the tree pole and its top was just wide and flat enough for the falcon to perch there and look around for prey. Shortly I caught the motion of a small red squirrel circling the base of the tree, then it started climbing the tree. 

Squirrel headed up, falcon hasn't seen it yet

I wondered if it realized the falcon was at the top. The little squirrel, probably a youngster, would climb a few feet upward then back down a bit. It continued this way to a branch a little below the falcon. By this time the falcon had noticed it and was leaning over to watch it ascend. The squirrel looked up at the falcon from its vantage point on the branch and then continued its upward journey. It knew the falcon was there, but was just too curious to stop! 

Now the falcon has spotted the squirrel

The falcon continued to watch, I tried to photograph the event and the squirrel got within a couple of feet of the falcon before it finally lost its nerve and scooted back down the tree. The falcon flew away and the jay fell silent.

Squirrel booting it back down the tree