Gifts of Nature

Harvest Moon in the Morning

(Lake Lure - September 23)  These early autumn days are full of gifts—cool mornings, a harvest moon sailing across the sky, migrating birds winging through the trees in flocks, even a clear view of Jupiter in the night sky. These wonderful days are reminders of how sweet life can be when we just take the time to appreciate what’s around us.

Red Sunrise

Our early morning walks are made even more pleasurable than usual by spectacular sunrises. For the past two days, the rising sun has appeared as the reddest possible red, rising above the lake. A perfectly round circle, it brings to mind the sun on the Japanese flag. It’s hard for the camera to capture the color as the eye sees it, but we’ve tried.

We’re seeing more than one flock of wild turkeys moving through the woods around us, both morning and evening. Yesterday afternoon, a group of them were feeding on the bank below our driveway when Mike took Annie out for a walk. She lit out after the turkeys, following them up our road around a curve and deeper into the woods than she has ever gone.

Since she’s almost 14 years old, she doesn’t have the keenest eyesight or hearing, so getting her to come back to us was a challenge. Somehow she had managed to get down a slope and below a terraced bank too steep and high for her little Shih-Tzu legs to climb.

Turkey Chase

Eventually we got her attention and encouraged her to move along the terrace below the bank until it came out on a neighbor’s land close enough to our house for her to get back home. Because the grass there was higher than her head, she attempted to leap over it like a jackrabbit rather than run through it as she could have done. Oh, to have had a video camera to capture that.

Invigorated by her adventure, she raced to our front door, ran inside and barked loudly for a treat to reward her bravery. As soon as she scarfed the treat, she collapsed for a long nap.

Bugling Bull

Mike and I drove over to the Cataloochee Valley for an evening visit with the elk there. The Valley is in the North Carolina part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, accessed by a gravel road that winds up and over a ridge for about 7 miles in the forest. There’s a beautiful valley that includes an area for campers, as well as the area where visitors can see the elk from a roadway that runs through the valley.

Over the past 9 years, the National Park Service has reintroduced elk into North Carolina. They once lived here, but were hunted out of the state in the 1700s. These reintroduced elk have successfully adapted to the area and we learned yesterday that the 25 calves born last spring all survived. Apparently their primary predators, the coyotes, have been diminished by hunters, making survival of the young elk more probable.

Scram, Kid!

Cataloochee’s elk gather in a series of meadows. Visitors can watch them from the road that runs through there. There are volunteers to offer information and advice about viewing these magnificent animals. The best advice, especially now during rutting (mating) season, is to stay close to a vehicle in case one of the bulls decides to charge. One of the bulls we saw is, we were told, quite aggressive during rutting season and can be “mean.”

The bulls weigh hundreds of pounds, one older one topping out at about 1,000 pounds. They vie for the attentions of the cows, each bull attempting to keep his harem rounded up and keep other bulls away. They bugle with a variety of sounds, some to gather the females, some to warn other bulls away.

Bullheaded Elk

The bulls also lock their antlers as they challenge for the females. The antlers fall off in March each and new ones grow. The bulls we saw yesterday had hugs racks of antlers on their heads, all grown there in just a few months. One of the volunteers told me that elk antlers are now being studied in cancer research because of their rapid regenerative qualities.

As we watched and took pictures, we noted that the bulls would chase the calves, perhaps to discourage their nursing the objects of his affections, or maybe just to show dominance. We were amused that the bulls kept approaching the females, only to have the cows move away from them. Apparently more deodorant or mouthwash will be needed for success with these women.

Cows and Kids

One female elk wandered across the road to nosh on some low-hanging trees. When the bull that deemed himself her master spotted her over there, he, too, crossed the road and herded her back to their part of the meadow. It was interesting to watch their behavior and almost as interesting to watch the spectators. When that bull came toward the road, people went scurrying behind their cars in a hurry.

We stayed until dusk and drove home with the harvest moon overhead. It was a day filled with images that we will enjoy for a long time to come.

If you’re interested in seeing the elk at Cataloochee, they are about an hour west of Asheville. The link below will give directions and lots more information about elk.

www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/elk.htm

All photos by Mike Lumpkin