Also I’ve become interested in the psychology of animals. I’ve always been interested in human psychology. Not the technicalities, but I just find our peculiarities fascinating. Now I am interested in the peculiarities of animals. One thing in particular being cross-species socialising and interaction.
Today I watched a programme about longleat (a big stately home in England with a massive ownage of land on which there are many animals kept) One of the bits was about a camel who initially couldn’t stand up. It was rejected by it’s mother and ended up needing rearing by one of the keepers. As it grew up it seemed to be unaware that it was a camel. It would hang around with the bulls, and the bulls accepted it.
Earlier than that I was watching a programme about a sanctuary in America for lions. It focused on the baby lions, who were small enough to safely mingle with their human carers. I sooo envy them, for being able to play, and be affectionate with those cute things.
All my life, I couldn’t have found wildlife programmes any less uninteresting. Now I seem to get hooked into them.
On the weekends, I scan Animal Planet to see if there are any shows about tigers. If the show is about cute, little tiger cubs, so much the better. My favorite tiger show is Awesome Pawsome. It’s the story of a tiger preserve in Australia (can’t remember the name) and four tiger cubs that are followed from birth to a year in age. In addition, I saw the movie Two Brothers, a story set in the early 1900’s in Cambodia with two separated tiger cubs finding each other.
I remember one that knocked my socks off a few years back. These two wildlife photographers were out in the American West and were looking for mountain lions. They found one female lion with cubs, and started observing/filming/photographing her. Normally, it goes without saying that a female great cat with cubs is not to be approached or trifled with in any regard. Add to this the fact that mountain lions have been known (infrequently, but it certainly happens) to attack and kill humans.
Well, these guys decided to split up and one would film the other while he attempted to get a little closer to Big Mama and photograph her.
Suddenly, the lion snaps her head up at the interloper, and begins padding over toward him, head low and dangerous. His partner has a shit fit. He’s panicking, telling the guy to get the hell out of there. The guy just freezes, whether out of calm thought or panic, I don’t know, as this huge female mountain lion approaches him.
She reaches him, and just when they both think he’s dead meat, she begins purring and rubbing against him exactly as if she were a housecat (only many times larger.) She licks him. She rolls over on her back. She plays with him, and never lifts a paw to hurt him.
The entire time, he sat there frozen, completely awed. He looked like he was having a religious experience. He looked like he wanted to laugh and cry and piss his pants at the same time.
One of the most remarkable nature clips I’ve ever seen.
Ogre, another surreal wildlife moment is B&W footage of David Attenborough’s very first trip for the BBC. He and his mate end up on a ridge in Africa somewhere faced by hundreds of tribesmen in full regalia, spears and all. They also turned out to be friendly.