Kristin von Kreisler

Several years ago on an assignment for Reader’s Digest, I followed a grizzly in Montana for a week.  Her name was Lacy, and wildlife biologists were training her to stay away from people, garbage cans, and orchards. If she’d continued marauding around Kalispel and not learned her lesson, she’d have had to be killed.  But her manners became impeccable.  I fell in love with her.

So you can imagine my horror when she lumbered out of her den the following spring and a hunter shot her in the back and killed her. She’d been running from him just as she’d been taught. Though my article still appeared in the magazine, I was beside myself. And the same kind of loss hit me last week.

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Three times this spring I planted my snow-pea patch. Three times! That’s 90 seeds that went into the ground, and I couldn’t understand why not a single one sprouted.

Until I looked outside one day and saw a rufus towhee standing on the barren soil with a look of triumph about her. Then I understood that she’d been eating each seedling just as it raised its delicious green head from the soil. I couldn’t help but resent her.

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Meet Mr. Yote, a coyote rescued at Washington’s West Sound Wildlife Shelter, where I love to volunteer:

On the left, you can see him as a pup just after he’d been found, desperate and alone on the side of a road.  His sad face beside his teddy bear tells you how scared he was and how much he must have missed his mother.  But on the right, about six months later, Mr. Yote has become a sleek and handsome fellow, testimony to the Shelter staff’s care. You’d never know from looking at him that he has severe eye problems, discovered when he could only find his food by sniffing to the bowl. If he were returned to the wild, he’d surely have died. So he was sent to a sanctuary, where he’s now living happily among his own kind.

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It’s early morning, dark and silent outside.  In a couple of hours I  will sneak away and carry out my secret Christmas celebration as I have for the last five years.  Armed with a loaf of wheat bread and a five-pound bag of unsalted, unshelled peanuts, I will set out for the forest and leave little piles of food around tree trunks and on rocks.  On this chilly, damp day, the wild creatures will get a Christmas dinner and a boost to their spirits. Continue reading →

I’m rushing to pack for England, where I plan to visit the Hill Top Farm of Beatrix Potter. Her Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Squirrel Nutkin have enchanted me since childhood, and I also loved Mr. John Dormouse and his daughter.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about dormice, those cuddly, furry-tailed little creatures with huge brown eyes that tug at hearts. Dormice are your usual mice in many ways; but they get their name from the Anglo-Norman dormeus, which means “sleepy one,” because they hibernate for up to six months a year. Once they wake and spring back into action, they travel mostly by tree at night.

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