High Points: Bugs, bees, birds, and such

It’s mid-September, and there is plenty of activity on my mesa in Old Snowmass.

Oh, of course, there are the usual comings and goings of my human neighbors as they skedaddle on their way to and from the airport for fall frolics in disparate locales like Hawaii, Menorca, and Japan. We are an active lot up here. But the real activity is amongst my other neighbors on the mesa: The bugs, bees, birds, and assorted other living creatures that are busy, 24/7, getting ready for the coming of winter.

This week’s The Aspen Times featured a pair of excellent stories by Ali Longwell about birds, magpies in particular, and bears that are in serious preparation for the winter phase of their calendar year. For us humans, September may mark the beginning of the new school year or the kickoff of football season, but for those who live in the wild, it is the month to get things organized for the coming cold and snow.

Around my house, we have an entire ecosystem that begins with ants, spiders, flies, and bees; transitions up to mice, chipmunks, ground squirrels, rabbits, and ermine; then tops out higher up the food chain with coyotes, deer, elk, and yes, bears. Most days, I catch a glimpse of some of those ground-bound creatures, as well as sight an assortment of birds ranging from hummingbirds with their fluttering wings to woodpeckers, crows, and magpies, to the flocks of geese flying in formation across perfect blue skies.

I like my human neighbors plenty, but I really like the living creatures that hang out near my home. You may think that I am the proverbial fool on the hill, but there is a certain order to the natural world that seems somewhat, I don’t know, comforting.

This morning (the morning I am writing) began with the sound of coyotes howling at first light, one from the north side of the field atop the mesa, the other from the south in what seemed to be a high-pitched conversation. Maybe they were just welcoming the day or perhaps they had sighted the small but sturdy black bear that has been hanging out all summer in Old Snowmass.

As I looked out my window, awakened by the howling, I spied a young buck with small, fuzzy antlers nibbling on the service berries on a bush just outside my house. Below him was a pair of even fuzzier rabbits, noses twitching as they, too, nibbled some foliage, getting ready for their coming winter, as well. A couple of hours later, when I went out to greet the day on my second-floor deck, I was welcomed by two hummingbirds who were more curious about me than I was them. They fluttered about so closely, I thought they were going to insert their sword-like beaks in my ears.

Heading downstairs, I opened the top of the Dutch door in the kitchen, and immediately a bumblebee made its way into the house. Now, I don’t like to get stung any more than the rest of you, but I respect the work these bees do in my “hood,” so it never occurred to me to fear it. As I let it be, the bee simply took a few noisy reconnaissance laps round the living room and headed back out the door, the same way it came in, to do its busy buzzing work in the backyard.

I went to get my dog a bowl full of water and sat down in a nearby chair. Within minutes, I was surrounded by a half-dozen striped chipmunks who, knowing the daily routine, showed up to drink some water out of the dog bowl. They will come within inches of the dog and me, and sprint away quickly if we so much as move a muscle. As I watched the show of the tumbling chipmunks, a spotted red ladybug landed on my knee. An omen, no doubt, of good luck.

I know. This sounds like a version of an animated Disney show from days gone by, but it is a real day in the life example that shows how the animals and the birds and the bugs and I interact around my house on a regular basis.

Call me crazy. I like my neighbors. Especially the wild ones.