I must admit that I was a little leery about blogging after I got home from my grand Kenyan adventure. Mostly because I didn't think that any of my blah, at home experiences would measure up to my previous blogs. And, maybe this is just the reverse culture shock talking, but I really didn't think that writing about going to school and doing chores would satisfy me or any potential readers. I was indeed in a bit of a schlump, missing the taste of risk and adventure and the inevitable sense of identity that comes with those two things. But today I knew that it was time to fire up the old blog again. It suddenly hit me that I had been liberated from the mundane, I don't know when exactly it happened but I know it has been for a while now and I was just too unused to any thing other than the mundane to notice. It must have started with the end of the first year of university. Then proceeded to climax when my sister came home, followed by my brother's graduation and then getting the Piping Plover Monitoring position which brings me to this very day in which an experience occurred that changed my outlook.An experience worthy of blogging about.
A Regular Day at the Vermilion Field Station:
I saw it first while I was driving with my parents out to Whitefish Point, to show them exactly what I do out in the middle of the forest. The thing was just sitting there, as if it had no idea what a road was for. It didn't even move as my car rumbled up to it, merely inches from smacking it back into the woods. I slowed to a stop and rolled down my window right beside it and stared at it with mocking eyes. Stupid partridge.
The next time I saw it was on the way back from the Point; I was by myself this time so I pulled over on the narrow dirt road and got out to jeer at it as this was the second time it had stood in the road and stared at my car as if it were nothing more than a tumble weed rather than a very heavy and fast, hunk of metal. This is when I noticed little, tiny fluff balls wandering in the brush close to the road and the dumbstruck partridge. I immediately felt ashamed of myself. This animal wasn't stupid! It was boldly protecting its young! I stood back and marveled at it for a minute until it started to growl. Yea, I had no idea they could do that. I walked swiftly back to the car without looking back. This definitely let the beastly partridge know that it was the boss in our relationship and I'm fairly certain that it had sensed my mocking earlier and resented me a little.
A while later I was walking back from a couple of plover nests, hardly even thinking about the partridge with the vendetta, when I heard a great deal of noise in the bush beside me. I glanced over and saw the chicks and stooped a little to take a peek at the little guys. It probably would have been fine too, if there wasn't another chick on the other side of the road which I was directly in the middle of. All of the sudden the thing came charging at me! It had its tale all spread and its wings were held out making it look twice as big and it also had this little tuft of feathers on the top of its head sticking straight up. And it just started charging right at me, so I took a few fast steps forward (bad move) and then looked back only to see it charging with even more resolve. So I just grabbed the straps of my back back and started to sprint unashamedly, calling out between bursts of laughter: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
It was at that moment that I realized my life is rich and interesting once again. Praise God for angry mom partridges. I shall never call one stupid ever again. And I will have to go the long way to avoid another confrontation.
