Learning the language of the forest animals

 

I was in the woods today and did a bit of philosophizing. I guess that’s a big word for thinking. But it’s bigger than thinking to me. Consider philosophizing to be formal thinking about concepts.

We say that a sign – a stop sign or a peace sign or a “sign of the times” (greasers in the 50s v. hippies in the 60s v. punk rockers in the 70s) – is a human concept, and the communication of an idea from one person to another in a manner that both can understand.

But surely in the animal kingdom there are rudimentary languages. That is, there is the use of signs.

This time of year, I think of the white flags of the tails of the white-tailed deer, during the lean months, the deer yarded up with one another and running from the truck down the icy road or lunging into the deep snow. We used to say that the white tail going up as they fled was a visual signal to the fawns of danger – it meant for everyone to run. Then we said, no, it is used to disorient predators in the chase. The funny thing is, we can agree that it means something to us, deep in the woods, when all you hear is a crash, and then pounding, and a flash of white. We think, “There goes a white-tailed deer.”

But back to the language and the more obvious signs of the white-tailed deer. Have you ever heard the stamping of the foot, or the snorting (more like a blowing) sound when you’re in the woods and they’re in the same woods and you’re near each other but can’t see each other? Have you ever heard the distressed bleat of the yearling as it breaks down the high bank into the deep, crystallized March snow, along the swollen spring river, the dying bleat as it gets caught in the ice and deep water just off the current? Surely here is an attempt at communication, one to the others.

Or take two iconic attempts at language in the north woods: the howling of the wolf and the call of the loon, two acoustic signs. Is the howl a word? A full phrase? It must have some meaning to it – an ambush plan? A GPS coordinate?

For the loon call, what could be the purpose? What is it conveying? “Hey, the rainbow trout are over here!” “Hey, this is my lake. No other loons allowed.” (The “hey” certainly seems to be a big part of the loons’ communication).

I’m reflecting on all this out in the woods today because I came upon a pattern in the snow. A linear pattern from one black ash trunk starting to melt clear to another. A pattern, in a straight line, with two dots, a line in between them, all just an inch wide. A tiny track in the snow.

And of course I said to myself, “Mouse” (or “vole,” or “shrew” – I’m not versed in very small rodents).

Now, of course, I wasn’t looking at a mouse; I was looking at the mouse tracks left imprinted in snow, and the meaning I deduced from the pattern in the snow was, “A mouse passed by here recently” or “These are mouse tracks.” As I read it the front legs come first and the hind feet land on the exact same spot as the front, and the tail drags a little line in the snow in between. Etc., etc., from one hiding place to another.

And that meaningfulness, from some representation like a sound or visual pattern, is called semiotics. And semiology is the study of signs. And I am an amateur semiotician.

Further along we have a different pattern in the snow. A snowshoed hare track. The hind feet make a longer print than the cottontail’s. And both these – the hare and the rabbit – have larger tracks than the squirrels, though similar. The red squirrel has a smaller track than the gray.

Back at the snowshoed hare track I’m looking at…I can also tell which way he was going by the direction his feet are arrayed. I could even guess the speed he was running at by the distance between his tracks (“strides” in human terms or “bounds” in hare terms). I can even approximate how long ago or recent he ran by here, but we won’t go into the difficulties of that talent now.

Once in your life if you’re very lucky you may have the chance to read where the snowshoed hare track ends abruptly in the open snow, and there at that spot where the last track seems to end, the snow was disturbed, and there are sweeping impressions made in the snow a foot or two on either side.

So that we know that a great-horned or great-grey owl snatched the snowshoed hare off the ground and broke the hare’s neck and hip with his furred talons and lifted him heavily to his perch.

So, we can say out loud or under our breath, “Here died a snowshoed hare. Beloved on Earth. In memoriam. Requiescat In Pace.” And all that other language that we say at times such as these.