My honey and I found ourselves commiserating over dinner this week, that walks are duller without our dog. My selection process for Rascal included verifying that he was cheerful, and he was. He was particularly upbeat about going for walks. He was excited about them, every time.
Years ago, Dave Barry wrote a column about his dog’s over-the-top enthusiasm. According to Barry, the dog reacted, on setting foot outside, every day, “There it is! The YARD! Right in the exact same place where it was yesterday! This is turning out to be an UNBELIEVABLE adventure!”
We’ve been laughing about that column for decades. And now that we are without a canine source of zest, we miss it. We still go for walks. They’re part of our routine. It’s just that they’re tending to feel routine. So, for a treat this morning, I walked at Gallup Park. It winds along the Huron River and is the most popular park in town.
Swallows darted and swooped over the river, aerial acrobats. They feed on the wing and are, no doubt, intent on their targets, but they’re such masters of the air that they look like they’re playing. It’s such a pleasure to watch them that you hope they’re having fun. They certainly sound like they’re enjoying themselves as they chat.
Elsewhere on the audible spectrum came the squawk of a great blue heron. It’s so loud, it sounds like something you’d hear at a zoo—a dinosaur, maybe. Certainly loud enough to wake us if a night-flying heron buzzes the house on its way to Thurston Pond. The cry of today’s bird wasn’t overhead, though. It came low and large from behind the bank of a secluded section of river to the right of the path. You had to look down to see those massive wings working, carrying the predator along just above the water, disturbing it only with a reflection.
A single scull, sleek and white in the sunshine, disturbed the water scarcely more than the bird in flight, and didn’t squawk.
Swans came in for water landings, shhhhh, a wonder to behold. They fly closer and closer to the water, then extend their legs in front of them, “toes” up, and backwind their wings like sails. They hold their wings out for a moment while they settle into the water, apparently waiting for the judges’ scores to come in. Then they fold their wings into swim position and paddle away.
Canada geese land in the river, too. It sounds way different. They honk as they fly, and they most assuredly honk as they land, if there are any other geese around. “You there! Move! We’re coming in and you’d better scram! Hurry up!”
A male red-winged blackbird landed on the ground near me, which meant I got to look down on it when its wings were fully extended and the red and yellow bands on its shoulders fully displayed. It was magnificent. The colors were so vivid. No wonder the female blackbirds are so enamored of them. In the same habitat, I saw a blackbird with just a sliver of pale yellow at the shoulder. An internet search revealed an image of a bird just like it, called a bi-color blackbird. Who knew?
Two male wood ducks slipped away from their hiding place near the bank as I walked by. Their coloring is spectacular, and woodies are so shy. They have downward-pointing crests, and one of the fellows tossed his head as he glided away, which showed off the crest to even greater advantage.
I stopped on one of the park’s pedestrian bridges to gaze into the sunny shallows, and immediately spotted a turtle among the weeds and fallen branches. Then it hid, and a big fish came zooming through. Another turtle appeared, off to the side, and the first one reemerged from hiding. They both just hung there in the water–head up, shell down–thinking turtle thoughts.
When they came up for air, we watched each other for a time. If I moved, they zoomed to the bottom and stirred up a cloud of silt to hide themselves. With the current of the river, the silt clouds didn’t last, but the turtles seem to feel safe anyway. As I walked off, I spied another turtle in the same sunny shallows. Maybe they were basking underwater, regulating their body temperature in the warmth without having to leave the shelter of the river.
There are always things going on at Gallup Park. Rascal was wild about the place. Sometimes just the memory of his dogged enthusiasm is enough to see us through.
8 May 2026