Every media annually published their “top-something” in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve. News Banner’s award-winning staff voted on stories to make the Banner’s official selections. In getting in the spirit of ringing out the old, Angelkeep, being just one of many columns published in the Banner, decided to go smaller. Thus flowed the rationale behind the decision of selecting Angelkeep’s “top-five” of 2023.
Picking a top-five proved easy enough. Ranking them against each other became impossible. After moving into a third year of research writing about Bluffton’s world-famous dragonfly mastermind, E. B. Williamson, other critters outshined odonata features.
Two stories involved Angelpond inhabitants who breathed air but hunted food underwater. Angelkeep fell in love with a repetitively appearing hand-size painted turtle. Years ago one was spotted in the pond. Call it a heartwarming reunion. Macro turtle photos looked as delicious as a Turtles Caramel Pecan Cluster. Those were drooled over in a Bluffton’s Murphy’s Five and Dime candy case. A painted turtle was never caught nor boiled as a dining entrée.
One comparable critter came as a complete surprise to Angelkeep. Who knew prior to 2023 that a water fishing spider could walk on water, stand suspended over the crest, and when a fish larger than the spider itself swam by, the spider could dive and outswim a fish, capture it, and end up with a sushi meal? And who knew ahead of Angelkeep’s discovery that a spider could hold bubbles of air with its legs and use them while swimming underwater in a manner akin to scuba divers of the human species variety? Angelkeep was blown away, being a non-swimmer, as well as proven to have been out-fished at Angelpond by a spider.
Three additional featured animals were birds, noting Angelkeep’s top-five were all fauna. Ranking proved unimportant as each shined in its own particular mode. A one-time-only visit of a great egret to Angelkeep appeared as though an avian angel had landed on the shores of Angelpond. At first the thought developed that it might be an albino great blue heron. Dozens of photos documented it.
The great egret displayed extremely long-flowing, wispily, mesmerizing feathers which nature designed specifically to attract a mate for a desired amorous encounter. It worked. Angelkeep fell passionately in love with this amazing white bird with coal black legs. It stayed about half a day, but it could not be left out of the top-five animal love affairs that occurred in 2023. Gwen love it too. The white egret love bird dressed in mating plumage, was loved by the two Angelkeep “love birds” watching from the very living room in which the humans married twenty-two years prior. How rare was the angelic great egret? Only one or two photos of a white egret in its mate-attracting plumage were located on the internet. The rare siting, a truly a unique gift in white, descended from the heavens for a lovely encounter.
As exciting as an angel-like bird was a juvenile red-tailed hawk that first appeared on Angelpond’s far shore. It decided to encounter humans and flew directly toward the house. Shortening the story from the earlier column, it remained for a couple of hours. It strutted the patio with only a screen door’s separation. It watched us as interestingly as it received observation. Its closeness became the photo-op of a lifetime for a wild hawk not held in captivity. Few internet images compared to it. It was in its juvenile stage, strikingly different in a better way than what it would become as an adult red-tailed hawk. It perched among patio whiskey barrels filled with blooming color as though it desired to be on the cover of Birds and Bloom, or perhaps highlighted by Outdoor Indiana, Indiana DNR’s publication.
Among the top-five came the ugliest bird of Angelkeep. Turkey buzzards accepted the task of cleaning up a rail collision left behind by Norfolk Southern. Deaths of three Angelkeep visiting deer, and the natural order of nature, became an extended lesson visually displayed in real time. Through that deer and locomotive mishap time, a 1907 story was discovered about Bluffton’s Buzzard Lodge enjoying a New Year’s Eve meal consisting of rabbit. Interurban engineers secured the main course through a clever method of enticing engine and bunny collisions using the train’s whistle as rabbit suicide encouragement. Three toots caused bunnies on the track to freeze and stare at the oncoming lights.
Happy New Year to all from Angelkeep’s Gwen and Alan.
May God’s blessings pour throughout 2024.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
