Alligator Gladiator
Alligator Gladiator
Inspired by a true story told by Mr. George Edwards, geologist.
The sight of a baby gator
Succulent, fattening in the sun
Does make the neck of a heron all aquiver
A great blue heron—top of the food chain? Never
Until now.
He attacks his prey with his spear of a beak,
But the gator’s armored hide deflects the hit.
“I may be small, but I am a warrior’s child!”
It squeaks. “My forefathers prowled along
The dinosaurs of old, and survived them;
One-on-one we fight, but think you, O bird,
Think you that you can best me today—”
Determination flares from the heron’s eyes
Strength travels from the tips of his toes
Up his long legs up his long neck
He prays to the heron god of good fishing for victory,
And tosses the gator headlong down his throat.
Suddenly
The arena of the prairie is silent and watching
The locked foes writhe:
The heron jerks his head and neck
The gator peddles its back feet
And finally, gave one last kick in farewell,
And the heron, with effort, nearly squats.
“I have won!” proclaims the heron, after a gulp.
A lump, still writhing,
Sinks slowly down his neck
And the heron wobbles somewhat
Awkwardly, then becoming very still,
Eyes full of puzzlement as if wondering whether to say
“What? Indigestion?
I thought it was just one-on-one.”
Christmas Bird Count at Hickory Ranch, one of Paynes Prairie State Park Preserve’s properties
The Saturday before Christmas, at 7:00 in the morning, while many a resourceful high school student was industriously snoring, I was standing in the edge of prairie with a foot splat in a cow pie, a grin on my upturned face, and my breath fogging up my glasses.
And I did have a sane reason.
The annual Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by the Audubon Society, had begun, and I was volunteering with one of the teams privileged to venture into the uplands fringing Paynes Prairie in the early hours. Birding manual and binocular in hand, I was smiling eagerly when I first got out of the car, but found my lips almost freezing into place. Even the owls complained of the cold, their last murmurings mournful and wavering in the foggy air.
The morning flooded my senses at first. The forest and prairie beyond, reduced to silhouettes by the indigo sky, was becoming alive with indistinct whirling and chirping. All over the meadow, dew-laden spiderwebs trembled, ready to snare the first sparkling of daylight. Have you seen how sunlight shifts shape in such wilderness? It’s nothing like the sheets of glare from window glass in a city. Imagine light striped with shadows on the luster of palmettos, and glowing gold on the undersides of cranes’ wings!
It was while watching those Sandhill cranes flying breathtakingly low that I squelched my foot into a heap of Cracker Cattle dung. A mockingbird chose that moment to titter. However, I was in such a happy mood that I only marveled at the silvery green shoots that peppered the surface of the dung like a green fur collar.
I ran to catch up with my group, and we made our way across a wet field. Fog hung in the trees, over a pond, parting itself around the glum face of an anhinga who croaked to see such early guests. “Time for our Great Annual Christmas Human Count,” I suddenly imagined it thinking. A few steps further, we discovered a little blue heron on the pond’s other shore. It stopped its slow wade and stiffened its neck—“Oh my. Homo sapiens, variety with long removable eye stalks—such a flock; we’re in luck!”
We continued on. Robins, billowing swarms of them, defied counting, flying formations of laughter. A red-bellied woodpecker was a sudden exclamation point upon a dead snag. Above, red-shouldered hawk dipped into sight; below, meadowlarks sank in and out of the grass. Vultures were graced with their own sort of beauty—they were a kaleidoscope of black flecks spiraling against the azure sky. I felt buoyed by the almost wooly chorus of warblers, and the plaintive cries of the cranes from deeper in the prairie.
What we saw was only a small sampling of the great diversity of birds found here; there are over 270 species in Paynes Prairie. And of those few we spotted, many flew back and forth, befuddling us, making us lose track or wonder if we’d already counted them before. Of course, I’m convinced that some birds will, for the sheer mischief, make the effort to fly to other groups of bird counters just to be counted again. Then why do we count? Robert Frost says it best: “Beauty is its own excuse for being.” The experience itself is feeling that fragile natural beauty so close to a city, and knowing it exists, and may yet continue to exist. It is partaking of and participating in that beauty.
What’s a foot stepped in dung?
Each a bird was a gift. Each a winged pulse of this prairie morning.
A hawk salutes us.
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