Outdoors – Page 9

Hurricane

I was six years old. As I stood looking out the big, plate window of my room I saw what I thought was a branch that had fallen to the ground in the wind. Then as the branch seemed to grow in size I realized that the earth was splitting open. I stepped back from the window unsure of what was happening. What might rise from beneath the surface of the earth? Then the huge, ancient beech tree toppled, sliding through the rain as its roots clung desperately to the earth even as its leaves betrayed it to the wind. The storm had been blowing since dawn. I could hear the wind blowing across the chimney top as a nightmarish groaning rolled out of the fireplace and into the room. This was my first hurricane.

Hurricane Carol barn-stormed into Connecticut and Rhode Island in late August 1954. Like so many nameless storms that had proceeded Carol, she had strengthened over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream before speeding up and racing up the east coast to her destination.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream arise out of the Gulf of Mexico. These warmer waters flow around the tip of Florida and up the southeast coast of the United States remaining close to the shore until the current passes North Carolina at Cape Hatteras. There the currents change direction to flow northeasterly towards northern Europe. The Gulf Stream remains significantly warmer than the waters of the central Atlantic or the coastal waters of the southeast United States. It is a band of swiftly moving warm currents between the shore and the deep ocean. Hurricanes that enter the Gulf Stream gather energy and moisture from the Gulf Stream due to the warmer water temperatures. The storms pick up moisture due to the higher rates of surface water evaporation. The storms intensify as the energy from the warmer surface waters rises through the storm causing the storm to rotate faster.

A NOAA article on tropical cyclones states “As long as the base of this weather system remains over warm water and its top is not sheared apart by high-altitude winds, it will strengthen and grow. More and more heat and water will be pumped into the air. The pressure at its core will drop further and further, sucking in wind at ever increasing speeds. Over several hours to days, the storm will intensify, finally reaching hurricane status … .”¹

From the interaction of the warm water and pressures waves that originate off the west coast of Africa, storms develop that may end up hammering islands in the Caribbean, states on the eastern seaboard of the United States, or the states on the Gulf of Mexico. These storms are terrifying, and they are deadly. They destroy homes, businesses, and lives. Hurricane Carol which I witnessed as a young boy wreaked havoc on communities along the coast as it flooded businesses and homes, and tore apart fishing boats. However, it was by no means the greatest of these storms, nor the most costly. More people now live on the coast than 50 years ago. What were pristine beaches and wild salt-marshes in the 1950s are now crowded communities of condominiums and homes. Storms that caused inconvenience in years before now cause millions and millions of dollars in damage.

After Hurricane Carol passed we went outside. We stared at the huge beech that had shaken the foundations of the earth when it crashed to the ground. In coming days, we would play in its branches until it was eventually cut up and hauled away. When we ventured out onto the board avenue next to our apartment house, the street was crisscrossed with other fallen trees. There was a fallen tree about every 20 feet. It was like a ladder with the fallen trees as rungs. It was all fascinating and yet surreal that such great trees that only days before had shaded us from the summer sun now lay prostrate before the wind. I would see it again in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Today I hope the 300-year-old sycamores on our old North Carolina property still stand after Florence. A massive pine that had ruled the yard since my earliest memories had crashed to the ground in a storm five years earlier leaving a hole in the earth twenty feet across and eight feet deep. The same could have happened to these other great trees.

I know these trees; they are part of my life. My memories are of times spent in their shade. But I also I remember the terror of the wind. And I remember the family cleaning up the yard after the storm. I remember my mother cooking in the fire place for several weeks before power was restored, and I remember the final picnic under the ancient beech fallen now. The storms pass.

NOAA Ocean Explorer site; https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/hurricanes.html

Tree Foam

The first time I noticed tree foam I was hiking in the mountains of Virginia. It was Fall and delightfully cool, and to make it better it was raining. A hike in the rain can be terrific. You can give yourself over to the rain. The rainfall creates a smaller world with you at the center. All around you is the random fall of the drops. They drum on the leaf canopy above and then drip down onto the understory below – including you. The rain and the trees and the understory have created a universe that is bounded by a curtain of the rhythm of the rain. As the drops beat on the leaves they create a barrier against the outside world of noise from cars and planes, and from the general hub-bub of humanity. It becomes just you in the much smaller, much cleaner universe that is centered on your hearing. You can turn and look around and look up and see the dimensions of your new world. And for a while you can enjoy the true uniqueness and quietude of a world that is all your own.

As you look around, you may see what looks like sea foam building up at the base of a tree. It’s a small but growing mass of white bubbles right at the roots. I mainly notice it on the pine trees. And the foam is not just at the base. The foam collects at the base, but it can be seen coming down the tree as pale, flowing streaks of rain water. The mass of foam at the base of the tree billows and grows at more than one spot. As I look further, I realize there is foam at the base of several of the trees. What is it? Is it a disease? Is it a fungus? Not necessarily. It’s a common occurrence brought on by the chemistry of the tree, the roughness of the bark of the tree, and the surface tension of the water that usually holds the shape of the drops as they roll down the tree.

When it rains in the woods few if any of the drops reach the ground directly from the sky. The rain that falls directly to the forest floor by-passing the canopy of the trees and the growth of the understory is considered “through-fall”. Some of the rain falling into the canopy is captured and remains on the leaves and branches. Other droplets flow down the tree’s exterior to reach the ground. The drops that do not flow all the way to the ground are given up to the atmosphere though evaporation. The water droplets that roll down twig and branch and then flow down the trunk in numerous little rivulets is “stem flow”.

As the water’s stem flow passes over the tree’s bark it picks up tiny bits of organic material and the chemical residue from the surface of the tree. These bits create a chemical change in the water’s molecular bonds which reduces the surface tension of the water droplets. The reduced surface tension allows more air to become entrained in the water. The droplets gather into larger rivulets and flow over and around the bark of the tree. This acts like waves in the ocean or rivulets in a stream and exposes more and more of the surface of the water droplets to the air. This stirring action creates the foam that can be seen flowing down the trunk and which accumulates as the mass of bubbles at the base of the tree.

The rain water that reaches the base of the tree may run off on the surface of the forest floor to be absorbed into the ground where it may be taken up by the tree’s root structure. Other run-off that is absorbed by the ground will infiltrate further downwards to mix with the water table and perhaps enter a stream that flows down towards the ocean. Eventually, through root uptake and transpiration by the tree, or through evaporation from a stream or the ocean, the water is taken back up into the atmosphere and from there to fall again as rain on the joyful hiker.

Information on tree foam may be found in a NOAA site, www.oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seafoam.html.

A similar article can also be found at a terrific hiking blog, http://ramblinghemlock.blogspot.com/.

saying Goodbye

I remember standing on south front street and watching the elephants parade past.

We see greed all around us. And we see desperate want. Combine the two and we have the diminishing of a proud species, the African elephant.

Loxodonta Africana! Whither will you go?

I remember when I was a small three-year old I went downtown and stood in front of my grandmother’s store and watched the circus parade go by. I have a picture in some dusty shoebox of me gawking at the elephants as they were paraded from the train station to the circus grounds. This was a long time ago and a very small town. A circus was a big deal. It was summer entertainment, and everyone would go. And we would be amazed.

The picture above is that of a younger me at the elephant house in Washington, DC. My mother and father were taking us to the zoo. In this picture, I do not look too amazed and seem to be distracted by a peanut that someone had dropped on the ground. And the elephant does not seem too interested in me. Elephant enclosures have changed over the decades. They are more spacious, and the elephants, though still captive, are better treated.

Even with the picture the memory becomes pale. Is it time to say goodbye?

I do not want to say goodbye. I want to know that the elephants are out there. I may feel sorry for the captives in the zoo, but are they the luckier ones of their species?

The elephants’ ivory tusks drive the greed. Their ivory is used to make decorative items sold to tourist and collectors around the world, sometimes illegally. The chain begins with the elephant poachers that are often trying to make a living to support their families. There is a lot of poverty and hunger in these parts of Africa. There are people in the chain between the poacher and the collector that are making plenty of money, but I doubt that the poachers are. And there are job-related safety issues. Poachers that are found out are at risk of being shot by park rangers. One group of poachers was recently found to have been eaten by lions.

But I despair for the L. Africana in the wild. In an article published on the National Geographic website, 87 elephants – EIGHTY-SEVEN! – were recently found murdered and butchered inside a safe-haven in Botswana.

There are estimated to be around 700,000 African elephants still in the wild. This sounds like a large number, but I fear that in my life-time the species will be lost to us. It will be lost because of greed and a desire to own a trinket made of ivory that is much more beautiful on the creature than it is on someone’s crowded shelf. There are good organizations trying to fight back against the rising tide of the ivory trade. But demand is not slacking; demand is increasing. The National Geographic article goes on to say that there are a rising number of wild and unfortunate interactions between the elephants and the people of the area. As the number of people looking for land encroach more and more into the areas once safe for and ruled by the elephants, wild interactions between people and elephants will increase and demand for protection of crops and homes and people will take precedent over preserving space for the species in the wild.

It’s a sad thing to think that something of such beauty and magnificence will be gone from the world. I have never seen an elephant in the wild. I wish I had seen them. I was thrilled to read stories of Africa, about the large unpopulated areas where these magnificence beasts and many others roamed free. But these areas are disappearing and the parks set up as protected areas are not able to ensure that the elephants will stay in the park, nor ensure that poachers will not enter the park to massacre the elephants as happened in Botswana. The National Geographic article states that in a seven-year period ending in 2014 the continent-wide population of wild elephants had dropped by 30%!

I will always cheer for the elephant and will try to help the organizations that are trying to protect the wild elephant population. But with numbers of elephants massacred being driven by a rising tide of greed for ivory and ivory dollars – I despair.

Too soon the elephant may become an old, faded memory in a dusty shoebox. I fear that all to soon I will have to say goodbye.

The National Geogrphic article may be found at http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/msn/87-elephants-killed-by-poachers-in-africa%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98last-safe-haven%e2%80%99/ar-BBMTkqF

The organization mentioned in the article and which found and counted the elephant carcasses is Elephants without Borders. Their website is http://elephantswithoutborders.org/

Or Maybe Not a Comet !

On August 17, I wrote about a possible comet that I had “found” and had reported to the Harvard Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). For several days I patiently awaited the knock on the door. Perhaps even a medal struck in my honor, but it was not to be.

Science is as much about saying what a thing isn’t, as it is about saying what a thing is. It’s not just about saying you’re right; it’s also about saying you’re wrong.* And I have to say I was wrong. Although I do not say it with chagrin or shame (a modicum of embarrassment perhaps) as I believe I accurately described the object I saw in the night sky. But if nothing else a comet moves, and my object did not.

I can still see it faint and fuzzy in basically the same location when I look for it with my binoculars. When I first saw it I was exploring the constellation Lyra. I also knew that the famed Ring Nebula was close by. Actually, I had been looking for the Ring Nebula when I first spotted the fuzzy object. All my charts showed the Ring Nebula, Messier-57, on the line between Lyra-beta and Lyra-gamma at the base of the lyre. The object that I saw seemed well above this line. Perhaps I had mistaken two different stars, Lyra-lambda and Lyra-Nu, as the base of the lyre. This would place M-57 above the line that would connect those two stars. That would place it in about the position that I first saw the fuzzy object. But lambda and nu are also considerably less bight with a lower magnitude than the stars that form the true base of the lyre. This would have been a difference that I believe I would have noticed.

The object is still there. I can resolve it (barely) with my binoculars. It looks the same – faint and fuzzy. But it is not moving. I will try to find a better optical instrument for viewing it. I will check other and perhaps more detailed star charts. If it is the Ring Nebula, which I now suspect, then with a better optical device I hope to be able to resolve the object into the beautiful ring shape created by the transformation of a star. The nebula was formed when a red giant star passing through the last stages in its evolution explosively cast off its outer layers. It is now collapsing into a white dwarf.

And I can continue to wait for the telegram from CBAT. I have to laugh, but at the same time I feel a certain level of embarrassment for a comet this is likely not.

I will go outside and observe the object again tonight. The moon does not rise too soon to interfere by flooding the humid, late summer sky with light. I will try out my old and fairly trusty telescope – as soon as I fix its tripod.

And now I have a story to tell, and a question to answer. What is that object that I see?

* In his November 2012 blog post to Scientific American, Steven Pomeroy speaks to the rightness of being wrong. He relates what Richard Feynman said on the subject; “”If it disagrees with experiment (note: in the instance of my observed object if it does not fit the parameters of a comet), it’s wrong. In that simple statement, is the key to science.”

A Time to Nap

I recently read several articles based on a question posed on Twitter, “How long is a nap?” The articles quoted various sources and spoke to why and when to nap. According to the Mayo Clinic there are many benefits to a nap, including; relaxation, reduced fatigue, increased alertness, improved mood, and improved performance.

But I want to ponder where to nap – and specifically napping out of doors. Having a nap in the out of doors is great, but there are precautions to be taken. And always expect the unexpected.

Napping on a hammock or in a lounge chair in your own back yard is always a joy. But sometimes the ground beckons, and lying in the grass is just fine. But what should you do to prevent regretting napping on the ground? Use a good bug spray. Pick your spot. Don’t lie down in leaf matter enjoyed by chiggers or in tall grass which often abounds with ticks. And mosquitoes as you well know can make an airborne assault. Using a blanket or a nice-sized towel can help. But don’t forget the bug spray.

And when to nap? Sometimes I say do the chores first, and the outdoor nap is a reward. Other times? Well I believe that a nap before the task will help me understand the task better. Let’s say if I need to cut the grass. What better than to lie in the grass and consider its texture and its height? To feel it on my skin. To understand its nature and purpose.

If I am lying on the grass I can consider the magnificent life that abounds on the ground. The ants and spiders, and beetles, and resting lightening bugs, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks. What!? Yes, beware. There are tiny critters on the ground and in the air that can make you itch and may make you sick.

There is also a choice of sun or shade. Both can be enjoyable. However, napping in full sun can be a real problem during the time of year when the sun’s rays are most direct. Wear sun screen especially during the late Spring, Summer, and early Fall. It may not be needed as much in late Fall, Winter, and early Spring. In any season a nap in the sun can be a real delight. I remember stretching out on rocks on the coast of Rhode Island in early May as an excellent nap. I even found a bit of a depression in the stone as some shelter from the wind. Sometimes in the cooler times of year I might have wrapped myself in a blanket, but in this case the rocks had been warmed by the sun. It was great.

And yet often the shade is the place to be. On a hot summer day after working in the sun, a nap in the shade can feel as refreshing as a dip in the ocean. I recall on particularly hot day in Virginia lying in the shade of a huge old sycamore tree and watching the blue sky and white clouds pass overhead above the welcoming, thick canopy of leaves that shaded me. The stiff grass prickled but did not deter me from my rest. Or perhaps after lunch in a hammock under the shade of a fruit tree. I have had many a great rest there.

Resting in the shade away from the glare of the sun has been a favorite study of many artists. Picasso’s sleeping peasants hiding from the noon-day sun (top) and Van Gogh’s La Siesta (bottom) are two that capture the benefit of a mid-day respite to escape the heat, perhaps after a tryst or after a long morning’s work.

When I am on the trail, I prefer lying on rocks in the sun if they are available. There are too many crawling and creeping critters in the leaf matter of the forest floor or at the base of an inviting tree. In those cases a blanket is advisable. And when you get up, check yourself for tiny attackers that may have attached themselves. I have seen ticks take a walk across a tarp to find a tasty snack. But on a cool day in winter, when the weak winter sun flows down through the open canopy, the base of that inviting tree is a great place to sit and lean back and enjoy the view – until you doze off.

Remember though, in all things out doors know where you are and who or what is around. This goes for insects, raccoons, dogs, cats big and small, and of course other people.

And now we come to expecting the unexpected. Have I ever been caught off guard while napping out of doors? Not by anything other than time as I let it slip away while I had my eyes closed. But have I ever caught someone else? Well, yes. This one instance serves as a good example. It was a bright day in mid-Fall, and since there had been several night-time frosts I was not overly concerned with ticks. I ranged across the open fields of tall grass in one of my favorite places. I knew there were a couple of people out with me as there were two other cars in the parking area. I was able to see a quarter mile in all directions out in the open. I could see no one. I was cutting right through the middle of a field to one of the old farm ponds when suddenly out of the grass about 10 yards in front of me a young lady pops up.

When walking in the open field I often sing, so I am not surprised that she heard me coming. But to say the least I was unexpected! And to not further disturb her I changed my route and walked off in a new direction – singing – and chuckling.

And now it’s my turn. Ahhhhh! I lower myself and stretch. My eyes are already closed, and I am in anticipation of a wonderful brief rest. And I know when I wake up I’ll have things to do, but I know that I’ll feel better while doing them.

So, always know where you are. Always know who and what’s around. And enjoy a nap in the wonderful out of doors.

Little Orphan Annie art work is by Harold Gray – Annie lies under a tree as Sandy is opening a bee hive. Unaware, Annie says, “Gee, I feel sleepy – I wish something exciting would happen to wake me up – “

A Comet – Maybe

It is my habit to go outside in the night. I enjoy the night. It is generally cooler. It is quieter as the sounds of the day are gone. But the sounds of the night can be magnified so that the rustle of leaves being blown by the wind can sound like a distant charge of cavalry.

And at night the stars are out.

I remember when my father would take me outside and show me the Milky Way. He taught me to recognize the Great Bear and Orion. He introduced me to the stars of the night; Polaris, Vega, Deneb, Betelgeuse. That was seventy years ago. There were fewer people living in the rural areas. There were fewer lights, and the clarity of the night sky was such that can hardly be imagined now. But Orion and the Great Bear and others – Scorpio, Pegasus, and Cygnus – were as friends who returned with the passing years. I would go outside on a Summer night or in the cold of Winter to look up. I have had a series of small telescopes, but I prefer just to gaze and to recognize and to remember the stories my father told me while these stars shown overhead. I would stay outside and watch for shooting stars and satellites. I would seek dark places to watch meteor showers. I built simple mechanisms that allowed me to track stars for night photography.

And I would seek out comets. I camped out on islands that I had to reach in my kayak to see Halley’s Comet. I even took a reasonably good picture of Halley’s using my homemade tracker with a medium lens mounted on my camera. I went to the mountains to look for some of the comets of the last half century. I would marvel at the photographs others had taken.

But what I enjoy is to sit outside late at night and look up. I am easily thrilled by a passing satellite – or the International Space Station. I have seen numerous meteors spark into life and disappear. But in the back of my mind I always wondered if I would be the first to see a new comet. Why not? Many new comets are found by amateur astronomers. I just need to look in the right place at the right time.

And maybe I have!

Three nights ago I was out sitting in my “gazing” chair and using my binoculars to pick out some of my favorite stars. I was also looking for a particular Messier object that seemed to allude me. So I decided to look at some of the double stars that are often part of the constellations. Then I saw a fuzzy object and wondered what it was. When I went inside I looked for it on a star chart and could not find it. I decided to look for it again the following night. On the second night the object was still in the general area where I had seen it the night before – but perhaps slightly beyond where I thought it was. Today I looked for it in my detailed star charts and saw no object in that place. I went on-line and asked if a comet had been reported in that area. No comet had been reported.

So I reported it.

The Sky and Telescope site gave me direction on how to determine if there is a possibility that it is a comet. The site also gave information on reporting it to the Harvard Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). I estimated the right ascension and the declination from my star charts. I described it – and I think “fuzzy” is the universal term for describing a comet. I translated the viewing time into Universal Time (UT). And I sent in my report.

Now I will wait, and I will go outside later tonight to see if I can find it again.

Haying Season

It’s haying time. But I am only an observer. Others work hard in the field to harvest the sweet grasses and the late summer flowers into large, round bales for winter livestock.

All summer I have walked the paths in the fields. The grass has grown up alongside and flowers have blossomed and faded. The meadow larks rise and fall into the depths of the grass as they lure me away from their nest. The red-winged black birds hold onto the tall, stiff reeds of grasses and bob with the wind, watching me as I pass through their domain.

But now the grass is ready to be cut. The bugs will fly up, and the birds will fly down to catch them. The young birds have fledged and are able to take part in the feast. But they will return to a strange earth cut from a sea of waving stems to a crackling stubble.

This is not a bleak picture but a picture of a cycle that has interwoven the grass, the farmer, and the meadow lark and the other birds that live in the grassy fields. It’s late summer, and it’s time to cut the grass.

Last winter I was flying into Dulles airport returning from a job in California. I looked out onto the rolling hills of piedmont Virginia where the fields rise slowly up to meet the Blue Ridge Mountains. There was a dusting of snow over the landscape. Something caught my eye which I had not seen before. In several places dotted on the landscape below were large brown stars on the fields. There was a mixture of designs. Some stars had six arms radiating from a central point. Others had four or five arms. They were all somewhat symmetrical. But what were they? I could see that each star radiated from the crest of a small hill with the arms of the stars reaching out and down the hill. From my perspective of several thousand feet in the air each arm may have been up to 100 feet long. The arms were brown and textured and in some places the snow showed through.

“There’s another one,” I said to myself. Looking further out I could see others as they came into the view of the descending plane. Soon though, the open fields and winter wood lots gave way to suburbs with their tangle of roads and snow dusted roofs.

What I was seeing was the result of haying. The large round hay bales had been taken to the top of small hills and rolled outward to form the stars. The hay was now available to the livestock. Perhaps it was hay cut the year before from the fields I was gazing at now.

The grasses in these fields are harvested under a hay lease from the National Park of which the fields I walk in are a part. The farmer pays the Park Service for the right to harvest the hay which they then use or sell. The funds help support this park and other parks in the national system. And the haying keeps the historic vistas open. It is also part of the centuries old cycle of the ground and the grass and the bird and the farmer. I am a witness to the covenant between man and nature. We care for the Earth and nature, and it supports us in its growth and regrowth.

Robert Frost in his poem Mowing speaks for the scythe whispering to the grass. What secret do they share? It is the secret of the covenant. It is the tale of the blade returning to the grass each year and the rejuvenation of the grass to receive it. It is a promise to return year after year to the haying. And to whisper.

This excellent video tells of the hard work of the haying covenant between the farmer and the Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwl-YLvru1s

The art work is based on a screen shot from the referenced video.

Robert Frost’s poem Mowing may be found at the Poetry Foundation site at – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53001/mowing-56d231eca88cd

An Acorn in my Hand

When I walked outside this morning it was warm and humid but there was promise of change in the air. It is August, and we are well into summer so the temperature and the humidity were not a surprise. But I realized in my first few steps into the day that a change was coming. It was not as bright. The sun had not yet come up. The days are growing shorter. Soon we will have darker mornings and cooler nights. Then the moisture will slip away and we will enter Fall and Winter. There will be no more long, balmy days. But it will be a great time to go outside into the dark and to marvel at creation.

Any day or any hour we can look around and see creation all about us. Yet for me to look up at the clear night sky and see the stars and distant galaxies is always the most fantastic of moments. In the current summer nights Arcturus and Vega rule the night sky. The Summer Triangle of Vega together with the bright stars Altair and Deneb is clearly visible even on less than pristine nights. As we approach Fall, Orion with its brilliant display will rise in the night sky.

Each of these stars and the hundreds of billions of stars in each of the visible galaxies are part of the vastness of creation. Each of them – which we see as points of light of varying brightness – was born out of a cataclysmic explosion and a whirling vortex of hot gasses which coalesced to form stars, galaxies, and for us, our planet, Earth. This is not to imply that ours is the only planet. We know we reside in our star’s system with eight other planets (I am including Pluto) and a myriad of asteroids and comets and minor planets. And beyond the Solar system we have discovered there are a multitude of other stars with planets circling them. All of these are part of the vastness of creation. But we are on this one, and that makes it the most important planet in the universe for us. We are part of it. It is our home. It coalesced from the cosmic dust, and so did we.

When I lie down on the grass under a night sky full of stars I can marvel at creation. I look up and let my mind be swept away to amazing and far distant places. I wonder how we will get to there. Will we be able to wander across other worlds? I know that we will someday make that journey, and I am a little sad that I will not be on that ship. I am sure we will find unknown marvels in the vastness of creation.

I stand up from gazing at the stars and look around me. I see the forms of grass waving around my legs and the outline of trees in the darkness. I walk over to an oak tree, and I bend down and pick up a fallen acorn. I hold it up and study it and realize that inside this acorn are packed all the marvels of the universe, the galaxies, our solar system, and this Earth, our home.

Quail and Sparrow

I submitted my siting to the online bird database. The first thing they told me – and I expected them to tell me this – was that I likely did not see what I told them I saw. But that’s ok, the data managers’ responsibility is to ensure the data submitted makes sense.

What I had seen was a black bellied whistling duck (BBWD). But I knew the bird was way out of its normal neighborhood. The BBWD is a bird of Florida and southeast Texas and up the Mississippi River as far as Tennessee. The map of its range can be seen on the black bellied whistling duck page of the terrific, on-line Cornell guide to birds. But it is not seen in a creek in the hills of Virginia. But that’s where I saw him, or rather them. Three BBWD standing in a creek on those long, very unduck-like legs with their long necks held high.

They looked quite at home in this lowland stream. And I was very much at home in the outdoors walking these woodland paths. I had not seen one of these long-legged ducks before, but I knew them from pictures. I was certain they were not geese. But I was surprised to see them there minding their business while I minded mine. As I watched them they flew off to some other more private stream. I imagine that they were heading back to a location that they are more use to. I watched them until they disappeared through the trees. I stood and continued to watch and listen in case they circled back. They did not.

What is it about birds that has the capability to enrapture us?

I think it’s because they make themselves available to us. They fly overhead. They will sit in a bush – perhaps hidden – and sing to us and to all of creation. They have the capability to remind us of the life and the beauty that is abundant in this world. And knowing this, they also remind us of our responsibility to enjoy and protect them, and to protect areas in which they can live so that they come back year in and year out to nest and sing and give new life and joy. The appearance of a certain bird may be a harbinger of spring. Or it may be an indication of a change in the weather, as gulls flocking inland may be warning of a storm. Their morning songs bring up the sun. And their last flights of evening bring the return to the nest and the calm of the night.

There are two birds in which I am currently interested as a volunteer citizen-scientist for a national park. I help with the park’s bird observation and management programs. It’s great. I have a reason to be out in the woods and the open fields. And it takes me out for the sunrise and into the new day that follows. I often hike to my listening stations in the pre-dawn darkness. It takes me out in the Spring and in the Fall and my task is – to listen to the birds sing.

I listen for the gentle call of the Northern Bobwhite Quail and the often hidden and reclusive Henslow’s Sparrow, a little bird of the open fields. The surveys each bird are repeated in selected areas along specific transects with established stations. It requires standing still and listening; it requires patience. Often I do not hear the quail whether it be the well-know “bob-white” call or the more muted nesting calls that might be heard. Nor do I often hear the Henslow’s Sparrow the thin, reedy notes that might rise and fall in the tall grass. But that’s all part of being outside. The birds are allowing me to share their home. I come with respect and quietness. And I am rewarded, if not by the song of my subject bird, by the call of all their feathered partners of the woods and fields.

Listening and surveying for these birds is part of an overall program to determine the health of the local environment and its ability to support these birds and birds similar to them. If the birds are present it means that they have an adequate food supply and have a place to perch, or hide, or loaf. I love that term and often picture the quail loafing around their nesting area. However, absence of these birds indicates that they and other birds may not find the food or cover or level of calmness that they like in order to take up and maintain residence in the area. As noted above we have a responsibility to ensure that we maintain and conserve areas where wildlife may thrive and we can go and loaf ourselves.

And the Whistling Ducks, they are welcome to come back anytime, but I agree with the purveyors of protocol on the bird site. This is not a normal occurrence, but it is the normal and the not-normal that continue to draw me outside to enjoy the birds, and the woods, streams and open fields.

Halcyon!

Picture is taken from Jules Breton’s painting “The Song of the Lark” from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.