Excerpts

Introduction A wolf is out there. Although I cannot see it or hear it, the wild canine is definitely close. The questions are precisely what wolf and exactly where. With each passing moment, updates of its presence pour in. Canis lupus is not at the doorstep, but no more than two or three hundred yards to the east. Insights continue to arrive. As the seconds lead to minutes, it becomes clear that the wolf, or maybe even a pack of wolves, is just over the hill beyond Yellowstone Park's helicopter landing pad--and it is on the move. It is December 11 and the frozen expanse of the world's first national park stretches out around me. Under clouded, wintry skies, the earth is a collage of white snow and sagebrush gray. I still have not spotted the wolf, nor do I have the benefit of intel from tracking devices or information from other people. Is this the Yellowstone Canyon Wolf Pack on its first foray into the park's northern range this year, I wonder? And if so, how many wolves are there? The questions multiply. By now, the time is 8:21 AM. What I am sure of, standing alone with my senses, is that the wolf, or wolf pack, is traveling from right to left at a pace of roughly four to six miles per hour and heading downstream along the Gardner River. How do I know? A single vociferous coyote aired the breaking news about the wolf. I could easily have tuned out its warning bark and dismissed it as senseless background noise. Most of us spend our entire lives turning a blind eye and deaf ear toward animal conversations, chalking the chatter up to just more meaningless racket. The result of not letting the wild dialogues in is that we have been missing out. Entire communities of organisms have been communicating in complex ways for millions of years. Decoding the details is akin to tapping into the most ancient social media, the first Facebook, the original Twitter. This knowledge network is transmitting information twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, at speeds of one hundred miles per hour or more. Wildlife conversations are occurring across the urban-wilderness divide, and bridge species, genus, family, order, and even class boundaries of organisms. The warblers are listening to the squirrels; the squirrels are listening to the crows. The crows are lending an ear to the crickets and the deer--and they all may be hanging on every peep the frogs have to say. And there is more. Amid the back and forth, there are those who have the community at heart, but maintain personal agendas; there are mind readers and prognosticators, broadcasters of five-alarm warnings and silent observers. Everyone in the neighborhood is part of this collective vibe--everyone, that is, except us. If the average person is aware of the voices of nonhumans, the conversations they are most likely to notice are the calls collectively known as the dawn chorus--that loud, seemingly disorganized ensemble of trilling, whistling, crowing, chirping, honking, and shrieking that seems to do everything but hush up when you're trying to get some sleep. Many a window has been thrown open, much verbal effluent spewed, and numerous projectiles thrown at some unsuspecting bird just trying to get a date. Some people resort to earplugs or a well-placed pillow, while others retreat into their personal auditory oasis, as a friend of mine does in his luxury car, which monitors ambient sound levels and increases the volume on the radio to cover up outside noise. We go to great lengths to control what enters our ears and our minds, and as we do so, we seldom regard animal noise for what it truly is--communication. Later in the evening, I post on social media that the Canyon Wolf Pack might be in town. A friend and safari guide replies that he was out with some clients that morning and spotted the pack near the bridge along the Gardner River, just east of Mammoth Hot Springs--two miles upstream from my location. They lost sight of them around 8 AM, moving downstream in my direction. Although I was happy for the confirmation, I didn't really need this third-party report to know that my suspicions were on target. Everything in this morning's encounter had been writ large across the landscape. The notifications were not pinged through in a cell-phone message or drafted in ink; rather, they were transmitted in sound. Had you been standing next to me and identifying the relevant clues, you too would have known the large predator was near. At this point, you might wonder if I am overstating my case. How could I be so certain of these details of species, distance, and direction? It sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn't it? Can human bystanders really slip into the shoes of Doctor Dolittle or access the equivalent of living, breathing surveillance cameras for a front-row seat to hidden dramas? As it turns out, we most certainly can. The pivotal clue that morning, the auditory signal that broadcast the pack's presence, was the coyote's unique barking howl, a call that is reserved exclusively for situations like this--it is the coyote word for "wolf." You can perform similar acts of wildlife spotting in your own community, along most any street, woodlot, or town park. Once you learn how to tune in to the wild conversations around you, though the animals might be different, the parallels between what you discover as you relax on your patio or gaze out the window sipping your morning coffee and what you can see in distant locations such as Yellowstone or the African savanna will be uncanny. In fact, some of the best preparation for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a far-off destination can be done within a block of home by relying on nothing but your five senses. Although our ability to explore the world's biodiversity has taken a giant leap forward in recent times--thanks to high-quality field guides, advanced optics and recording equipment, reference databases, and artificial intelligence--you don't need any special aids to immerse yourself in nature. Even when you have left your devices behind or their batteries are running low, you can still participate in the events going on around you, perhaps even more effectively than through the filter of technology. Even for those of us whose sensory abilities have become a bit rusty with age or atrophied from disuse, our innate potential to tune in is still nothing short of amazing, and people with perceived shortcomings such as limited mobility or diminished hearing or eyesight can experience the outdoors in ways that leave others in the dust. As you start to study your undomesticated neighbors, you will soon realize that they are also eyeing you. Animals are sharing many tidbits about you personally, distinct from your friends, neighbors, and family. Think of wild conversations as an alternate form of neighborhood watch or as primordial big data. Although animals may not be logging your internet activity, they are taking in far more than you realize. As your awareness begins to shift, you begin to get a sense of how nonhuman others might perceive the world and how they perceive you--and your place within it begins to change. When the human and nonhuman spheres overlap, exciting things happen. Meeting individual nonhumans--such as the crow with a discolored tail feather that hangs out by the park bench or the female deer with the nick in her ear that comes to your yard each evening--is how some of the most transformative experiences arise. With time, you will appreciate how these seemingly distant others are much more like us than not. See how fiercely they defend their young or how tenderly they sweet-talk their mates. Discover for yourself how local creatures rely on their communities, honor clannish traditions, depend on certain habitat features, and retrace ancestral pathways. Learning how to listen has added immeasurably to my own life as a parent, homeowner, artist, educator, and curious observer. I invite you to join me for a journey through concrete jungles, suburban grasslands, and distant corners of the planet's wildscapes. Not only will the insights and lessons thrill and surprise you, but you will never look at your own yard, city, or neighborhood park the same way again. The wilds are full of wisdom and intrigue, and you may find that you become equal parts detective, poet, and eager pupil amid the timeless relationships of the outside world. Excerpted from Eavesdropping on Animals: What We Can Learn from Wildlife Conversations by George Bumann All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.