MAKING CONNECTIONS

Rex Burress

 

How difficult it must have been for the U.S. Mail to make delivery connections in the Redding, CA area during the Carr Fire and other fire areas. Think of the difficulty the living wild animals had in finding food!

 

Written mail and delivery is a traditional way to make connections ever since paper was invented and writing letters became a way of communication. “The mail must go through” became a vital cause, quite apparent in Pony Express days, right on to other methods of delivery. It's interesting to review our history and appreciate progress.

 

As a boy on a Missouri farm in the 1940's, and before electricity made connections much easier in the rural community, the U.S. Mail was a keen contact service that allowed me to make connections with “box-top offers” and free drawing contests that offered magnificent prizes. I was loaded with “Lone Ranger rings” and things, including 'arrowhead art awards!' The free Missouri Conservationist state wildlife magazine led to my survey of conservation magazines from each state. They all responded to my postcard and sent me a sample. Missouri Conservationist stood out as it still does.

 

As a social species, like ants and bees, making connections is vital for understanding and unity.The major difference has been the intellectual approach of the human species, combined with dexterous hands. Insects and wildlife use more of a physical approach with keen senses and instincts to make connections. We have discovered such things as pheromones given off by female moths that a male can detect up to two miles away in making a connection for mating! The ability to detect scents is quite remarkable in most wild species.

 

With that said, as with John Muir's thought of everything in the universe being hitched together, when you look around nearly everything exists because of a connection with neighbors of some kind. Nearly every famous scientist has stressed the importance of interconnectedness in making connections. Examples abound of this general alliance on the entire environment to promote life.

 

The mysteries of how species get together to mate and reproduce is among the greatest wonders in making connections. The plan for life on earth is for male and female to unite—to find each other and mate—to keep the species alive. Just as it is chancy business to randomly meet a mate to marry in human behavior while the fellow might meet the lady at the super market, or answer an add in the paper. Another line of thought is that “we don't meet a person by accident—they are meant to cross our path for a reason.” What do you think?

 

Nothing is assured. An animal may make the connection while prowling a tree for food, or give out a call like a frog, or sing a song like a bird. Just watching birds makes us wonder about the secret life of their travels and love!

 

What does happen where the wren migrates in colder places, like in Missouri, is that the male arrives first in the spring to build a nest or two and sing a bunch of songs for the later-arriving lady's approval, and they go on from there. At best, this is a flimsy connection, and not even their fidelity is assured. Most wild pairs hunker down and tend to the obligations parenthood places on them, except the male mallard duck, who is quite the playboy, generally leaving the child-chores to the hen! Watch the connections wildlife makes; you will be astonished!