Introspection and Kazoos

Jordan Wildish

I have been procrastinating pretty heavily on recording observations so far. I realize that I should probably be observing things all the time. I should be in a sort of "constant state of awareness" like Crow Planet talks about, but I haven't gotten to that level of zen-nature-connectedness so far. I had made attempts at nature observations, but those were pretty short lived. I was always interrupted by seeing someone I knew, a cell phone vibration, or a feeling of urgency about remembering some long lost homework assignment I had neglected. So this first natural history observation is going to be about myself (because humans are part of nature too right? And who better to observe than yourself?). I realized that I have shut myself off from the world around me. Maybe because of the stress of college, or the overwhelming amount of opportunities that I am being bombarded with, or the looming and ominous fact that real life starts now. Whatever the reason, I don't notice changes and subtleties around me like I used to. I grew up in nature and was always surrounded and aware of it. The fact that making a few natural observations this week seems hard means that something drastic has changed, and I'm not a fan.

Once I came to this conclusion making observations seemed to come a little easier for me. I'm not sure that first observation really counts so I feel that I should write about something a little more on subject, lets call this observation 1.5 .

As I walked out of my dorm I heard a strange noise coming from the trees above me. At first it sounded to me like one of those cheap plastic Kazoo instruments that they kept in toy boxes in elementary school. I kept looking up to see what was making the sound but branches and leaves blocked my vision. I thought maybe it came from an unhappy duck, but I couldn't really imagine a duck quacking away all by itself up in a tree. I walked around a little while to see if I could find a good vantage point, and finally I saw a bird silhouette at the very top of the tree. It was a crow, all alone, in the rain, on the highest place in this tree. I shouldn't project emotions onto this crow, because maybe it was perfectly happy, but I certainly found it a pretty depressing sight. It was silent for a while, staring out over Goudy. Then it started to squawk again. It wasn't like any crow squawk I had ever heard. It was quieter than I thought crows could be. Instead of making the typical monotone call I was used to it was making snippets of sound in various pitches and of various lengths. It made a kind of cacophonous melody that sounded a lot like an complaining. It continued for at least 30 seconds with this. Then it gave two loud, drawn out squawks and flew away. I have no idea where it was going, but I know that somewhere there is an upset bird that sounds exactly like a Kazoo.