THE SAFE DISTANCE

Rex Burress

Down by the riverside, a mockingbird came flying up the bank, hotly pursued by a kingbird, a blackbird, and led by a tiny hummingbird!

There was no mystery as to the chase–the mockingbird had flown too close to territorial claims of nesting birds that realized the mocker is sometimes an egg-stealer.

As the mockingbird fluttered into the safety of a dense thicket, the pursuit was off except the hummingbird perched on a branch to judge the safe distance between the two competitors, ready to show its fierce defense. Even a trespassing eagle can feel the fury of a hummer’s wrath.

There’s a whole lot of watching going on out there in the riparian jungle where all inhabitants are trying to fulfill their destinies and stay alive. Keeping a safe distance from trouble is a key factor.

That concept could be carried right into the Zimmerman/Martin trial, since if both the ‘child’ and the guard had kept a safe distance from one another, nothing would have happened.

There is that ‘safe’ zone between suspicious people on the hiking path, too. If you’re street wise and cautious, you avoid eye-contact, and stay out of striking distance. However, if you are in love, you sort of stare at one another and get closer and closer until all distance is compressed and you’re hugging and kissing! Choose love!

Animal watchers and photographers know about that safe distance frustration that keeps the nature lover just out of range of a good view. Often the migratory waterfowl keep that safe distance which is usually a space just out of bullet range. Good for the bird but bad for the human friend that would like to get closer.

It is also important for Sierra Club hikers and nature seekers to stay a safe distance away from the edge of a cliff–especially an icy-edged cliff that took a famous artist–Steve Lyman–over the edge to his death one winter in Yosemite. There are plenty of examples. Keep a distance from flood waters, wildfires, landslides, and other natural extremes. We have gravity to contend with here on Earth, and it can be an aid in securing our footing, but step out into the weightlessness of space and it becomes “what is a safe distance from what?” Nothing is nothing out there in a space where things go drifting away at a slight nudge or plunging out of who knows where with staggering speeds. There is no safe distance from an asteroid on a course to collide with a planet.

Human daredevils are a different breed, taking a chance against a safe formula in a stance wild animals would not consider. The goat on a cliff, the eagle in its eyrie, the flying squirrel sailing to yon tree–all are reasonably confident they are within a safe distance from disaster.

At the Feather River Nature Center one time, I was giving a tour to a group of girl students from Japan, and they excitedly pointed up the garden stairway where a huge rattlesnake was crawling fast to the other side. Feeling vulnerable, it quickly disappeared in the rocks. It wasn’t going to ‘stand its ground’ in the presence of unpredictable high-toned ladies!

A safe distance from a coiled rattlesnake is another matter. They can strike about a third of their length. No calculation works in a confrontation with a nervous black mamba or an erratic mother bear with cub. Run at your own peril! The safe distance is an anticipation of a bear’s location and letting them know where you are. Bells work to warn bears eating blueberries in Glacier Park, and to some extent bells work on cats to warn birds.

“Modern man, for all his developed powers and his imagined insulation in his cities,

still lives at the mercy of those giant forces that created him

and can equally decree his departure.”

--Loren Eisely