There is a creature that laughs in the forest in the night. I have never seen him. I think it is the screech owl, but I haven’t been able to confirm that with a Google search. Tonight, the laughing creature was near the house, and Mu was excited, barking at him. I took the powerful flashlight out to confirm who it was. I didn’t want to annoy the creature, but I just wanted to confirm my theory. He was up in the big cedar tree. No matter how I angled my flashlight beam, he stayed out of sight. The laughter in the forest in the night remains a mystery.
We searched for a corgi in Kirkland. It was too hot to work Tino, so he stayed in the air conditioning and we drove around looking. We methodically searched an area three blocks long and three blocks wide, where had been seen multiple times. As we were going home, after hours of fruitless searching, I just happened to catch a glimpse of him five blocks from the search grid. He was dragging his leash, and he darted down the driveway. It was just a fraction of a second, and I just happened to be looking the right way at the right time. His owner got there within three minutes, but she couldn’t locate him. He was probably hiding nearby, out of sight. A few hours later, he ran back north, five blocks away, to the area of the original grid search. He was seen playing with another dog, through the fence. It took another 24 hours for them to catch him. As they were setting a trap, he just came running right up to the owner.
As I become more familiar with the songs of different birds, I have also been noticing their mutterings and rumblings, apart from their signature songs. This year, I have been especially noticing the nuthatches. I’ve always heard them in the distance with their steady meep meep meep. Lately, there are more of them, and closer. They chatter and mutter at each other for hours. They sound like electronic noise from some faulty device. Last night I heard different birds muttering, near the nuthatches, but with a different sound. This morning, as I was walking with Viktor and Fozzie, I found the muttering birds. It was a gang of adolescent song sparrows. They would occasionally throw in the Song Sparrow official song, but most of it was random excited twittering. With both the nuthatches and the song sparrows, I recognize tonal qualities similar to their main identifier notes. I’m getting to know birds better.
Dexter has his own half of the house where he can roam and play without constant dog attention. He accidentally got left in the dog half of the house overnight. When the dogs thundered into the living room in the morning, Dexter shot up on top of the bookcase and hid behind the old clock and the stone bunny. He didn’t come down until I got all the dogs walked and put away.
I hate summer, for the most part, because heat makes it difficult for the dogs to work. There are a few things I like about summer. One good thing is taking a walk after sunset. Tonight, walking with Viktor and Fozzie, the air was full of termites, and a bat zoomed over our heads, catching dozens of them. Woodpeckers have been tearing holes in rotten trees all year, and after a good rain in late August, the termites fly from their nests in the evening to find new homes of damp wood. I love bats, and I know this is a good time of year to see them. If I hadn’t been looking, I never would have noticed the little bat as he silently made a hundred passes over our heads, vacuuming up his weight in bugs.
A new chair has come into the house. It was delivered in a box, in two pieces, the base and the back. As soon as I got the base out of the box, Mu climbed onto it for a nap. I had to wait until His Majesty completed the inaugural nap before I could finish assembling the chair.
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James Branson
Principal at Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue, volunteer at Useless Bay Sanctuary, author of A Voice for the Lost Archives
December 2019
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