Have you ever had one of those moments where you have had some nagging thought, which suddenly gains clarity with an aha moment. Here are two that I have had.
My best friend was living just 20 miles north of Yellowstone. I was visiting him and decided to drive down to the park and do some hiking and photography. I had come to a large meadow that had a herd of bison grazing. The path cut across the center of the meadow to a small rise. None of the bison were near the path so I quietly and slowly crossed, without incident, to the rise on the far side.
I climbed up the rise to where it leveled out and came across a small fawn lying dead across the pathway. This is something you don’t come across often so I brought my camera up and started to take some photos. Looking through the camera I clearly saw the entrails of the fawn, with steam rising from them. In the back of my head there was this nagging thought, repetitive saying “hmmm, steam rising, that means something. What does that mean?” Click goes the shutter. Click comes the thought. Several shutter clicks later comes the aha moment. Steam rising means a fresh kill. A fresh kill means that it is very likely that a predator is nearby. I freeze. I am thinking is it a bear, or a cat? I slowly move my eye from the camera and move my head in a slow arc, looking around. There about 30 feet away, watching me intently from the brush is a coyote.
Keeping my eye on the coyote, I back away from the fawn and move up the side of the hill. Once I am away from the fawn, the coyote creeps in and grabs the fawn by the hind leg and drags it off the trail.
The second aha moment came when I was at my cousins ranch in north central Oregon. I was off doing photography. I was heading back to the ranch when I heard this curious sound. It was like a “chi,chi,chi,chi” sound. I stopped walking and listened. There it was again. “chi, chi, chi, chi.” I am standing there thinking “what is that noise.” In the back of my head the nagging thought is that I should know what that is and that it is pretty important. “chi,chi,chi.” Then comes the aha, and I look around. About 15 feet away is a young rattlesnake crossing the firebreak road. I snap a couple of photos. I keep still and let him cross and disappear into the brush. After a minute or two I resume my walk back to the ranch, walking on the far side of the road.
These days I try to maintain more situational awareness.