Animals Talk to You

The following article appeared in the Fairfield Glade Sun newspaper on October 28, 2009.

Enjoying Nature

Don Hazel

Animals talk to you...really!

Don't worry; I am not claiming that your dog can tell you his inner thoughts, or that you can discuss national politics with your parrot. But if you listen carefully, animals can tell you things that you wouldn't know without them.

There is a great series of books that I enjoyed reading by Colonel Jim Corbett that lived in the early 1900's in Northern India. He grew up in the jungle hunting and observing nature. In his books he often tells how he knows what is going on in the jungle by listening to the calls of the various animals. For example, birds, monkeys and deer have specific calls when a tiger or leopard is in sight. Colonel Corbett could often tell the exact location of a tiger by following the calls of the animals as the tiger moved through the jungle.

Closer to home, I can give you an example that you could use yourself. A few weeks ago I was watching a bobcat in a neighbor's yard when a squirrel spotted the bobcat and spent 10 minutes barking, chittering, and scolding the bobcat from the safety of a high branch. Once the bobcat moved out of sight, the squirrel became quiet again. A few days later, I heard several squirrels doing the same scolding to something behind my house in the woods beyond my view. The squirrel barking moved through the woods as some squirrels quieted down and others further away picked up the alarm. Without seeing a bobcat, I am pretty sure that I know he was there...thanks to the squirrels.

Another example happened a couple of weeks ago. There was a buck deer in my neighbor's yard down at the edge of the woods. He was looking into the woods where it was too thick for me to see from my location. The buck was flicking his tail and snorting. The snort is a nasal sound that signifies danger. He did this for over 5 minutes. Bucks don't use this alarm call for squirrels, or rabbits. The buck was watching and sounding the alarm for some predator; probably either a coyote or a bobcat.

You have probably heard a murder of crows making a big ruckus some morning...squawking and cawing ("murder" is the crazy term for a group of crows). Although you might not have seen it you knew that the crows had probably cornered a great horned owl and were giving it the business.

Dwight McCarter is a retired National Park Ranger from Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He is a skilled tracker who was often called to track and locate lost hikers or children in the mountains. In his book, "Lost" he tells one story about how a home owner's pet dog helped catch some escaped murderers. When a North Carolina State Policeman was shot and killed by a couple of escaped convicts, the killers ditched their car and escaped into the mountains. After days of intensive searching by hundreds of police, without success, the search was about to be given up. Dwight was finally given a last chance to try to track the criminals before the search was ended. He went to the few residences in the isolated area and asked each neighbor if in the last few days anyone's dog had barked in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. One woman said that "yes", her dog had barked a few nights before. Dwight carefully checked her garden and found footprints in the tomato patch. He followed the tracks into the woods and eventually right to the hungry killers, who were captured and sent back to jail. Without the dog communicating in the middle of the night the killers might have never been caught.

So the next time you take a walk around your neighborhood or in the woods, listen. The birds and animals are talking. With a little observation and some careful listening you can begin to understand the language.

Comments, questions or suggestions for future nature articles are welcome at don.hazel@gmail.com