Memorable Encounters in Nature

     I have had several exceptionally memorable encounters in nature over the years.  Following are just a few of those encounters.
     On a snowy day several years ago, I walked about an hour in a woodland in northern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  The woods were white and beautiful with fallen snow on every twig and on the ground.  I didn't see many creatures, except a few chickadees and a downy woodpecker.  But when I came to a slow-moving creek in the woods, I saw an odd, duck-like bird on the water.  It was dark on top and white below.  Looking at it with binoculars, I saw it was a horned grebe in winter plumage.  And it had red eye irises.
     The grebe floated alone on the creek in the white, wooded wonderland of peace and quiet.  But it made that little trip to the woodland that snowy afternoon more exciting and, certainly, more memorable.  
     One early morning late in April, I stood in a large forest in northern Berks County, Pennsylvania.  The deep woods were quiet, until, suddenly, the ethereal, flute-like songs of a hermit thrush rose beautifully, time after time, from the woodland.  It was the only bird song I heard that moment in the woods, but those lovely notes alone justified that forest's existence for all time.
     One afternoon in June I was reading a book in my living room.  The window next to my chair was open and I could hear traffic, dogs barking and a few bird notes as I read.  Suddenly, I was almost knocked out of my chair when I heard the unmistakable, lovely, flute-like songs of a wood thrush, "e-o-lay" "a-o-lee" so loudly that I thought the bird must be in the room.  I slowly turned my head and looked out the window, and there was the thrush, singing in a bush a few feet outside the open window and only six feet from where I sat in my chair: What an experience.  I sat still and quietly until the thrush finished his concert and flew away.   
     I was walking the dog on a sidewalk of our neighborhood one morning in May of another year.  I noticed an opossum crossing the street with about six furry babies clinging to her back.  The dog saw the mother, too, and wanted to attack her, but I held the dog back with her leash.  The possum got across the street safely and crawled under a neighbor's bush to hide.  The dog and I kept walking along and away from the opossum.
     During a sunny, but windy, afternoon in October, 1988, I was standing on a hill looking over the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania when I saw what appeared to be a mated pair of adult bald eagles soaring together over the river and the wooded hills that contain it.  That was at a time when few bald eagles were in this area, so the eagles were noteworthy in themselves.  I couldn't be sure, of course, but it sure seemed like they were looking for something.  For some time that pair of eagles circled the river again and again and skimmed along the trees of the river hills. 
     That winter and into early spring, it was noted in local newspapers that a pair of bald eagles had built a nest high in a tall tree along the river about where I saw that pair of bald eagles.  Since then, several pairs of balds have been raising young along the Susquehanna.  And I often wonder if that pair I saw back in 1988 was the start of bald eagles again nesting along the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, and York County across the river.  
     One windy, overcast April evening at St. Michaels, Maryland, my wife and I drove out to the Chesapeake Bay.  We arrived in a parking lot at a backwater of the bay in almost gale force winds.  We saw only two species of birds by the bay that evening- barn swallows and a pair of ospreys on their nest.  The barn swallows were struggling in the wind, presumably catching flying insects, or just being challenged by the wind.  But the pair of ospreys hunkered low in their large, stick nest on a channel marker for all they were worth.  They had no intention of flight in that strong wind and we marveled that they weren't blown out of their nursery.  But they stuck to it and presumably weathered the storm intact.  Sue and I marveled at the swallows and commiserated with the ospreys.  
     But the most unique and memorable nature experience I ever had was on a beach along the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey in mid-winter.  I was using a pair of binoculars and saw little flocks of sanderlings (a type of wintering sandpiper) running up and down the beach before and after wavelets sliding up and down the beach, a few purple sandpipers on the boulders of the jetties placed into the ocean to protect the beaches and a handful of harlequin ducks that repeatedly dove into the surf.  The sanderlings and purple sandpipers were looking for tiny invertebrates to eat while the ducks were consuming blue mussels, crustaceans and other creatures on the sand at the bottom of the surf.
     While scanning the beach and surf, I suddenly saw a pair of forward-facing eyes in the binoculars looking back at me.  It was a harbor seal with large, dark eyes that had an intelligent look to them.  The seal and I stared at each other for several seconds then that creature disappeared into the water, not to be seen again.  Those eyes gave me a chill I will never forget because I knew I was looking into the face of intelligence.      
     Readers can have similar experiences with nature, given enough time.  Just go outside, be alert for the possibilities and enjoy.