The Spirits of Birds, Bears, Butterflies and All Those Other Wild Creatures
Author: Dennie Williams
Synopsis: This is a book of true to life nature tales emphasizing animal and bird interaction and communications with humans. The tales start with a short poem about Chickadees and end with a poetic tour through the Costa Rican jungle. The book opens with a prologue relating how I became fascinated with animals and birds through family influences and experiences. Then, in an introduction, it explains the significance of interactions and spiritual communications among birds, animals and other creatures with humans. Finally, it starts with the first of sixteen true stories or descriptive chapters of interesting interaction among people and birds and animals.
The book was inspired by a little orange butterfly that landed on the back of my right hand while I was blueberry picking. My adventure in the berry patch with the little fellow lasted 10 to 15 minutes. It inspired me a couple of days later to recall an amazing experience I had several years back on the porch of the General Store in Barnard, Vermont. There an ancient local character surprised me with no introduction by coming right up to me, and, without introduction, telling me an experience he had the previous evening with a run-away pig. As he was doing so, without his notice, two wild, white butterflies began flying over his head. As the story got wilder, they darted faster around his head. Believe it! For the entire tale, they flew over his head, and as it ended, their flight slowed and then they flew away toward Silver Lake on a beautiful sunny day. The two experiences inspired me to search the Internet for humans & wild creatures & communications. Up came the YouTube site with quite a few videos of people having wonderful interaction with birds, butterflies, fish and wild animals. That convinced me I needed to write this unique nature book. So I began searching all over town and elsewhere for such stories and found plenty!
Once people, at as early an age as possible, become educated to the needs of wild life, the less destructive they will be toward nature during their lifetimes, and perhaps they will even become devoted to help the causes of all living beings including those humans other than themselves. If the skill to appreciate nature and interact with wild creatures is honed at an early age, it becomes almost impossible not to take up or support environmental protection causes as one grows older.
As I say in the background introduction to the short stories: "As kind as people are to animals, birds, fish and other living creatures, they have to think more about those creatures' innate desires for freedom and independence. Above all, humans need empathy toward wild animals, birds and all other untamed critters. If more of them expressed it, nature could flourish in wider areas worldwide and man-made pollution disasters might decrease in kind. Can you imagine poisoning, torturing or intentionally running over a rabbit, squirrel or roadside crow? I can't! Then how do corporations operated by people endlessly pollute the air, water and earth where wildlife lives?"
Even as I was writing this book, my own concern for wildlife has grown so much that sometimes I have a very hard time reading, watching or listening to its incredible destruction during wide spread forest fires, hurricanes, oil spills, munitions explosions in war and after war or every day pollution of the air by nuclear plants, factories or just plain exhaust from hundreds of cars I pass by with my own car every week. And, yet for all of my working life I was a news reporter writing hundreds of stories of environmental disasters including investigative human health tales involving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The environmental decimation of those wars, particularly from radiation dust caused by depleted uranium munitions, will impact on nature, wild creatures and humans in the Middle East for untold numbers of years. Radiation is hard if not impossible to eradicate and some say its hazards can last billions of years. And yet it seems news reports about its repercussions as well as the health effects of depleted uranium contamination and other huge environmental disasters focus on harm to people but not wild creatures, the earth or the oceans.
But the nature tales in this book look largely upon the positive side of the relationships among people and wild creatures. They are lively, poetic and funny stories all with a focus on interaction, not always friendly, among people and birds and animals. Some of them involve my own experiences at all ages. In order to put those stories and the book in perspective, I open up with my own family background, not as an ego trip, but to show how I very gradually became a kind of minor league nature fanatic. On the other hand, however, the first short story, "Blueberries, Butterflies and The Pig," explains, how only at a late age, as a so called senior citizen, I finally realized there exists a spiritual, fascinating and inspiring interaction among humans and wild creatures, in this case butterflies, and people. Of course, that only occurs if the person already has a sensitive and regular appreciation of wild creatures. After some weeks of thinking about these butterfly experiences, it occurred to me that I and some close friends had a reservoir of experiences interacting with birds and animals.
Just as inspiring still was doing some extensive research on communications among humans and wild creatures and discovering it was not just my imagination. My thinking wasn't craziness, it related to the real world! That research is part of the introduction to the short stories and is necessary to create credibility with the reader.
Chapter-Tales Summary
Prologue
The tale explaining how the author grew up among family gradually influencing his deep appreciation of wildlife, and ultimately, decades later, his belief in spirits creating the potential for interaction and communication among wildlife and people.
Introduction - People Believe In Communications With Pets But Rarely Wildlife
A deeply researched explanation of how wild creatures communicate and connect with humans in all sorts of fascinating situations.
Chickadees and The Ancient Birder
A poem suggesting a floating spirit: birds' interactions – chants to the old guy who feeds them.
Blueberries, Butterflies and The Pig, explains, how only at a late age, as a so called senior citizen, I finally realized there exists a spiritual, fascinating and inspiring interaction among humans and wild creatures, in this case butterflies, and people.
The Adventures of a Canadian-Bermudian Sailor excitingly relates how that boatman gets caught in his sail boat in a two-day storm on his way to Bermuda. After he miraculously survives and sails on during a beautiful sunlit day, a swallow, who too barely survived, lands on his hand and visits with him for 10 or 15 minutes.
A Farm Boy Becomes a Spiritual Man of Nature is the story of how a country boy grew up on a Litchfield farm and as he absorbed the outdoors, wildlife, the cattle and hens, he became more and more aware of the spirits of nature.
The Savior of Baby Wild Animals of All Kinds relates how a Connecticut woman became nurse, mother and friend to baby creatures of all kinds.
Saving Birds and Other Wildlife in The Gulf of Mexico,
A Spiritual Transformation tells the tales of two bird and wild creature rescuers in the aftermath of the BP oil explosion.
The Black Bears Repeatedly Raid Bird Feeders is a personal anecdote of confrontations with Black Bears and how they relate to similar experiences of others.
The Great White Hunter: A humorous narration by the author's oldest childhood buddy of his dream to become a great white hunter like Daniel Boone and how his fantasy crumbled while pursuing a squirrel.
Squirrels, The Acrobats, The Raiders, The Flying Invaders: A personal ongoing history of the author's experiences with squirrels throughout his life that eventually lead from hostility to peace and humor.
The Falcon and The Great Blue Heron: Two birds show how they can communicate fear, hostility and friendliness to a doctor who turned his back yard into a vineyard.
Hawks Nesting In The City Find Tragedy and Inspire Humans as Fans and Fanatics: Two Red-tailed Hawks decide to build their nest on top of a large beautiful Eagle sculpture, a cornerstone of the roof for the historic and busy Hartford, Connecticut, Superior Court Their adventures capture the imaginations of almost everyone inhabiting or visiting the court during the summer.
Hummingbird Tea: A simple sweet water feeder attracts a throng of busy Hummingbirds eventually showing their host homeowners how to keep them happy and sociable.
The Adventures and Wild Flights of Eilish: An amazing bird adventure story about a Chilean Flamingo named Eilish who escaped a Connecticut bird sanctuary in the late fall and flew north to Ontario, Canada. There it became the focus of an intense rescue effort as winter closed in. It's savior was a well known bird and animal rescuer who became so close to the creatures she rescued that they became her spiritual friends.
Big Daddy Swan Protects His Brood From The Road Runners: The famous annual Litchfield Road Race was the scene of a dramatic confrontation between a competitive runner and a male swan trying to protect his mate and their brood from a rush of road runners.
Awesome Birds, Frogs, Snakes, Crocs and Insects Inside The Costa Rican Jungle: A poem about a trip through a Costa Rican jungle guided by an incredible nature guide who had close interaction with birds, lizards, snakes, insects and most all jungle dwellers.
Here are the two nature book covers: Nature Controls All for the paperback and Kindle; and the second cover under it, titled like the book with a beautiful and artful sunset painted by Ina Williams for the e-books and multiple publishers.
Cover Paperback CreateSpace, Amazon, Kindle
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