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Living the wild life

It has been a great year for blueberries. For the first time in many years, I am still finding the warm, sweet berries in a few of the wilder parts of my travels. Not surprisingly, I have also seen some wild life along the way.
It has been a great year for blueberries. For the first time in many years, I am still finding the warm, sweet berries in a few of the wilder parts of my travels.

Not surprisingly, I have also seen some wild life along the way.

I barely caught a glimpse of the bear. She was just hurrying off the trail as I neared the clearing. I took this as a good sign that blueberries would still be there.

I had not expected to find very many berries, so I started picking at the east edge of the patch. The picking was slow due to the lateness of the season, but the berries were sweet under the hot sun. I happily snacked as I picked.

I had hardly covered the bottom of my basket and was ready to head home, thinking the season was at an end, when I wandered along to the middle of the clearing and changed my mind.

Berries, berries, berries — blue everywhere I looked!

It could have been the first week of August rather than the first of September. I took my time and filled my three-litre basket as well as my belly. And I barely made a dent in the patch of blue. No doubt the bear would return frequently for the next few weeks while the berries last.

Still, there was little evidence of bears in that particular blueberry heaven. I had hoped to find a big pile of bear poop. These usually look a lot like blueberry pie filling.

My hope was to take some home to “plant.” There is a barren bit of dirt on the sunny side of the house. I had high hopes that a natural source of blueberry seeds would be just the thing to restore this ground. I’ll have to keep looking.

Heading back out the narrow trail, I caught just a fleeting glimpse of a fox. When I got to the place where it disappeared into the bush, I stopped to see if I could see it waiting just out of sight — no luck.

It made me wonder though, how many other creatures of the wild were looking at me? They all have keener senses than I do — better sight, better smell, better sense of danger to alert them to my presence. I feel lucky to see them at all.

The sightings are rare, despite my daily walks in the wild. It is very magical when I do see something before it sees me.

Weeks ago I was treated to a long view of a bull moose. It was early morning with the sun at my back and the breeze in my face. He could not see me in the glare of the sun and he could not smell me because of the wind direction.

He felt that something was unusual though. As I watched him for nearly 20 minutes, he kept looking my way. He could not see or smell me, and I kept still so he couldn’t hear me.

Eventually, he wandered quietly into the forest, without making a sound. Amazing!

Viki Mather has been commenting for Northern Life on the natural world and life in Greater Sudbury since the spring of 1984.

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