On being good

Well, sort of good.

I went to the Reserve as a volunteer. Said I didn't want to cut down trees but I would labour to make their deceased bodies appropriate for the fire. It was good to be out in the Cover, which is my favourite area at the Reserve, and to see some familiar faces. I spent much of the time talking with Andrew and Claire. At one point I took Mischa over to see Kairos, a tree she had not noticed before. I think she was suitably impressed! On the way back, I caught sight of these attractive fungal bodies.

Then came a less cheery part of the day. I am not sure how it came about, but we were speaking about elephants and tigers bearing grudges and one of the volunteers, with whom I have crossed swords before on exactly the same kind of issue, stated that animals are not capable of that: all they do is instinct.

I felt my fury rise. I didn't say anything. There's no point. But what I would have said is something like this: Go and read the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness, then the work of Marc Bekoff, Carl Safina, Barbara Smuts, Len Howard, Gay Bradshaw, Peter Godfrey Smith, Sy Montgomery, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Berndt Heinrich, Jane Goodall, Hal Whitehead, Luke Rendell, and possibly a few more I have forgotten, and THEN tell me animals are not capable of having complex feelings, intentions, beliefs and desires or of making plans and carrying them out.

I was so angry.

Luckily, it was time to leave and I went to feed the birds at the feeding station on the Reserve. As I was heading into a shed to get the pole to lift down the peanut feeder, I saw a flutter to my right. There was a wren, watching me. The bird flitted from one branch to another, coming closer. We looked at each other. Then the wren flew to a branch behind me, I turned and we looked at each other again. It was a sustained period of mutual attention. The wren wasn't alarming at me, just looking. I put out some food and watched the tits. A robin watched me. I saw one great tit stay perched on the feeder for a long time with other birds coming and going. Then he saw a specific bird and the two had a fight.

I'd through some seeds on the track and after I'd put everything away, I began to walk up the track to my car. Suddenly, some rodent shapes rushed from the grass and into the track to collect seeds before hiding again. Rats. I stood still while they were on the road and moved when they were back in their burrow. Finally, I was just ten feet away and they were running in and out. Two of them would stay out, eating, for long periods, but the other three just grabbed some and ran away.

As I was watching, a squirrel started to run down the track toward the food. It saw the rats and saw me and couldn't work out if rats out meant it was safe, or a human there meant it was unsafe. After some coming and going, the squirrel started to eat too. The rats were wary of the squirrel, but soon tolerated the larger creature and behaved as before. Then the squirrel, who wanted sunflower seeds, came further down the track until they were just two feet from my two feet. Of course, I had to stay completely still.

All eating.

All I could hear was rats running back and forth and the squirrel opening sunflower seeds and the birds in the hedges and down on the Reserve.

I stood.

And stood.

My feet were hurting. My legs were getting stiff.

Then a robin started to alarm. They must have just spotted me. All the rats responded, rushing into their holes. The squirrel wasn't bothered. The rats gradually returned.

It was absurd. And magical.

Finally, after maybe ten minutes, I had to move. The animals fled and I continued up the track, past the Wayfarer Oak. We shared a look. "You're alright," said the Oak. "You're going the right way." Reassuring advice from a fellow Wayfarer.