An entry from my daily journal: Tuesday, August 7, 2001
The air is dense, heat-saturated but not biting, the full intensity of sun partly shielded by a hazy sky. Beyond the lake, translucent atmosphere casts a veil across the face of the opposing forest. Sky, shore and water are neutral tones of grey.
All weekend a family of broad-winged hawks have orbited our quiet bay. One of the juveniles harangues its parents with periodic, incessant shrieks. It is the only large wild creature evident this humid morning. Across the lake, a human family laughs and splashes off the side of a cedar dock fading to olive green.
CompetitionA herring gull wheels into view from behind the bank of trees. Two loons, conscientious patrols ensconced in the rippling embrace of their precious fishing territory, at once raise a challenge of maniacal laughter, one alternating voices with its partner. The gull, nonchalant, wings a curve around the point into another section of the lake where he may land in peace.
The loons pause, one utters a single boisterous laugh again, then they are silent. For now their valued resources are defended, unviolated. Later, they vacate their station on the lake, winging headlong over the hills, soon invisible, yet their tremulous call broadcast everywhere, an insistent self-expression, a demand for sovereignty.
AggressionLong moments of silence ensue. Then suddenly a small clattering interrupts the stillness over the water. Looking up, I spot two large dragonflies locked in deadly combat. One clearly has the upper hand, the other oddly contorted, held beneath, its form barely recognizable. Many of these large species will seize anything they can, and are likely cannibalistic. These two are battering their wings together. Their struggle is closely followed by two dragonflies of a smaller species, evidently curious onlookers.
In blind defiance, the two interlocking sentinels descend lightly to the surface of the bay. There is a light splash underneath as a fish tries to grab them, but the fighters elude its jaws at first, rising briefly from the water, then bouncing back an arm's length away. There is another small splash and the two big insects vanish.
DeathAll at once, the steel, liquid mirror is still and silent again.
A few minutes later, several more dragonflies chase one another haphazardly around the dock, their usual poise and deliberation gone. Their territories have changed. A new network of dominance must be established.
The previous conflict has been resolved, though not in the way its antagonists intended. Nature is full of small, vital hungers, of indelible choices and actions taken. Life is risky, its creatures, even humans, only dimly conscious of all the threats and hazards. Death is blind.
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