Postcards from the Rogue Valley

We hadn’t counted on being surrounded by peacocks when we pulled up to the Shady Lady Bed ‘n Breakfast, a tiny outpost in the high desert 30 miles north of Beatty, Nevada (pop. 847). 

We had rented Shady Lady’s solo cabin, poised to spend the next day hiking in Death Valley. Last summer, Tony and I had driven the width of Nevada along Highway 50, the “loneliest road in America.” Now we were driving its length on the lonelier still Highway 395, enroute to Scottsdale, Arizona where we were meeting up with our Brooklyn and Denver families for the holidays.

Our mouths dropped as we reached the cabin. Seven peacocks (male peahens) balanced on the handrails of the ramp leading up to our cabin, filling the air with their notoriously loud calls. With feathers as iridescent as they are colorful, dazzling when displayed, peacocks have been called the most beautiful bird in the world — although one of our welcomers was all white, a rarity. We watched as these regal birds posed and preened against a brilliant blue sky, turning orange as the sun descended. Another group of peacocks (females), smaller and gray, claimed the roof. 

The flock did not budge as we carried our suitcase up the ramp. Iridescent or not, these extraordinary creatures, who have inhabited our planet since Biblical times, seemed to be saying, “We are here. We are here. This world is ours as much as yours.”

Winter’s hush

Disappearing glaciers are not the only harbinger of losses to come as our planet warms.

You may have read the New Year’s Day headline warning that the majority of Earth’s creatures are on the brink of a sixth mass extinction, comparable to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which calculates that three-quarters of today’s animal species could vanish within 300 years — from frogs to birds to tigers threatened by climate change, disease, loss of habitat, and more. Peacocks, too.

As I picked up the mail on our return to Ashland, a hush I hadn’t noticed before we left had descended on our neighborhood, nestled against the Siskiyou Mountains. Spring, summer, fall — wild life are constant companions here. It’s one of the factors that drew us to southern Oregon with its rural-urban interface. 

On this gray morning, though, the silence and stillness are deafening. I glimpse a world stripped of wildlife.

Mourning doves and more

Eight months of the year, our neighborhood is not quiet. Nestled against the Siskiyou Mountains south of Ashland, our mix of open land and conifers feed and shelter a passel of wildlife, some we see or hear and many more that we don’t. 

March through November, the large meadow that abuts our house fills daily with black-tailed deer who descend from nearby forests — or from hideouts under porches, true to their reputation as “edge species” — to graze. Most are regulars. Looking out our living room window, we keep an eye out for fawns, cute as Bambi, and four-pointers, bucks at the peak of their prowess. Many neighbors fence their yards to keep the deer out, but we have not. “They were here first,” my husband likes to say. The deer help themselves to our edible landscape, stripping even “deer resistant” plants when drought steals their preferred menu. Our back yard is a favorite resting stop, with our cats sometimes joining these hoofed ruminants in an afternoon nap.

The mourning doves, whose numbers we can’t count, are just as constant. They appear each year with the daffodils, their soft coos stretching from sunrise to sunset. They hold the distinction of being the only native North American bird to breed in every state, including Hawaii.

In April, for the past three years, the croak of a solo Pacific tree frog has emerged from the small goldfish pond in front of our house. Soon, he is joined by several females (we conjecture) and they form a chorus sounding astronomically larger than their numbers. (The goldfish, we guess, eat the tadpoles.) The cacophony continues day and night, for months, stopping only when we approach —  the frogs, reportedly the size of a silver dollar (we’ve never seen them), sense our presence by the vibrations we emit. One September night, with no advanced notice, they disappear, and the concert hall shutters for the season. 

After a winter spent mostly at the bottom of our pond, where the temperature remains above freezing, the resident goldfish rise to the surface along with the first lily pads. Tony and I do our best to conduct a census, typically averaging around 25 fish, a half- to three-inches long. 

By now, the Eastern Gray squirrels have appeared in force, running up and down the trees —conifers their favorite here — burying and digging up nuts, chattering and chiding along the way. I remember forty years ago when Tony’s sisters from Italy came to visit us in Rhode Island and saw squirrels for the first time. “How magnificent,” they said. “What acrobats!”

Used to New England blue jays, we were unprepared for the larger size, loud voiced, aggressive Stellar and scrub jays who appear with the squirrels. Our first spring here, one of our cats managed to kill a jay (in Brooklyn, our cats only lusted at birds outside the window of our fourth-floor, three-room apartment). The jays retaliated, screaming and dive bombing her until she retreated to our bedroom closet for three days.

In June, as the lavender, salvia, and buddleia flower, butterflies and bees quietly join the show.

This fall, black bears made news as they descended from the woods at night to prowl for edible garbage, their natural habitats depleted by five rainless months. I have yet to encounter a bear, but I’ve cleaned up their poop. Trusting in the advice of wildlife experts who remind us that black bears are largely harmless to humans, I am jealous of neighbors who have caught a glimpse of their nocturnal marauding. In November, two bears were found shot dead in a neighborhood in Medford, 15 miles to our north, reportedly by residents who didn’t believe the wildlife experts.

Retreat

Winter has settled in, now, and with it an eerie outdoor hush.

The most visible wildlife that remains this January is a rafter of wild (female) turkeys, 14 in all, which I’d first encountered in October when they briefly roosted on our garage, then six moms with eight juveniles. For the past couple of months, they have paraded up and down the meadow, the babies now teenagers, dipping for roots and insects among the dead grass. Last weekend, I screamed at a young boy across from us who was chasing the turkeys with a slingshot. He ignored me but a storm of blackboards flew off from a nearby tree.

The two Anya’s hummingbirds with claims on our backyard feeder next to our bay window continue to visit. Anya’s are the only hummingbirds to stay in Oregon year-round. 

I spent New Year’s Day trying to figure out where the deer, the mourning doves and tree frogs, the squirrels and scrub jays, the bees and butterflies had gone. And the bears.

The deer who live in Ashland’s downtown reportedly stay put, but I’ve seen no evidence of this. Instead, it seems, they move into the valleys, logging 30 miles or more there and back. The mourning doves migrate in large flocks along flyways, often as far as Central America. The fate of the Pacific tree frog remains a mystery The goldfish enter a semi-dormant state called torpor at the bottom of their pond. 

The gray squirrels retreat to their nests, invoking torpor like the goldfish, only coming out occasionally to search for food. The jays have moved to lower elevations.

Some butterflies migrate, but more hunker down in a protected space (including a back yard), sometimes in a chrysalis. The bees overwinter in their hive or nest, forming a winter cluster around the queen, with the colony reduced in size.

As for the black bears, they, too, enter a state of torpor, hunkering down in caves or previously occupied dens and reducing oxygen to 25 percent of its typical values. They don’t truly hibernate, which would mean lowering their body temperature to 35 degrees and respiration by 98 percent.

“Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone)”

The metal band Cinderella made the 1988 Billboard charts with its ballad, “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone),” from their album Long Cold Winter. Their warning has stuck — it could be a tag line for climate change.

Life on earth where three-quarters of today’s animal species have disappeared is unfathomable. There are currently 16,306 endangered species threatened with extinction, a drop in the bucket in comparison to the mass extinction scientists foretell.

What if the animals that retreated in winter never returned? Imagine taking away three-quarters of the living things you see, then ask yourself if you want to live in that world.

In Greek mythology, if a peacock cried “more than usual, or out of his time” it foretold a death. In Roman times, the fact that peacocks’ feathers did not fade or lose their shiny luster was seen as a sign of immortality or resurrection.

What is to come?

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