You might need nature more than you think
Modelling a clay bowl inspired by the badger from the garden. Photo Yury Li-Toroptsov
Something was different when I threw a spoonful of fish food into the pond. Normally, the gold and brown fish jump so quickly to eat the flakes that they disappear within a minute. This time they didn’t come to the surface of the artificial pond. They seemed scared. Something was off. I stood there with a jar of fish food, wondering what might have gone so wrong.
The answer arrived later in the day when, through my window, I saw a beautiful bird perched on a stone above the pond. The bird was still for a minute and then it dove into the water of the pond and came out with a small brown fish in its beak. The fish were traumatized by the bird!
It wasn’t any kind of bird. It was a kingfisher. A gorgeous bird wearing a turquoise coat on its back and fiery orange on its belly. Its large and long beak left no chance for fish trapped in a pond to escape. This kingfisher was coming to the pond like one goes to do their grocery shopping. I couldn’t stop admiring the bird in its mesmerising beauty. I also couldn’t let it eat all the fish in the pond. Trouble! What to do?
I found an effigy of a bird of prey in the garage and planted the wooden statue on the very stone on which the kingfisher chose to sit. Since then, the attacks have stopped. The trick worked. For now, at least.
Another day, I found a bunch of shallow holes in the garden. Some animal was making those. It was then that I decided to plant a motion-detecting camera to solve the mystery. The following morning, when I downloaded the images, the answer was right in front of me on a computer screen. It was a badger! In the dead of night and around 5 o’clock in the morning, the medium-sized animal was roaming the garden and the grounds of the house. Looking at its photos, the animal was quite healthy and clearly was doing very well when it came to digging for earthworms, eating snails and slugs, and sampling the apples abundantly lying on the ground under the apple tree.
There are also disputes with garden mice, deer, hornets and flies. These occupy me quite a bit. I get upset each time I see a new hole in the ground made by the badger or discover a hornet’s nest under the roof. And yet, these endless negotiations with nature over the past year have made me realize that my connection to wild, living nature is back, and I love it. These countless animals have changed something in the Parisian I have become. I forgot, or almost forgot, what it feels like to share the living space with animals. Yet, I was born and grew up in the taiga. This connection to the earth that I lost while living in the most beautiful city in the world was a huge loss, and I wasn’t entirely aware of it. Now that I’m rediscovering my immediate contact with the animal world, I treasure all the interactions with it.
This made me think. And what if eco-anxiety, we all experience now, is a symptom of our disconnection from the Earth? From the nature within and without us? What if the state of our mental health is indicative of the state of our relationship with the living planet?
