Nature Hike - October

A Texas spiny lizard had just caught a praying mantis in its jaws for breakfast.  

"Or was it brunch?, one of the hikers asked.  

Was that a mimosa I saw on the limb next to him?

This was playing out on a cedar (ashe juniper) limb a few feet above our heads.  From this vantage point, we could see the lizard's underbelly heaving with great gulps of air after what must have been a chase, catch and struggle.  

Now, both lizard and mantis (half in and half out of the lizard) were still, except for the heaving belly.  (No doubt the mantis was doing its version of heaving, but insects breathe by absorbing air through holes in their exoskelton - no muscle was getting a workout pumping lungs.)

As predators and storytellers, I fancy we're inclined to root for the predator.  We know (or imagine we know) the story in its mind, and the desired outcome and resolution to his story.  In this case, the resolution was a lizard's full stomach.

Susan Andres captured the moment a mantis became a lizard's breakfast.

But a circle of life allows us to stop at any point on the circle and view events from that vantage point - and that vantage point's morality and story line.  So one member of the hiking group just had to stop at another vantage point and speak up for the mantis.

"Poor thing".

Indeed, I had just had a close encounter with this species a few days before.  It landed on my window glass one night, attracted to my living room light.  I marveled at its brilliant green.  Its small, compact form.  The intelligent swivel of its large eyes on that impossibly small neck.  I could swear we had a "moment".  And then it was off into the night.  But today, I was celebrating breakfast and rooting for the lizard's story.  

As we hiked, one young eight or nine year old boy couldn't grasp the circular trail we were following.  He kept asking if we'd been here before, swearing he recognized the place.  Both his father and I discribed to him the route we were taking: uphill half way - down hill the rest.  His father cupped his hands into a circle.  

"See?  This is where we stopped - halfway."  

But the boy couldn't rise above in his mind's eye and view the circle, let alone choose a vantage point to stop at and tell a story from  He was still young enough that he was telling other people's stories - his teacher's, his father's.  But he was practicing for the day when he would begin to tell his own stories.  When he would be able to rise above, choose a vantage point, and sing out what he saw.

His father marveled at the lizard up a tree - he'd never seen that before.  

"What's it doing up there?" he asked.  

"Oh yes," I said, "Lizards often climb trees.  That's clearly where their breakfast is."

Towards the end of the hike, as we paused to inventory the life that had found a recently formed small stream, this father asked one of the broadest, if not best, questions.  

"What good are green spaces like this in town?"  

It wasn't a challenge to prove it, but rather a genuine curiosity.  As I often do, I opened the question to the group.  

"Why are y'all here today?"  They looked at me blankly.  "You chose to get up on a Sunday morning and be in nature.  Why?"  Still silent, blank stares.  

I supplied their answer for them. "Because it makes you feel good.  We like being in green spaces.  So there's one reason that's about us. (the story told from our vantage point on the circle of life)."

A golden cheeked warbler on an ashe juniper.  This endangered bird
breeds only in the Texas Hill Country.  It needs these particular hills
inside the preserve to raise its young

"Another reason urban green spaces (the current industry term) are good, is that it's a refuge for other species who live here.  It may be that a species needs this particular area to live.  So that's a reason from other species' points of view.  Also, all these trees help keep the temperature of the city down.  And, if we don't pave this over, flooding won't be as bad because this kind of ground cover slows the water down."  

I saw heads nodding and smiling during all this.  I could tell they either knew much of this already, or readily understood and appreciated it.  So perhaps their silence had been shyness at answering a question, or they hadn't articulated these things to themselves before.

We watched the lizard with its breakfast for a few more minutes.  Susan got her great shot (shared above), and we moved on down our circle trail, looking for more circle of life encounters.