Hiding motionlessly within a landscape yields encounters impossible to any active approach
Evidence
One day I buried myself, prone, in the muck of a muskrat house. While my clothes absorbed local color, my eyes absorbed the lore of the marsh. A hen redhead cruised by with her convoy of ducklings, pink-billed fluffs of greenish-golden down. A Virginia rail nearly brushed my nose. The shadow of a pelican sailed over a pool in which a yellow-leg alighted with warbling whistle; it occurred to me that whereas I write a poem by dint of mighty cerebration, the yellow-leg walks a better one just by lifting his foot. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 567
Categorization
- SHARE: For a birder/field-ecologist friend: the prone-in-the-muskrat-house tactic and the line about the yellow-leg out-writing him.
- recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Owls require 24° of motion but only 3° for static localization — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3181; Ambush predators sacrifice locomotion speed for close-range striking power — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 113; A purely instrumental mode of seeing prevents genuine encounter with the world — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 375
Broader Connections
- Owls require 24° of motion but only 3° for static localization
#exemplifies(0.88) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3181 - A purely instrumental mode of seeing prevents genuine encounter with the world
#corroborates(0.82) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 375 - Ambush predators sacrifice locomotion speed for close-range striking power
#corroborates(0.80) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 113