Of Birds, Bugs and Beasts

I don't really know why, but lately I seem to be valuing the company of animal life just as much as the company of humans, I could burn hours of my life patiently observing and interacting with different creatures and will often stop in the middle of the street if I catch a glimpse of something interesting. I think part of it comes from all the nature shows I grew up with, between 3 and 7 or thereabouts our TV was less an electronic transmitter with 5 fuzzy channels and more a hyperadvanced zoo exhibit, constantly flickering between families of elephants, packs of wolves and the insides of a magnetic termite mound. I would talk endlessly about my interests in nature and desires to work in Kruger national park when I grew up, my paper-mache and yoghurt pot creation 'dinosaur mountain' was the pride of Papworth nursery. The problem, which still exists now, is almost that I'm too passionate about animals, I have a very bad habit of anthropomorphizing them, which is a mentally akin to dressing up your dog or having conversations with your goldfish. For me it's more like creating a narrative in my head, with all the fiction I write and all the films I watch/make it's hard not to think in terms of characters, shots and storylines. Yesterday I was out walking the dogs when I stumbled across something on the road about a foot from the verge, a devil's coach horse (pictured below). Purty, ain't it? It's a
type of beetle that you can find all around Europe, famed for being distinctly aggressive and having a bite easily capable of drawing blood from a human. When I saw it I instantly stopped to take a closer look at the jack head sized critter, but he took notice of me too. He started backpedaling, gnashing his impressive jaws and flexing his tail so it curled over the top of his head, two little white polyps emerging out of it. I later found out that said polyps produce a very unpleasant smell and it's a secondary deterrent against attack (the mandibles being the first). I found the whole affair fascinating and watched it play out for a good two minutes, imagining what he would be saying if he had a voice, probably words to the effect of "Hey, bugger off! You don't want to fuck with me!" or maybe "Come on, bring it! I don't care how big you are! I ain't backing down!" the notion that this was a 'take on all comers' sort of beetle absolutely slayed me. In truth he was probably just reacting reflexively, no real thought processes involved, hell I don't even know if he was a he but I found the display so endearing I half wanted to take him home.

It's a strange quality in many people that they can find almost human levels of personality in animals when often there markedly isn't any at all. Sometimes there is, I'm currently staying with my parents and our 3 dogs, 2 cats and gecko, the dogs in particular all have very distinct personalities. Firstly there's Preston, the oldest at about 15, he's a lithe, skinny old boy who's breed is a unique blend of whippet, doberman, labrador and up to 54 others unknown to all. He has a habit of wandering around aimlessly like a senile old man and will often blunder into a room and stand there seemingly trying to remember what he can in for, then leave, only to repeat the process ten minutes later. He's black with sandy brown paws, ears and eyebrows, he is in fact the only dog I've ever known to have an eyebrow pattern and they give him a look which makes him seem a little forlorn, as if he just lost his balloon, doubly adorable when he walks over and rests his chin on your knee, looking sorrowfully up at you with his big brown eyes.

The second is the middle child, Daisy, who's a German shepherd/golden lab cross (again seemingly unique, save for her sister who belongs to my uncle and his family), she's the crafty one, she's clever enough to follow more complex vocal commands like 'shake' and 'heel' but she's smarter than that even, she's a schemer. Sometimes when I walk her she'll find a dead bird or something and she'll stop and look right at me, she knows I don't want her to eat it and I know she's going to try, so she grabs it and runs off, she won't respond to my shouting until she's swallowed it, knowing full well that I can't run fast enough to catch her (Ussain Bolt would struggle, she's like yellow lightning). She gets punished anyway but the damage is already done, she got away with it. She's pulled stunts like this so many times that she almost always wears a look of guilt when we get home from wherever, regardless of whether or not she's done something wrong, it's like a screening process, she figures if she always looks guilty we'll stop getting suspicious. She also likes tall men, a very unusual trait, but whenever my uncle Andrew or my best friend Sam come around, being that they're both very tall and broad, she won't let them out of her sight, constantly huddling up to them affectionately, it's bizarre to say the least.

Finally there's the young one, Ossian, he's a black lab and he's also possibly the stupidest dog there's ever been. I've seen him walk into walls, growl at his own reflection and start barking out the window when someone knocks on a table. He also talks, particularly when you get home, he'll start doing this half bark, half growl while raising and lowering the pitch like a broken lawn mower that can't quite start, as if to say "Where have you been!? I'm hungry!". He's prone to taking leftovers from the other two, sometimes from their very mouths, eating his dinner so quickly that he throws it back up before it even reaches his stomach (only to eat it again immediately) and jumping up to let his front paws rest on your lap so he can properly survey the dinner table. He's a pain but when he comes ambling into my room in the middle of the day with a baleful look on his face before letting his head rest on my leg I forgive him all his failings, all the dogs are cute but he's a beautiful animal, I haven't met a single person who contests this.

It's difficult to deny that all three dogs have miles more character than any insect but is applying character where there isn't any such a bad thing? I think it can actually be to the benefit of many animals. Much of the wildlife renounced for being nasty and unattractive is consequentially considered to be soulless and mindless. Sharks, spiders, snakes and the like are touted as cold, unthinking killing machines. It's an unfair judgement to say the least, all animals are fundamentally good natured, 'evil' animals don't exist. Some are capable of ruthless imperialism (ants) and others actually toy with the corpses of fresh kills (orcas) but all these animals mate, have children and defend them from harm. That's why character is so important.

Recently Animal Planet has become a disgraceful bastardisation of its former glory, broadcasting nothing but vet and pet trainer shows and prattling on about how adorable cats and dogs are, only very rarely giving room to any of the other billions of animals that live in our world. We don't need television to tell us how funny it is to watch a dog chase its tail or the palpable frustration when a cat tears up the curtains, we've lived it. Recently the BBC has brought back a landmark show called The Natural World which has been on periodically for years, recently it's been specialising in shows that provide a reasoned and fair view of some animals often regarded with distaste. It revealed the mammalian-level intelligence of the giant Komodo Dragon and spanned the 8 year cycle of a honey ant nest from its founding to its purging at the hands of another colony. The show regarded these animals with depth and interest akin to any story about people, the ant episode in particular panned out like a Shakespeare play, full of deception, betrayal and sacrifice but never did it exaggerate the truth of what was happening, all hemmed by the expert narration of Mr. Andy Serkis.

Remaining distanced from wildlife is a given but that doesn't mean that we can't regard it with the interest and scrutiny that we so voyeuristically apply to our own kind, every animal on the planet is interesting enough in its own right to warrant at the very least an hour long TV episode and none should be dismissed. In particular, if you're reading in the UK, it's going to be a very good year for Tenegeria Duellica, aka the giant house spider (pictured below). I'm sure you're all
more than a little familiar with this gorgeous beastie. They can be seen skittering across kitchen floors and trapped in baths during the autumn and this year there's going to be hundreds of them. Most people regard them with stricken fear, given that they're a damn sight bigger than your average common spider, the fact of the matter is that most the ones you see from place to place in the house will be lovelorn males wandering about looking for a female to romance, so killing one is a bit like ruining a love story before it even starts. I'm a well established arachnophile myself, I love spiders and I've been researching tarantula care for years in preparation for the inevitable day when I finally give in to temptation and buy one. I love observing spider activity, over the summer a footpath near my parents' home undergoes a transformation, it becomes 'spider alley' as dozens of labyrinth spiders set up shop in the undergrowth beside the tarmac. Labyrinth spiders build tall sheets of webbing with an entrance at the bottom leading to the maze of tunnels from which they get their name. I always make a point of examining their behavior in the 2 or 3 months they spend there every year. I urge anyone who isn't a fan of spiders to at least try to take an interest in the comings and goings of the Tegeneria, you might find yourself becoming curiously endeared to them as I have been, like I say every animal is interesting enough to deserve an hour special, if you just look closely enough.