Long Journeys to Hidden Homes: International Migratory Bird Day, May 11

“Congratulations – it’s a FOY!”

Janeanne, Mark, and I were peering last week through binoculars at a fuzzy blob on the top of a Western Hemlock on the other side of the little clearing. Janeanne, a far better spotter and diagnoser than I, called it: a Western Tanager. Since it was the first tanager any of us had seen this year, that made it a FOY (first of year), always very exciting.

Tanagers are lovely little birds, the males glowing yellow with an incandescent reddish head. So you’d think in our fifty-shades-of-green Pacific Northwest forest, they’d be easy to spot. But no: it turns out that these beautiful feather-people love to hang out in Pacific Madrones, whose peeling bark is a translucent brown-orange and whose aging leaves turn yellow and then deep orange. Perfect camouflage for a brilliantly-colored traveler.

Fortunately, in today’s fresh clear morning, an energetic tanager chose an east-facing Madrone to forage through, and I finally got my first-ever recognizable photos of one.

Western Tanager
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

He was right on time. Here in the Upper Left-Hand Corner, our tanagers start arriving in late April and really increase in numbers after early May. (That is, according to our local birders’ listserv, Tweeters. I hardly ever see them until a really good birder like Janeanne or Mark points them out. Sigh.)

Western Tanager
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

The Western Tanagers are presumably here in my neighborhood park to build their little cup nests on one of our abundant conifers and to snack on forest food. To do that, they fly all the way from Central America or Mexico, around 3000 miles.

Western Tanager Range Map
(From Fieldguide.mt.gov)

They’re not the only well-traveled spring arrivals in our woods. On April 28 I heard the FOY call of a Pacific-slope Flycatcher, and the warblers have been spreading through the trees for about the last ten days. (The two below visited today – check out the Lincoln Park Bird List for photos of several more warbler species.) While tanagers build their nests up pretty high in trees, warbler nests are soft weavings of soft moss and grass, hidden carefully near the ground.

Orange-crowned Warbler
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

Wilson’s Warbler
Near Lincoln Park, West Seattle

Of course, it’s not just the migratory birds who’re building nests this time of year. A pair of Northern Flickers have been diligently working on their nest hole—

Northern Flicker pair greeting each other at nest hole
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

Northern Flicker excavating and cleaning her nest
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

—and if you’re quiet and attentive, you’ll notice lots of little birds preparing homes for themselves and their children.

Pine Siskin gathering nesting material
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

“A robin feathering her nest
Has very little time to rest,
While gathering her bits of twine and twig…”

Hutton’s Vireo gathering nest material
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

If we just consider the tanagers and the six warbler species who spend summer in our park, that’s 21,000 miles traveled by the seven species—times, oh, say, 50 birds per species in our area—gets us to over one million miles traveled by little birds in order to build their nests in our neighborhoods.

That’s a million bird-miles through storms, wind, mountains, hunger, thirst, massive weather systems–as well as navigating around lost habitat and other human-generated challenges. Of course, then they have to go back south at the end of the summer, bringing us to two million miles of travel.

All that effort, and it just takes one dog running through the shrubbery, or one group of people chatting as they push through a trail-free area, to disrupt the delicate nesting process that’s the culmination of weeks of effort, the future of that little family.

May 11, 2013 is International Migratory Bird Day. Celebrate the wonder of warblers, the thrill of tanagers, by taking a quiet moment to imagine the forest as a network of fragile hidden homes: cherished cradles that need and deserve our protection.

Happy Bird-Day to you!

Blockwatch Success! Two Tiny Chickadees Get a Little Help From a Federal Act, a Huge State, a Public Utility, and a Private Company

A flash of yellow, glimpsed through the trees outside our living-room window, brought my partner out to the street. It came from high on the light pole that had been of such interest to flickers and chickadees the day before—this time, though, it wasn’t a feathered worker but the widespread, easily-identifiable-without-a-field-guide Yellow-Vested Utility Crew. Bright and early this Monday morning, they were transferring wires from the old, hole-ridden pole to the fresh new one beside it, then would remove the old pole.

Utility worker on nest pole
(Photo by Rob Duisberg)

My chickadees! Now what?

The crew finished that day’s work and left. Would the chickadees return, or were they too alarmed by the noise and vibration and tapping of screwdrivers and pliers?

Phew – the next afternoon, Tuesday, the chickadees were back to their diligent excavations. But the drama wasn’t over yet, not by far.

Black-capped Chickadee excavating nest hole

I’m embarrassed to say that the following day, Wednesday, it took me a while to realize that that day’s chickadees continuing the work on nest excavation—

Chickadee peeking out of nest hole

—were not just new birds, but a whole new kind of chickadee. A pair of Chestnut-backed Chickadees had taken over the nest hole since Tuesday: the third species in the span of a few days to study the hole in detail, and to work on remodeling it to their specs.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee exiting nest hole,
with a little more sawdust than he can carry

Did the Black-capped Chickadees decide to abandon this nest hole and look for a place in a quieter neighborhood? What would happen to my new little chickadees when the remaining wires were transferred to the new pole? And worse, when the old pole got removed altogether? Could the chickadee nest be saved from being toppled and tossed into a shredder?

A quick call to Seattle Audubon got me the phone numbers of people to call at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW’s excellent wildlife biologist Chris Anderson) and Seattle City Light (SCL). As each phone rang, I mentally worked up my argument about why even a daily little bird like a chickadee should be protected just as carefully as “charismatic mesofauna” like owls, osprey, and eagles.

Of course, I had to leave a message in each case. Here we go, I thought, eternal phone tag. But I was astounded when in each case, a live human being called back within about 30 minutes: “Of course we’ll get the work stopped on that pole. Let me get your contact info and I’ll copy you on the emails.”

What?

To my surprise and delight, it turns out that the state and the utility want to help wildlife—even two tiny would-be chickadee parents.

Chickadees aren’t endangered and they sure don’t seem too migratory except between my birdfeeder and the cedar beside it, but they’re on the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act protected list. Ron Tressler, the wildlife biologist who heads up SCL’s Wildlife Research Grants Program, explained that this means that the WDFW has issued guidelines to help SCL respect all bird nests, not just the big fancy obvious ones:

• Leave all nests in place if they do not represent a threat to reliable operations, public safety, or a constitute a nuisance;

• Remove nuisance nests only when the nesting season is complete and the nest is inactive

Of course, usually SCL gets called about the immense osprey nests that those birds like to build on top of tempting tree-like objects with a fine view of fish-filled water: a perfect description of a high-voltage powerline tower in the Seattle area.

I had a terrific conversation with Scott Thomsen, SCL’s Senior Strategic Advisor for Communications & Public Affairs, who described what’s involved in protecting ospreys and their kids from electric dangers, and who was justifiably proud of SCL’s quick response to my chickadees. (In fact, he’s written about our chickadees for SCL’s own blog — check it out!)

My initial contact at SCL generously offered to contact the local TV/cable company to alert them to hold off on removing the final cables and pole until after nesting season. Mom and Dad Chestnut-backed Chickadee are safe for the season, hopefully along with many chickadeelets. Blockwatch success!

Chestnut-backed Chickadee removing construction debris
from his home – now safe for children

It’s part of SCL’s stated mission to be good environmental stewards while working to provide cost-effective power so we can cook our food, heat our homes, and write blog posts on computers. Unlike a lot of organizations that like to sound green, I think these folks actually mean it. Half an hour to get back to one random citizen-naturalist wanting to protect a pair of birds who, if they held wings and jumped together on a postage scale, might tip it at one ounce? With an “of course we will”? That’s pretty good.

Thomsen said he thinks this is the first time SCL has gotten a citizen call about chickadees; if we can all pay attention to avian homebuilding on our blocks, maybe it won’t be the last. Little parents everywhere need your
helping hands.

Blockwatch

Taking a break from working on a writing deadline, I loaded up my binoculars and camera and headed down my street toward the park. I didn’t make it farther than the end of the block.

Atop the light pole on the corner was a Northern Flicker, calling loudly to an unseen companion (who joined him later).

Northern Flicker with mate

Then he made his way vertically down the pole, investigating various holes tiny and large.

Northern Flicker examining hole

Northern Flicker examining second hole

Northern Flicker exploring hole #3

Let’s look at that last photo a little more closely:

Northern Flicker extends tongue into cavity

Woodpecker tongues are really amazing. The structure supporting them wraps all the way around their heads, in some cases looping around their eyes.

Woodpecker bone and tongue structure. Click on link for source.

This gives most woodpeckers lots of tongue with which to explore tree cavities—and that means they have to spend less energy on excavation. Then when they encounter delicious bugs, their elegant barbed tongue is sticky enough to grab the bug and bring it back to where the woodpecker can enjoy his meal.

Tongue of Hairy Woodpecker. From “The Woodpeckers,” by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm (1901)

But that’s not all we can learn by observing what’s happening on our block! Let’s go back to the flicker’s exploration of the second hole. Did you notice anyone else?

Black-capped Chickadees monitoring flicker

These two Black-capped Chickadees flew in together, at first scolding the flicker and then remaining silent as they watched him poke around in their prospective nest holes. They waited until he left, then went back in — maybe to assess what damage he might have done with that huge beak and strange-looking tongue?

Black-capped Chickadee checks out possible nest hole after visit by flicker

Black-capped Chickadee explores second possible nest hole after visit by flicker

I haven’t seen the chickadees at these holes for the past couple of days; maybe they’ve decided to search for nest cavities on a less popular tree trunk.

*   *   *

This afternoon, lured by irresistible sunshine during this extraordinarily wet April, I headed back out towards the forest. Nope.

I’d heard frantic robin cheeping, so I figured a hawk was somewhere nearby. Another drama in our little corner of the city? Yes – but with different players. As I walked out the door, I turned away from the forest, toward the robin calls…just in time to see a crow fly off with a lovely blue egg in its beak.

Hope and tragedy, all in a few short days on one short city block.

What’s happening on your street?

P.S. – There’s a sequel to this story! Check the next post, “Blockwatch Success,” to see what happened.

Male American Robin

New Lincoln Park bird list available

I’ve just compiled and posted—with the help of several other local birders—a list of all the birds we’ve personally confirmed at or close to Lincoln Park. There are almost 100 species in our little corner of paradise!

Please click here to go to the bird list page. (You can also use the pulldown menu under “Lincoln Park Info” at the top of each page.) There you’ll find a list of birds, some of which have links to photographs and other species information. I’ll be regularly adding photos and information to that list. There’s also a one-page printable version of the list that you can take with you as you go exploring the avian life in our back yard.

Coming to the Celebration of Lincoln Park Nature on April 23 (talks) and April 27 (field day)? Bring this list with you and come to one of our bird walks on the field day! Walks will leave Shelter 2 at 11:00, noon, and 1:00. Make sure to take your binoculars and good warm clothing layers as well.

The salmonberries are blooming, the hummingbirds are humming, everyone’s looking for nests – the world is alive!

Anna’s Hummingbird at salmonberry flower

Have fun!

Natural History Renaissance: Opportunities Near and Far

Natural history—the ancient tradition of close, thoughtful attention to the natural world in situ and over time—is experiencing a contemporary revitalization as we realize not only the critical information, but the deep wisdom that can be born through the naturalist’s practice.

Rain lifting over the Kitsap Peninsula

Programs, workshops, publications all indicate our rising interest in reconnecting with nature though contemplative observation, critical thinking, and creative arts. I thought you, dear Natural Presence readers, might be interested in knowing of such events, so I’m adding a sidebar (look to your left) where you can find more information about them.

Please feel free to let me know if you have items to suggest that are either of local (if you live in the Pacific Northwest) or broad interest (if you live elsewhere). I’ll update the list regularly, and every so often will post a discussion of some of these interesting opportunities. We want to find what’s precious and grab it when we can!

Gull with clam, Lincoln Park, West Seattle

Nearest on the horizon is the Celebration of Lincoln Park Nature. The first part of the celebration, the evening of April 23, will feature local speakers about the park’s history, present state, and future prospects. And I’m even more excited about the field day on Saturday, April 27, with nature walks led by local naturalists (including yours truly) and workshops with nature artists/writers such as Lyanda Haupt, Denise Dahn, and Cass Nevada. Find out who lives in the forest and near the beach, and how you can respond artistically to our astonishing natural neighbors.

Also coming up soon is the Burke Museum’s workshop called “Environmental Writing: Inspire, Observe, Inhabit“ (May 5). Three award-winning writers—David Montgomery, David George Gordon, and Brenda Guiberson—will integrate classroom work and field exercises to help you hone your awareness and your skills.

We could all use a little support as we develop our Natural Presence. Let’s help each other better find nature’s beauty, intelligence, and wisdom.

Eagle angling through a stiff breeze, carrying prey to its mate

One Wren, New Under the Sun

The wrens are singing! This unusually bold fellow, a male Pacific Wren, perched by my regular trail yesterday and sang up a storm, not flitting into hiding even when I stopped and swung my camera into position.

Pacific Wren singing

When I first encountered the delicious extended burble that’s the Pacific Wren’s song, I marveled about it to a superb naturalist friend who used to teach in North Carolina. She told me of taking a group of students on a spring field trip, a hike up into the mountains to reach the spring range of the Winter Wren (formerly viewed as the same species), promising them the reward of a truly magnificent song in return for making their way up the warm, humid trail.When the group finally reached the wren’s elevation, they waited – and lo, there it was, somewhere deep in the forest, singing its little heart out! Many of the students oohed and aahed appropriately. (The other group’s response was “We climbed all the way up here for that?” But they were young; there’s still time.)

Now it’s our local forest’s turn. Pacific Wrens may be tiny and secretive, but they light up the woods with their complex melodies. We’re lucky enough to have them around all year long, and spring’s when they sing. (Lucky also that we can hear them with an easy walk along a bluff trail in fine breezy 60° weather; have you ever hiked uphill for hours in the North Carolina heat?) As described in this brief BirdNote from “Living on Earth,” it takes slowing down the Pacific Wren’s song to grasp that it may be telling stories we can’t understand with our ears.

Of course, it’s not just the wrens who are celebrating spring’s arrival. The budding Bigleaf Maples are attracting Black-capped Chickadees and Anna’s Hummingbirds.

Black-capped Chickadee eyes Bigleaf Maple bud

Anna’s Hummingbird approaches Bigleaf Maple bud

Everyday little birds, all of them. They’re regular neighbors who live here all year and do pretty much these same things each time spring rolls around. We humans, especially we scientists, love these regularities. Cycles and rhythms soothe us, reassure us that yes, even after the past year’s, any year’s, winter of wars and wrenching tragedies, the maple leaves will open, warblers will return to the flowering hawthornes, wrens will sing.

I’ve been trained for decades to look for these generalizations, to utilize the singular only as a clue to a new and more powerful pattern. Inexplicable uniqueness? No thanks, says my scientist-self; if it’s unusual, I want to explain it, figure out its bigger context.

It’s the artist in me, not the scientist, who wants to find what’s unique about this season—already so thoroughly explored by countless writers and poets for millenia—and this very wren, and treasure it for its own sake. Not only for what it might teach us about wren phenology or phonology or physiology—which knowledge I love not one whit less—but simply because that is a really cool song that the forest just sang. Right here. Just then.

Artist-self insists: This is not the same spring as before. This chickadee, who’s had a nest with her mate in this same Pacific Madrone for the past three years: rotting has opened her nest hole up so you can see right through it; what’s she going to do about that?

Black-capped Chickadee exiting nest, carrying out the garbage

That particular Anna’s Hummingbird, who each spring has taken up his place at the top of the dead Bigleaf Maple that overlooks the salmonberry patch by the stream, defending his turf from that Rufous Hummingbird who regularly arrives once the blossoms begin to open: the maple finally blew down this past winter, and how’s he going to choose a backup throne?

Rufous Hummingbird on Bigleaf Maple snag, now toppled, keeping a lookout for the Anna’s Hummingbird

What about this artist, this writer? This spring’s also different because I am: I now love penguins, when I only liked them before.

Little Blue Penguin, Stewart Island, New Zealand

It’s different because I now have more memories of disparate natural beauties than I ever imagined a person could have; because Antarctica’s ecology-on-the-edge helped me to understand that ohmyGod what an astounding creature any tree is; because my soul has been fed with utter wildnesses that have taught me better how to pray attention. It’s an entirely singular spring because I’ve gotten to live a whole additional year with my beloved partner, and we’re both getting older, and other people I love are getting older, and one day it’ll suddenly be someone’s last spring.

And because a lone small red tulip has mysteriously sprouted in our side yard amidst a thick cluster of irises, while a distant wren was singing through the wind.

Pacific Wren, Lincoln Park, West Seattle

Southern Summer Silence

Eastern beginning of the Routeburn Track

Strange but somehow familiar, the late-summer New Zealand forest rose around us as we began our backpack along the Routeburn Track, one of the country’s famous Great Walks. The trail rose gently through the woods, a purring stream beside it carrying water towards Lake Wakatipu, where we’d started that morning. The giant beech trees’ slightly foreign shapes, combined with an understory whose plant population we didn’t know, made for a shift in illumination compared to our Pacific Northwest forest: a slightly bluer tone, a distinctive light-pattern on the forest floor, perhaps.

Red Beech forest-east side of Routeburn. Photo: newzealand.com.au (click on photo for website).

Typically, and happily, the slowest hikers on any trail, we were a little chagrined to find an equally slow older couple keeping us company, and they probably felt the same way. Fortunately, they stopped even more often than we did, looking for birds—particularly the Blue Duck, they told us, which can most likely be found in rushing waters such as those in the stream below—so we shortly had the trail to ourselves.

Rob on swinging bridge over the Route Burn (river)

Normally I’d spend much more time birding than hiking, but the Routeburn is a 28-mile, 4-day hike, and I knew we had a big elevation gain toward the end of today’s segment, so I wanted to keep moving while I still had the fresh energy of morning.

One of my photographic goals for this hike was the challenging Rifleman (Titipounamu, in onomatopoeic Maori), a quick little bird who darts about in the shadows, making tiny little peeps that are at the top of most people’s hearing range. (Make sure to take at least a quick listen to these recordings, to give yourself a feel for what it’s really like out there.) On the trail, I’d often hear a pair of them calling nearby, but they’d be gone before my camera could focus.

The elusive Rifleman – captured on camera at last!

The lower-pitched counterpoint tones of South Island Tomtits (miromiro) also accompanied us as we made our way to treeline.

South Island Tomtit. (Photo taken on Stewart Island)

South Island Tomtit on Routeburn Track

We made our way upward for several hours through glorious glacial scenery.

View from near Routeburn Falls Hut: Routeburn Flats and Humboldt Mountains

Glacial landscape near Harris Summit (plus a tired but happy hiker)

Finally the welcome sight of gray-painted paneling greeted us through the thinning woods, and we were glad to offload our packs (which seemed to have mysteriously gained weight with our increased elevation) onto a pair of top bunks in the Routeburn Falls Hut. I dug my camera back out to photograph whichever bird species might show up, then we wandered slowly and ouchingly around the hut area, sitting for a while by the eponymous Falls and marveling at the pools’ clear deep green. I didn’t get any bird photos that evening but was looking forward to taking more during the next couple of days’ hiking, which would be mostly above treeline.

Routeburn Falls

Spectacular Southern Alps landscape spread out alongside us as we contoured our way down from the Harris Saddle toward our next destination, the McKenzie Hut, seven miles away. The weather was perfect: 70’s, with a light breeze on our cheeks to keep us cool and bug-free. Close to the pass, the piercing calls of a small flock of Keas rang through the sky, then faded as we gradually descended along the glacial valley wall. We were far above the one road we could make out in the far distance, so the background sound was the pure distant rush of waterfalls across the deep valley.

Hollyford Valley from Routeburn Track

Above our last stop, the Lake Howden hut, a magical hobbitish woods greeted us, sprinkled with the now-familiar voices of Riflemen and Tomtits, who kept us company for the next couple of days as we finished the hike. We reveled in the absence of civilization’s noise; the relative silence, broken by our companionable bird species, felt meditative.

We found out afterwards that it was the silence of death.

In your mind, add together the three bird calls you’ve listened to so far (Rifleman, Tomtit, and Kea), and add in a couple of imaginary ones for the birds I probably heard but couldn’t identify. Now, compare that to this recording of the dawn chorus in Abel Tasman National Park. That’s an approximation of how the Routeburn forest might have sounded before humans came on the scene: an auditory glimpse of the Pleistocene.

Even in 1770, Captain Cook’s naturalist Joseph Banks, describing the New Zealand dawn chorus in January 1770, could write:

This morn I was awakd by the singing of the birds ashore from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile, the numbers of them were certainly very great who seemd to strain their throats with emulation perhaps; their voices were certainly the most melodious wild musick I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable….

Having evolved in the absence of land-based mammal predators, New Zealand bird species (of which an astonishing 70% are endemic) developed nests that are now exquisitely vulnerable to the huge numbers of mammal predators—rats, stoats, possums, feral cats—introduced first by the Maori, then by Europeans. Some species, like the enormous moa, were hunted to extinction by the Maori, and all of them are presumably affected by continuing habitat loss due to bush clearing and draining of wetlands. Tragically, a full third of New Zealand’s marvelous bird species may have been irrevocably lost since humans arrived. Beneath the stunning scenery, below the silver birches, a stealthy army is systematically devastating the sylvan songscape.

Our first week in New Zealand, we’d visited Ulva Island (an islet off Stewart Island, New Zealand’s southernmost “third island”), whose 670 acres have been transformed into a native bird and plant sanctuary through dedicated efforts at pest eradication. With the expert guidance of Matt Jones of Ulva’s Guided Walks, there we encountered several previously-eradicated species that now populate the island: Yellowheads, South Island Saddlebacks, Stewart Island Robins.

Endangered Yellowheads (mohua), Ulva Island (Call of the Yellowhead)

Endangered South Island Saddleback (tieke) tearing bark in search of bugs, Ulva Island    (Call of the South Island Saddleback)

Endangered – but friendly – Stewart Island Robin (toutouwai; banded for research), Ulva Island       (Call of the similar North Island Robin)

But we didn’t realize how precious the complex bird chorus of Ulva Island really was until we grasped the gaps in avian companionship along the Routeburn. If our early trail companions had found the Blue Duck they were searching for, they wouldn’t just have seen a cool duck; they would have seen one of at most 2500 individuals remaining in the world. It’s the only known member of its genus, and those numbers are declining still further. (If I’d known that, I might have spent a lot more time looking for one.)

Coincidentally, my book group’s reading when I returned to Seattle was a biography of Rachel Carson, who drew attention in the 1950′s to the Silent Spring threatened by DDT. In New Zealand, we witnessed a silent southern summer.

Fortunately, contemporary Kiwis love their birds. Every morning just before the 7 am news, Radio New Zealand starts your day with bird songs. I saw a total of two cats outdoors in the entire country. Stoat traps are regular occurrences along the trails. Roadkill was so plentiful as we drove the winding pavement that I had to wonder if drivers were actually aiming for the creatures. Of course, I squirm at all that killing; I can’t help feeling fond of any fuzzy creature I encounter, even knowing the devastation some have innocently wrought on the bird life I also love.

Can New Zealand turn its southern silence into song-filled spring? It seemed that every local organizations and guiding business we encountered sponsors predator-trapping programs, as well as those run by the Department of Conservation. Getting rid of rats is tough enough on small islands such as Ulva and Tiritiri Matangi, near Auckland; freeing birds from predators on the huge main islands of New Zealand is another thing altogether. But as another bird lover wrote:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all.
–Emily Dickinson

That “melodious wild musick” is surely worth the effort.

Bellbird (korimako) in song, Ulva Island (Song of the Bellbird – truly exquisite)

Frozen Eden

Temporarily overheated in four layers and insulated muck boots, juggling my two cameras, I made my way down the gangway to the Zodiac bobbing at the ship’s side. I carefully coordinated my last step with the rocking waves, plopped into the boat, and took a seat on the big rubber tube while disentangling myself from backpack and camera straps. Loaded and launched, we raced toward our planned landing at St. Andrew’s Bay on the northern side of South Georgia Island, the wind whipping salt spray onto my cheeks.

Expedition stops on South Georgia; St. Andrew’s Bay is #8 on NE coast. Map from Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris.

Wading ashore to the cobble beach, I dodged the occasional grumpy, growling Fur Seal and walked by piles of calmly snoozing Elephant Seals. Our ornithological expert, Jim Danzenbaker, who had landed in the early boat along with the rest of our guides, was way ahead of me, heading west to the crest of a moraine. On my right, the massive Cook Glacier was creeping creakily yet somehow gracefully between craggy dark mountain ranges; to my left, the dazzling Antarctic sun glinted off the iceberg-studded bay. Panting with the weight of all my gear as I tried to catch up with Jim, I could hear the muted cacophony becoming louder as I finally made it up the moraine.

King Penguin colony, St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia

St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia; Cook Glacier in background

The sight took my (remaining) breath and my words away. At least one hundred thousand King Penguins stood and walked and swam and argued and copulated and divorced and raised children in the broad valley below my feet. I was on the fringe of a penguin megalopolis, complete with urban villages and suburbs and traffic and peevish neighbors. Teenagers, known as Oakum Boys, waddled around me, picking at their thick itchy brown coats and occasionally at our bags, chasing their parents around, squeaking persuasively that they needed a krill injection now.

Oakum Boy (juvenile King Penguin), St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia

Oakum Boy (juvenile King Penguin), St. Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia

Oakum Boy begging for parent to regurgitate krill

Our month-long expedition to South Georgia, Antarctica, and nearby islands was sponsored by the Geological Society of America and organized by the fantastic Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris (highly recommended), whose ambition was to get us on the ground over as much of the region as possible while keeping us safe and extremely well fed (red velvet cake after your wilderness exploration, anyone?). We’d been out for a week by this time, and I was now used to Zodiac rides, muck boots, and spending my days entangled in multiple camera and backpack straps.

But you don’t get used to 100,000 King Penguins.

As in all communities, private stories become more public the longer you watch. Trumpeting contests broke out here and there in the colony as the occasional late-returning penguin spouse came up from the sea, only to find that in its extended absence its mate had taken up with a new partner. (Penguins are a lot like humans in many ways, the frequency of trumpeting-accompanied divorce being just one example.)

King Penguins in divorce confrontation

In happier reunions, a freshly washed penguin walked from the shore through a gantlet of pecking neighbors, greeting its nestbound mate—stained with krill and neighbor poop from weeks perched in the same place—as both stretched their necks, swayed in parallel, groomed each other.

King Penguins grooming, St Andrew’s Bay

A half-hour of keeping my eyes riveted on an affectionately greeting couple paid off when, after presumably 5-6 hours of such rituals, the sitting parent and the incoming parent finally faced each other closely (and, miraculously, perpendicular to my camera) and with the greatest care, ever so gently shifted the precious egg from the black webbed feet of the first parent onto the toes of the second one.

King Penguin egg swap, St Andrew’s Bay, South Georgia

Barely a minute later, five feet away, two penguins mated under the watchful eye of a curious Oakum Boy, who apparently got a followup lecture shortly afterwards.

King Penguins mating as Oakum Boy watches

Mated King Penguins scolding juvenile observer

At the other end of the life-cycle pendulum, I walked by skua-scrubbed penguin skulls, made my way around discarded penguin feet probably left by a leopard seal and the rest of its cleanup crew, studied the anatomy of penguin skeletons still mostly articulated.

It was hot during that few-day stretch, perhaps 35-40°. Several days later, further south at Cape Lookout on Elephant Island, we saw penguins draped over rocks here and there, trying to cool themselves.

Chinstrap Penguin chick trying to cool off

Like all life here at the end of the Earth, they’re finely tuned to their home’s temperature and other conditions—unlike we humans, who need basically a moon rocket’s worth of technology and supplies to keep us alive in the Antarctic region. From St. Andrew’s Bay, the nearest permanent human settlement of more than 20 is the town of Stanley on the Falkland Islands, 860 miles away as the albatross flies. To reach a human city of more than 2000, your albatross has to fly all the way to Ushuaia, Argentina, 1200 miles from here. (Fortunately, since albatrosses’ huge wingspans of up to 9 feet allow them to travel 300 or more miles per day, it wouldn’t take him that long. If he wanted to go.) We really don’t belong here, although due to the absence of land-based predators, the penguins don’t seem to mind us too much.

Yet through not-belonging, in the Antarctic region I felt more a part of the Earth than I have in a long time. The profound, primordial Earth, throbbing with squeaking, growling, trumpeting vitality (click for sound effects!) at the edge of habitability. Here I was one species among many, allowed to witness the magnificent hugeness of polar coastline, knowing that there was no significant human presence along its entire 11,000-mile length, that raw nature is spinning out its stories in its own way, on its own scale, rather than sneaking between the cracks of human domination.

But I also experienced another far-too-rare sensation: I was proud of us.

Yes, we’re melting the glaciers and thus threatening the thin line between exuberance and extinction—but we’ve now also managed to stay away from this area, to cease killing its whale and seal and other community members, and not only that, to commit to protecting it forever. “Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes,” states the Antarctic Treaty that’s been signed by nations representing two-thirds of the Earth’s human population.

When was the last time you read a line like that?

I can’t wait to get back there. That may well never happen, so I’m carving a new room in my memory palace, a boisterously loud, exquisitely glacier-sculpted, breathtakingly gorgeous, and slightly chilly chamber called Antarctica. I hope you’ll come take a look.

Juvenile King Penguin with last bits of immature down

(Click here to visit my Flickr collection of more Antarctic photos!)

Save or Savor?

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.

– E.B. White, in a New York Times interview
with Israel Shenker, July 11, 1969

It was so clear, early on, what needed to be done for the world. I had to teach young people how fragile and complex and delicate the earth is, to think with them about solutions to its problems. I joined important teams working on critical issues (all of which seemed to converge inexorably toward sustainability). I founded discussion groups to help us think our way through contemporary environmental problems. At least two, sometimes three, weeknights were occupied with team meetings or group sessions; remaining weeknights and weekends filled up with grading.

Hummingbird sculpture, Colombia

One year, shopping at holiday time, I found a little ceramic sculpture of a hummingbird nectaring at a piece of fruit. I started weeping. When was the last time I’d sat and watched a hummingbird? I was exhausted.

Another year during that time, in one terrible week I was reeling from the loss of a beloved friend, then a few days later was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Cancer cells (DCIS). Photo credit: UC-Davis. (Click on photo for website.)

In all my efforts to save the world, I’d neglected to savor it, and my heart and body were suffering the consequences. It took the glaring spotlight of cancer — by definition, uncontrolled growth — to help me see that my life had grown uncontrolled, too full of saving. Not enough savoring, I finally understood, meant risking a death sentence. After recovering from the disease (thankfully, the early stage of the cancer meant lumpectomy and radiation only), I left groups, dropped teams. I’m still teaching, but looking to an early retirement.

My savoring account has grown. I spend lots of time admiring the Anna’s and Rufous Hummingbirds who sip and chase around the feeder on my balcony. I make time for long walks through the forest, for greeting owls and eagles, for just looking across the Salish Sea to see what weather’s up next.

Rufous Hummingbird

Dramatic weather over Salish Sea (Puget Sound)

My rebalanced life is satisfying, and I’m happy these days. I’ve gotten back my health and my hummingbirds. Still, I head for bed at night wondering whether I’ve done enough for the earth today. My younger self’s certainty about what’s needed has turned into doubt and ambivalence. Is it really necessary, I ask myself, to make E.B. White’s choice? Surely there’s some way we can both save and savor.

Yes, the needed changes are huge. Yes, it’s getting almost too late to make them. But in our rush and scurrying frantically about, driven by our fear and our desperate grief over what’s already lost, we can’t forget to love what we’re trying to protect.

Giving ourselves the space to be stilled by awe, quieted by a chill morning mist, drawn into transcendence by the flash of a hummingbird’s iridescent gorget: we owe these to the natural world that formed us as much as we owe it our active work to preserve it. We owe it to ourselves.

Fog on Lincoln Park beach

Anna’s Hummingbird flashing gorget

A great blessing of community is that Marthas and Marys, actives and contemplatives, can take our turns and contribute what we best can when the time is right. So perhaps the solution to White’s dilemma is scale. My life may have shifted toward savoring, bypassing real opportunities for saving, but there’s someone else out there who’s just awakened to passionate engagement and is convening meetings and writing policies. It’s ego talking when we think we can do it all at once, not the humble, unique voice of one creature of one species fulfilling its calling in the ecosystem with all its heart and mind and body. Savoring replenishes the energy needed for saving; saving preserves what we savor in our rest. To each, a place and a person; a time and a season.

Engaging Gazes: Mysteries of Animal Presence

Tiptoeing towards the back of the clearing, I was looking for the brown creepers I’d witnessed a few days earlier, flattening themselves against the bark of the big Doug Fir. It was such strange behavior, and I was hoping to see whether there might be a nest under the thick bark.

Brown Creeper in concealment posture

 

Brown Creeper in concealment posture – closeup

I stopped a few yards from the tree, watching as silently as possible so the creepers might fly down and resume their strange posture. It took several minutes of waiting before I realized that silently watching me was a young Cooper’s Hawk, finishing a meal or just resting on top of a brush pile near the fir. I turned slowly to face him full on. He poked around the brush for a few minutes, then fly-hopped down and disappeared. Drat. I figured that in a moment I’d catch his blurred form flying to the forest across the clearing.

Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk

But no: his head reappeared above a closer brush pile. He walked dignifiedly over it, then paused for a while. We locked gazes.

Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk: The Animal Gaze

What an honor, to be embraced in the gaze of a wild animal, free to flee at any moment, but who chooses to share a calm long look.

In Estes Park, Colorado over Thanksgiving, mule deer and elk similarly held me in view.

Mule Deer, Estes Park, CO

Rocky Mountain Elk, Estes Park, CO

Each of these encounters is a blessing. But the wild hawk’s gaze was particularly potent. The elk and deer are residents of the Estes Valley, adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park and populated by humans, so they’re pretty used to human contact. The young Cooper’s Hawk, though, wasn’t acclimated to close encounters of the human kind; it hadn’t been that long since he learned to fly and left his nearby natal nest, and his part of our park isn’t heavily traveled by human walkers.

Did the hawk engage my look simply because I’m something unusual in his birdy world? Or could he have recognized me as a fellow being, a creature with a mind behind the eyes, like him?

How rare it is for us humans to be encountered in the wild by an animal who seems without fear of us, and even more powerfully, to whom we are of calm interest. To see ourselves in their eyes, to be recognized in some way as having a presence, perhaps even being of a kindred nature, perhaps, ultimately, with personhood — such an experience reminds us who we are. That yes, we are giftedly animal, we belong, we too dwell here as earth-creatures in community with others whom we dearly love through the veil of species-separation.

The animal gaze has long been considered a special gift, especially the “natural zoological gaze” of an animal unconfined, in its wild native habitat [1].Some deep part of us yearns for this recognition. There is a deep wound in our souls, I think, bleeding from our sense of being torn from the animal world.

We express our yearning for animal presence in diverse ways. Tourists like to hand-feed wild sheep, interviews indicate, because they want to feel trusted by an animal who takes food from their outstretched palm [2]. A young girl is in love with dolphins, reaching out to feed them for $7 at SeaWorld – and when she forgets the rule about not moving the paper dish with the food in it, triggering an inadvertent bite as the dolphin grabs the moving dish, she prays for the dolphin’s safety, not her own [3]. People put their own lives at stake rather than evacuate without their pets during Hurricane Katrina [4].

Illuminating research is being published these days about the human-animal bond that can heal this wound: for instance, Bekoff’s Minding Animals, Frohoff and Peterson’s Between Species, Kalof and Montgomery’s Making Animal Meaning, and large numbers of articles in scholarly journals. We’re living in a time when there’s a real resurgence of interest in this ancient archetypal relationship.

What does it take to increase our opportunities for engaging gazes with a wild, free animal?

• Quiet presence. We have to learn to calm down ourselves, to sit still in one place, to not be alarming.
• Familiarity with where animals live. Spend time observing animals in their habitat. Watch where they hang out and where they hide. Learn how they behave and how their behaviors vary at different times of day. Over time, with patience, we may be blessed with an animal’s acceptance of our presence.
• Respect. We can allow an animal to recognize our presence without threatening the animal — or feeding it. Let it come to us rather than going to it, and stay still if we’re so honored. And if the animal doesn’t choose to encounter us, we respect that choice.
• Peace. If an animal isn’t interested in us, that’s perfectly fine. What a privilege it is simply to get to watch or hear it in its own home, close up or distant!

I’ve become “engazed” with the Barred Owls in my park, who are beloved by many of my human neighbors. Some of us have had the privilege of watching these owl life-mates hunt, feed their babies, teach their growing children how to walk along high branches and how to navigate through the forest, encouraging them when they fall and welcoming them when the youngsters make it back up into a safe tree.

Barred Owl fledgling crossing forest floor, parent standing guard above

I visit the owls’ hangouts each time I walk in the forest, hoping to have my heart filled a little fuller by their gaze. Today, I was lucky. I left a little less animal-lonely, a little more healed.

The gaze of a Barred Owl