A long way home

Finally an afternoon with clear October light. The prairie at Dick Young Forest Preserve was washed clean, it seemed, by two solid weeks of rainy, overcast weather. At long last the sky blew clear and a steady southern breeze moderated what had been raw, unforgiving weather.

A harrier tippled over the prairie on its way to nowhere. Though it could be a migrant, we find that species hunting the preserve all winter. There were red tails circling the giant cottonwoods where the "run" empties the lake to the southwest. Those too should be expected all year round.

Mid October is the ultimate transition period, a tipping point between fall and winter species. The whole preserve feels like a train station with birds coming and going. Some sit in the trees impatiently, like they're going to catch the 5:15 to Missouri or some point beyond. Riding on the City of New Orleans. Or Galveston. Corpus Christi. Yucatan. Ecuador. Argentina. The bird train travels on.

A flock of rusty blackbirds laces into a stand of oaks. You hear their voices first. They look like musical notes among the branches. Fall is not complete for me if there is not at least one flock of rusty blackbirds seen. Last spring I chanced upon a flock of 250. Their collective voice was a chorus, a welcome sound in a cold season. It's been cold all year it seems.

We walk our dog down to the Audubon bridge and turn around. On the way back I noticed something black and shiny in the grass along the path. A spotted salamander. It is a fairly small specimen, perhaps 3.5' t0 4" at most. Its skin is shiny and wet. Our dog sniffs and wants to paw at the strange creature, but I protect it, marveling that an amphibian can be found out in the middle of a restored prairie. It can only be imagined what it is doing there, what it is doing at all. Did it spend the summer in the swale wetland 400 yards to the north? That is the only water other than the marsh 400 yards to the south. Or are dewy mornings enough for this species to survive. Has it been banqueting on the ready supply of crickets in late summer and is now returning to sleep in the mud for the cold winter? I think back to the salamander I kept for two months back in the late 1980s. It made burrows in the aquarium filled with dirt and ate store-bought crickets, seizing them with a quick snap of the neck. It was a predator for sure.

This small salamander showed the same instincts, swinging its head sideways in defense when I picked it up. But I did not want to disturb its skin too much or cause it stress. So it went back in the grass where we found it, convincing the dog again to leave it alone. He barked.

Life is full of long journeys. Life is a long journey. But when you get where you are going and look back, it sometimes seems like a moment just passed. Does a salamander dipping its toes back in the water in late October think at all about the miles it covered on the way? Probably not. But I do. Probably too much. It's enough to trust that you can get there, and not overanalyze the journey. One toed step in front of the other.