When a bull gator bellows, he creates 2 tones.  The first is the one we hear.  The one that’s making the water dance is subsonic.  Only male alligators have that double-tone bellow. Other alligators know, because they are hearing two tones, it’s a male who’s bellowing. In the bellow, they rise up out of the water, inhale deeply, and sing out.  One starts, and soon the others follow.  I shot this photo at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.   The park was established in 1893, and in its current iteration is more a preserve than a park and was never a ‘farm.’  I was two to 10 feet away from these animals and they surprised me with the differences in personality. An unexpected intelligence lurks there.  And I say “lurk” with a reason…

Something rather out of the ordinary. After considerable behind-the-scenes effort, I’ve been able to arrange for an extended period of fieldwork in Hudson Bay to gather material for my radio essays, recordings, and website video and photography for Living on Earth.

Among the highlights: On foot with polar bears and wolves, and in the water to record beluga whales singing. The in-country portion, about $30,000, has been funded courtesy of Churchill Wild, the premier ecotour company of Hudson Bay and the only people who can put you on the ground with polar bear. I also have almost all the equipment I need. Working now to raise the small balance that remains.

Please have a look at the full project description on Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/e/xgawY/projects/1390166816/north-knife-a-radio-field-trip-to-hudson-bay

Comments appreciated. And, if you like the project, I would appreciate your circulating to your mailing lists. Every contribution will help. More than that, this is the way my work is heading and public reaction will tell me what I need to know about both the level of interest, and feasibility.

Best regards,

Mark Seth Lender

Mark Seth Lender Watching Sea Otter Watching Mark Seth Lender

One of the things I love about sea otters is “The Look.” This is when an otter stops what he’s doing - in this case grooming - and meets your gaze head on. In general, eye contact does indicate a degree of concern or even threat. When a grizzly bear does that, run (not that it will do you any good). That said, there’s more going on when an otter eyes you than prudence. I’ve never had an otter turn away and leave after eye contact, or make a hostile move. Don’t laugh. Despite their furry faces and playful demeanor they are quite capable of taking care of themselves, if they need to. But that gaze is always more than a glance, more than a brief survey of what I am and where and how close. It is steady, and goes on for a long time, which I believe indicates a high degree of interest. As if, while doing fieldwork on them, they were doing fieldwork of their own, on me.

This is my premier book, a collection of my wildlife writings including some of the work I’ve read on PRI’s Living on Earth (heard on most NPR stations). I’ll have some autographed copies if you are interested, at the cover price ($19.95). Or ask you local (preferably Independent!) bookstore. Amazon also carries the book at a discount. Here’s the most recent review from Library Journal:

Lender, Mark Seth. Salt Marsh Diary. St. Martin’s. Apr. 2011. c.128p.
illus. ISBN 9780312656010. $19.99. NAT HIST

Lender, best known as a contributor to NPR’s Living on Earth, here
crafts a series of essays marking the passage of the seasons outside his Connecticut window. His sparse yet lyrical prose shows the natural world of the salt marsh in all its glory, with the detached description of a naturalist and the intimacy of an inhabitant. He draws incisive and often unexpected parallels between the rhythms and locales of the salt marsh and society at large, highlighting especially the humor and irony. In “animal personals,” a series of personal ads from the marsh dwellers, he writes, “I’m a thief and I dig it! Recently WW M Raccoon 29, pleasingly plump, knows every garbage can in town and willing to share, wants woman same age who knows how to stay out of traffic.” VERDICT This lively work will appeal to the poetic at heart and nature lovers alike, particularly those who feel the gulf between the world they live in and the simplicity of the world outside. Recommended.-Marianne Stowell Bracke, Purdue Univ. Libs., West Lafayette, IN

Click here to buy the book

Forget about what your mother told you - food tastes better with your mouth open.  And the more noise you make, the better. That’s how moose do it, and their Moms don’t mind a bit.

I found a yearling moose and her mother in a small pond nearoose Lake (where else?).  Maine this far north has a ravaged look.  This is timber country. Off pavement, you travel at your risk and by their indulgence.  Rotting stumps can still be seen here and there, remnant of the great woods that preceded the second and third growth, thick but somehow diminished, like a scratchy recording of a bluesman long gone, even his name now lost. The Golden Road, a winding corrugated track heading West.  At the last town before the dirt, the sign says, Population: Not Many. A spray of ponds and sweet marshes divide from here like unraveling twine. Moose country.

In that brief interval between summer and when these wetlands freeze, the moose still make their way down to feed. Unseasonable heat offends, as do the clouds of flies and the leaches that worry their hocks. Blood thinned by leachbite streams, and small welts form there. The moose come early while it is still cool and wade in the shallows.  They plunge their heads, up to the ears sometimes, and rise, water sluicing from their mouths as they chew and grind the tough strands, extracting the thin green nourishment.  Close by, I watch and listen as they graze. Their placidity, and the sounds they make.  As the morning unfolds they return to the shade. I raise the lens, too close to shoot until they have walked some small distance, their hooves splashing like stones. If this were a gun and not glass you would not have to aim.

There are those who would call it sport, to kill a thing that only walks away. Do not confound that with the intimate staunching of hunger, which is the way of all Life; nor with the Just Pride of filling the bellies of others who do not yet know their left hand from their right.

Now should I not take pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are many more than 120,000 souls who do not know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well? - Yonah 4:11