Specific Wildlife I Would Like to Complain About

A Public Airing of Grievances

I know a lot of you never listen to the narrated option, but in this case, the audio is a lot funnier and read exactly in the tone it deserves. You do you babe, but this is a fun listen.

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I’ve spent a lot of time on this small mountain farm for the last 14 and a half years. That’s a lot of time spent in a very specific neighborhood (and with very specific neighbors) whom I would very much like to complain about.

Since all of these individuals are offline and illiterate, I have no qualms telling you about these troublemakers. If you have advice on how to deal with such riffraff, please let me know in the comments

Note: Names will be changed to aliases because I do not know their names. They are wild animals. With that understood, I do not want to disparage an entire species by calling the subject “Red-Tailed Hawk” if it’s just Stephen being an asshole. Let’s Start with Stephen.

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Stephen

(Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk )

Stephen is one of this year’s new red-tailed hawks on the mountain. I know he’s just a kid, but in hawk years he’s like 22, and a 22-year-old shouldn’t be loitering in my yard yelling every morning at my roommate.

Every day Stephen, who has no idea what the hell he is doing in any regard to anything, perches above the mews of my falconry Red-Tail, James Caan.

James Caan is almost through his molt. He is getting ready to train for this fall’s hunting season. He is a serious bird. And instead of just perching on the window to enjoy sunlight on his feathers and wait for his servant to deliver breakfast, he has to just stare at this idiot screaming 10 feet from him.

Are you aware of how loud a red-tail’s screech is? It’s the sound you hear whenever you see a bald eagle to sound butch and tough, but bald eagles actually sound like school girls in a kiddie pool. And that patriotic banshee call is something you can hear, clear as day, when there is one screaming it are 300ft above you in a soar. Do you have ANY IDEA how loud it is 22 feet from your toilet?

Rude. Stephen. You are rude.

I know his parents (have for years) and they are ROLLING in it. He was born about a half mile from my farm in one of the best nesting sites in the county. Their territory is expansive with amazing views of the entire valley. He’s been raised in the buteo equivalent to a McMansion near a Las Vegas buffet, so of course, acts like the spoiled brat he is.

His folks would be so embarrassed if they knew their son was flying into my hawk-trapping-ass yard EVERY MORNING to bitch and scream and squawk until I come outside with my coffee and tell you to scram.

Grow up, Stephen.

Nadine

( Cross Orb Weaver Spider)

Look how smug she is…

I don’t have a lot going on in life, Nadine.
Neither do you, apparently.

My life is small and simple and so are my moments of joy. Because every evening after I finish chores I walk out with a cold drink to sit with in my delightful hammock chair. It feels amazing to be hovering above the earth, no weight on my body at all, bare feet dangling.

I watch the newest episode of Farm TV and keep track of which roosters are popular now, where the cats like to wrestle, and Mabel eating grass in the distance. It’s my little de-stressing diorama. The whole reason I live this ridiculous life is to enjoy these perfect snow-globe moments in peace. I want to plop into that hammock with the decision of a soldier after the first day of boot camp. Relief isn’t wanted, it is mandated.

*** TOO BAD. GORGEOUS SPIDER NAPPING. ***

You are always on the damn hammock chair. Always. You have the entire world to weave and hunt in, and yet, you have chosen to make my hammock chair yours. The whole reason that real-estate even EXISTS is because of me, and yet I have to check the whole thing like an old man checking for tiny holes in his fishing nets in days of yore to locate you so I can move you up onto the hammock chair’s wooden yoke.

If I don’t do this, I will certainly crush you with my 173lbs of 5’2” human density that rivals that of a dying sun. It takes forever to find you because of your camouflage (big flex, granted) and at first it was cute but we’ve been doing this for months, girl. Every afternoon it’s a Where’s Waldo of arachnid squatting followed by strategic relocation efforts and EVERY SINGLE MORNING you just go back to your little hammock nap.

You don’t even contribute to the mortgage, Nadine.

The Young Unkindness

(Five Juvenile Ravens)

Every year you new kids are loud but this year is ridiculous. You used to just scream at each other like feral teenage boys splashing around the Battenkill, being too loud and too confident. I get it. I was once a young feral teenage boy as well, but dudes..

You do not have to scream every syllable. You don’t.

I know your nest is not [technically] on my property, but it’s so close. I know we’re neighbors. Do you know what that means boys? It means we live in a NEIGHBORHOOD, a community! You can’t just start the day walking around the pasture, weaving through horse legs and screaming. You are capable of such cool conversation, but no, it’s just this.

I have chosen to live in solitude among the beauty and majesty of a mountain forest. Two days ago I was casting my fly to wild brook trout when a king fox ran by so regal and red, I gasped. On the walk home I was struck by the silhouette of a doe standing in the middle of a road framed by mist and sunlight and foliage. Every day I am rapt in the wonder of the forest floor’s mushrooms, tracks from raccoons in the stream, the grunt of a bear, the snort of a buck! And amongst all these delightful sensations there are just five assholes screaming.

Wait, do you boys know Stephen?

Gerald

(Great Blue Heron)

We’ve known each other for years. When I used to run 10 miles at a time, you would fly ahead of my on the road home, almost like those people that hand out water and cheer for people the last leg of a marathon. I am still in awe of that one night I walked outside under a new moon, and we surprised each other in the darkness, you taking off over my head and it was the first time I heard the sounds they use in movies for dragon wings in real life! Absolutely beating the shit out of the air. Incredible.

But this trolling you’ve been doing has. to. stop.

Listen, you smug cad. I know you’re a better angler than me. Everyone knows this. No dipshit with a fishing pole can ever out fish the best. But you don’t have to rub it in my face.

Last week, when I spent 20 whole minutes on my belly, crawling up to a stupid hole in the stream I know the wiliest and smartest brook trout hide, trying to sneak up on them without casting a shadow or giving myself away… The way I turned over river stones to find the perfect stonefly for my tippet. The way I watched bugs dance and land on water, what they looked like, how they danced in those sexy ways that gets trout to strike.. I FINALLY got that elusive bastard to take my fly and while I haven’t set a hook yet, I know I was getting close.

So when I walked thirty feet upstream to try another hole, crestfallen for another day, and turn around to see you shove your smarmy face into that hole and grab the nicest little trout I ever saw in my damn life in your stupid beak I wanted to scream. How is this so effortless for someone that looks so awkward? You’re a stunted diet pterosaur, at best, and yet you make me and my hundreds of dollars in fishing gear look like a complete loser.

No one likes a show off, Gerald. No one.

Barb

Black Bear (and cubs)

We’re cool. I just haven’t seen you all year. Are you okay? How are the kids? Why aren’t we friends anymore? I think you’re so cool and pretty? Why can’t we just hang out and eat blackberries together in the stream and tell each other our best hibernation tips and talk shit? I know you’re a working single mom, but working single moms need friends, too. Can we talk about self care, Barb? Can we be honest about burnout? Is this me just thinking I belong wherever I find comfort?

Am I your Nadine? Oh god.

I have a feeling I’m simply too cringe for you. I get it. It keeps a lot of cool women away from me, because being friends with me is kinda like being friends with a coyote that thinks she’s a golden retriever. It’s a delusional trauma response to knowing I don’t belong but, despite the odds, I’m constantly search for chosen family and the dark horse of love.

I am cringe, Barb. But I am also free. This is a pure energy of a woman that no longer gives a shit. It is a lot, but comes with hilarious bits.

We could be doing bits, Barb.

{please love me}

All Coyotes

jk, you’re cool. Fuck the haters.