3.9.16 Furtive Fishers

It was late spring, down on Moody Bridge Road, curling confection that bypasses a deep stand of old Pine, twisting down hills and up inclines, past contented horses and small hamlets of homes, then up across the broad Hadley High Fields, where you can see so far, all along the small mountain range and beyond. Where the wind is accustomed to coming along and sweeping powerfully across the grasses and into the waterways and forests.

     I was winding round this bend in the road, when down by the stream I saw a Fisher Cat, dark chocolate, long like a low ranging fox, with a thick luxurious tail. Furtive, powerful, and sleek -  it silently made its way across the road, from one side of the water to the other, over a small bridge.

     So I pulled over, and just watched them happen. They are so elusive, though far more commonplace than in the past, being shoved by our multiplying, from the old growth forests, into suburban lands. They are customarily dwellers of tall trees, racing along branches and rarely going to ground.

     They are perfectly capable of taking down cats , raccoons and other small beasts with fervor, their teeth something to behold.

When we first bought our home here, up on the range and conservations lands that extend down to the river, they would summer here.

     Out in the early mornings, it would scream the sound of a hurt animal, to attract small predators to an easy meal. Only to give them the surprise of their life. The big trick of the Fisher.

When we still lived in Florence, it was Fisher capital of the land, with a particular row of trees by a stream, down by the Arts and Industry Building, favoring the Sojourner Truth Park in early mornings, as it raised its small fierce young, and preyed upon those cats not kept in at night. They picked the  small village clean of squirrels.

One night we heard the tell tale scream, and, together with  all three of my kids and my husband, I went running outside. Woken fast, my oldest grabbed a basketball as the first thing he laid hands on.

We stood beneath a tree, where some small creature was screaming for their own life, and i yelled to my kid to "Throw it! Throw it!" up toward the fracas, and so he did. And down fell, unconscious, an adolescent raccoon, as we heard the fisher take flight through  the thick branches, through the dark night.

     We stood over the small creature, me wondering if one more head injury was worth the save from the predator, when the small one came to, shocked to see us all surrounding, and took off into the underbrush.

     We shook it off, and stumbled back to bed.

     So, when  I saw this gorgeous creature crossing the street, I marveled at their innate expertise at adapting, at staying alive. I imagined them courting and mating. Bringing forth beloved young into the world.

     It's so easy for us humans to selectively and quickly demonize anyone and anything, that we fail most times to realize what we have in common. With slugs, with fly larvae, with snakes, and fishers. All God's children have a place in the choir type thing.

But they do, all, have a place.

     So I drove on up to the tiny bridge at the sharp corner of a small piece of heaven. I got out, and looked down into the newly  grown and newly rained upon  undergrowth, leaning on the old black railing, cold beneath my hands in the early morning. 

     I stood there imagining that creature making their way back into their life.