Wondrous Sightings No. 5 -- Mr. Bobcat & Ms. Doe

The sounds emanating from the backyard that spring-into-summer afternoon were so pitiful and haunting as to raise headstones in the many local cemeteries that dot the nearby mountains. They sure got my attention. It was a wailing ululation, full of hurt and very loud. What they heck? From the deck, I saw a doe deer, kneeling and keening as if its heart was being ripped out. It took me a couple of seconds to see the second actor in this play, a bobcat ready to pounce not six feet away from the deer, trembling in anticipation. The bobcat was in full attack mode. But the play had an unanticipated ending. The doe rose slowly, turned and then hobbled down the hill into the woods, the bobcat following. The deer stopped crying. It took a couple of days of consultation with local neighbors expert in the ways of backwoodsy lore to figure this out: The doe likely had been protecting a fawn, feigning to sacrifice herself so the offspring could survive, they said. Indeed, a couple of days later, the same doe was back in the backyard, with her fawn, a beautiful little Bambi. I feel lucky to have witnessed this.

Wondrous Sightings No. 4 -- The Bear

The first time we saw the bear was but several months after we moved into a new home in a remote, backcountry section of the north Georgia mountains. I was dozing on a couch and heard footsteps on the porch. Funny, I thought, I had not heard a vehicle approach. It was the bear, as surprised to see me as I was, and quick to decamp up the hill behind the house when he heard me yelling about his apparition. Bears, I think, are among the fastest big animals I've ever seen. The second time, several years later, the bear was more at home somehow. I spied him in the mirror while I was shaving one morning. He was pawing through some empty flower pots. I tried to shoo him away with loud calls, but he was in no hurry. He went up the hill to the shed and sniffed around the lawn mower. Then, he rose up, put his front legs on the hood of the truck and looked at himself in the windshield. Then, only then, did he amble ever-so-slowly down the hill and away. That last bear owned our home place for a few minutes. They are very powerful animals, I believe, and possessed of immense spirit.

Wondrous sightings No. 3 -- Bat dance

It is not uncommon at dusk to see solitary bats dancing in front of the truck on the way home, particularly when the pavement runs out and the road turns into a graveled lane cutting through dense forest. They have an unerring radar that helps them avoid crashing into the windshield before they quickly dip away from the lane and return to the woods. But the sighting one night was more special -- a bat duo dancing in front of the truck, maneuvering -- more like an intricate ballet -- in total unison. Up, down, zigging, zagging, charging sideways and doing loop-the-loops. Like warplanes in formation. Like man and woman dancing to the same tune. This vision did not last much longer than about five seconds. But it lives permanently in my memory.