1.27.12 Reynard on Ice

This morning provided something of an adventure. No sooner had I begun walking along E. Island Avenue than my island stillness was shattered all to hell by a bunch of blackbirds. I peered over the bluff to the NW, where the river comes down from the north, and could see the authors of the cacophany flapping about over the water. I almost dismissed them, but when their shrieking continued I suspected something interesting might have been afoot (or a-wing). Sure enough, as I gazed out over the river and my eye followed my flapping feathered friends, I descried in the distance a form moving upon the ice, right in the very center of the river.

Even from a distance, I could tell what it was, and frantically scrabbled down the island's northern bluff to get as close as possible. You'll want to click on this picture to enlarge, so you can appreciate the plight of this foolhardy denizen of the island, and also so you can corroborate my sighting, which confirms my theory of a few days ago when attempting to identify the author of some footprints left in the snow.

Yes, this is indeed a fox wandering about in the middle of the Mississippi River. I managed to get this second picture while clinging to a slender tree on the side of the bluff. The blackbirds were giving the fox hell, swooping down at him and cackling like mad. He finally took the hint and started making his way upriver and toward the eastern shore. This was my cue to start running, to the extent I could do that over snow and ice.

I scrambled up the bluff and hurried back to the crude steps that led down to what I've dubbed the Tweedy-Loweth bridge (my favorite bridge, remember?). I rushed over the bridge and trotted up along the shore to the general area where the fox was headed, hoping for an up close and personal photo op. Alas, it was not to be. I reached a point known as Boom Island, though technically, it is no longer an island. There is a dock where a couple of riverboats collect tourists to take them on river cruises, and very close by, a small paved outcropping boasting a lighthouse. At the foot of the lighthouse, I gazed down to Nicollet Island, to the bluffs at its northernmost tip where I had so recently been when spotting the fox (left side of picture).

You can also see the railroad bridge, where at this moment, a train has begun crossing from the downtown Minneapolis side. The fox, however, was nowhere to be seen, which left me disappointed. I felt sure I would find him here, for I had once come upon him, or someone very like him, right in this very spot. I guess after being so unmercifully heckled by the blackbirds, he was not feeling very sociable and had sought privacy.

I snapped a picture of the lighthouse and headed back to my island, eyes peeled the entire way for my foxy friend, who never showed. While walking, I considered the blackbirds' frantic hectoring of the fox, and it occurred to me that maybe they hadn't been hectoring him at all but rather chastening him and attempting to drive him to safety. Were they concerned about the danger he had placed himself in? Or were they simply self-seeking, knowing that if the fox slipped beneath the ice he would not be able to one day furnish them a nice carrion meal? I will suspend cynicism and judgment until I can do some research on the behavior of blackbirds. And I will continue to keep an eye out for Reynard. I have a feeling I haven't seen the last of him.

Life flows on, in and around us--moving about in various forms we call species, which may contribute to each other's survival or demise. To which category to humans belong, do you think?

D.E.S.