Archive for outdoors

“And now for something completely different.”

Posted in Birds, Natural History, United States, Washington, Western Forests with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2013 by Brendan McGarry

Oregon White Oak, Early Spring

Strip malls are the essence of vitriol, rising at the back of my throat. Who do people need several Starbucks or Walgreen’s within blocks of each other? The driver of the truck that was pushing us through this distracting mess of concrete read my mind.

“Lovely isn’t it?”

If I blurred my vision against the skyline, between the squat McDonald’s and Taco Bells, I could see twisted crowns here and there. Letting myself imagine we were in fact cruising through a Oregon white oak forest instead of what had replaced it, my heart rate slowed a bit. I’d driven this road half a dozen times with Simone, my friend, contributor to wingtrip, and pertinent at the time, a Falconer.

Rounding a corner, I looked at a corner lot that used to be full of mature Oregon white oak, now full of tasteless condominiums. They were built right up to the edge of the parcel of land that was our destination. Looping through the cemetery, we parked and geared up.

I’m always embarrassed by how much fussing I typically need to do when embarking on a photographic endeavor. But Simone had me matched, not with gadgets, but with animals to curtail. Otis, the diminutive beagle-jack Russell cross was quivering with excitement. He got a shock collar slipped over his head, not because he’s a bad dog but because we’d be close to a road and he’s prone to disobedience when on the scent of rabbits. Simone had to don her vest, a glove for holding her bird, grab a bloody container of miscellaneous animal bits, and grabbed an ax handle for beating brush. Finally, the man of the hour, Chase the red-tailed hawk, needed to be taken out of his box. All this was done in the parking lot of the funeral home, where, judging by the number of cars, a service was taking place. Simone’s been coming here since she first started as an apprentice and no one has ever said a thing to her about parking here. Then again, would you reprimand a woman holding a hawk?

We started out through the scotch broom and blackberries that are slowly being hacked back by the nearby community college. This is good for the potential of restoring a small bit of native Western Washington prairie but no necessarily great for Simone’s ability to go hawking. We were headed straight for the imposing mass of Himalayan blackberries.

You almost always look regal when carrying a bird of prey on your gloved arm. With Otis bounding behind her, Simone walked partway down the field before removing Chase’s hood. Releasing his jesses, he flew off with a jingle of bells, heading straight for his hunting perch, an adjacent telephone pole.

Falconry is not a hobby, it’s a way of life and something that you dedicate your life to. That’s one of many reasons why I’ve never delved into it myself, despite knowing that if I was interested, I’d have a teacher and support. When it’s hawking season in Washington, Simone is fully committed to flying her birds. She spends her time plowing through trashy lots of blackberries in Western Washington and agricultural fields East of the mountains with Chase, cruising random ponds for her Cooper’s Hawk Hula, and training her other two imprint falcons in between. This is a full time job, not a half-hearted hobby.

One day a few months ago, Simone, our visiting friend Danner, and I were headed up to go birding in the Skagit Flats. Danner and I met at her house around 9AM on a cold December morning, a lazy hour for birders, and apparently even more so for falconers. Moments later Simone burst through the door, soaking wet, holding her Cooper’s Hawk. She was beaming and informed us that Hula had gone for a drake mallard in the middle of a pond. Being at most a third of the weight of a mallard but possesing the notorious tenacity of an Accipiter, she wasn’t going to let go of her quarry. Simone had to crash into the pond, filling her pockets with water (containing her iPhone amongst other items) to keep Hula from drowning herself. This was all recounted joyously, while Danner and I stood and listened incredulously.

I stood by the edge of a blackberries as Simone crashed through, disregarding the brambles clawing at her. Otis, following suit, wiggled beneath the hooped vines and quickly began to whine in excitement. Chase watched from above, calling occasionally, waiting for his partners on the ground to flush prey.

Early on Chase made a dive and narrowly missed a rabbit dashing through an opening. While my intention was to stand back and watch, I quickly got caught up in the hunt. Cars zipped by a few hundred feet away, but easily forgotten as we were all focused, watching to see if Chase spied anything from his perch.

Chase started calling more frequently and soon we heard the scream of another red-tailed hawk. A pair of them circled in, unhappy that Chase was here, probably quite near their nest. They were a distracting element, always on the periphery, taunting and threatening this interloper with bells and loops on his feet. However, despite outnumbering him, they never got close enough to lay a talon on Chase.

Plummeting down and pounding into the ground, Chase was impressive. There were many near misses. I held my breath and I watched him try to find an opening on a rabbit that was frozen mere feet from me. All the while Otis was baying with excitement sounding like he was being killed, not following the trail of a rabbit.

The bloodlust I felt during this hunt is abnormal. I didn’t necessarily wish any of the rabbits we were chasing harm, but my presence inherently meant I did. Intellectually I enjoy the idea of hunting for my own meat and I’ve taken the lives of other animals in order to eat them but this rabbit was going to go to Chase. There’s an ethical cascade of issues that can arise hunting with a bird of prey, especially a bird that was once in the wild, like Chase. But I’m not one to start a debate on the subject of Falconry. I will say this: every Falconer I’ve met is beyond doting of the birds they partner with and respectful of the lives they take. If you find fault with this practice, I suggest you spend some time out in the field with the practitioners before you truly judge.

Our jaunt ended without rabbit blood but we’d had a good ramble though the patch. Simone lured Chase back with tasty cut up quail bits and we wandered back through the oaks, imagining we were in expansive prairie and not a remnant grove. Even with his hood on, he looked regal with beautiful coloration and an inherent power that had been demonstrated all afternoon. Red-tailed hawks may be common in numbers, but their grace in the air is breathtaking and you can’t help but admire every bird seen after hunting.

Yet, I still don’t completely get the dedication. Simone and Otis were covered in scratches, Otis had blood streaks across his face. I remembered that this favorite hunting spot was spitting distance from a cemetery, an wrecking yard, and a housing development. Did I mention that Simone is vegetarian?

1 Comment »

Summertime?

Posted in Birding, Birds, Migration, Natural History, Seattle, United States, Washington with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

It’s rather amusing to think about the Summer Solstice in the Pacific Northwest, especially considering the weather today. Here in Seattle, we don’t consider it summer until after the fourth of July. Yet many of the breeding birds are done singing by then, having had at least one brood. So many of us grow up with these strange ingrained memories of birds singing on bright summer days.

I’ve been bemoaning that I feel like I missed spring. I did plenty of birding and it’s not as if the birds are totally done. Yet, it feels like the weeks are slipping by, as work not specifically ornithological keeps me distracted. I guess I’m feeling out of touch. My journal, of what I’ve heard and seen almost every day helps, but doesn’t make up for the early hours traipsing about during point counts or banding.

So, I’ve decided that I wanted to commemorate the passing of our the longest day of the year by listing some of the more notable bird encounters, sightings, and aural identifications during this spring away field biology. These are encounters not sought after. In a way I’m grasping for content where I haven’t had time to seek it out; however I think noting the every day is just as valuable as seeking out the obscure. Establishing a norm is understanding for stasis, for conservation.

March 23, 2012 17:10 – The air feels of spring and technically it is. Sitting on a bench on the edge of Union Bay at the Montlake Fill, I’m privy to territorial stirrings. Three Virginia Rails call within 80 meters of my seat. One suddenly appears, bounds across an opening in awkward half flight, jumping gait, and crashes into another rail at the edge of a bank of cattails. This is the first time I’ve ever seen rails physically attacking one another, presumably because of their veiled lives. The attack lasts a second but feels monumental.

April 21, 2012 15:20 – Spring in the Hoh Rainforest. Blooming Salmonberry with Rufous Hummingbirds in attendance. Varied Thrush are tantalizingly close but still unseen, their insect calls reverberating in my ears. Pacific Wren are always singing but they seem particularly brazen today, standing ground on their nurse log perches when I approach. Everything is bathed in a sunlit lime.

April 29, 2012 6:45 – The pair of them are flying right at eye level in early morning glow. The tiercel, he’s notabley smaller, lofts up to land on a light pole along the freeway. The hen, seemingly floating by, suddenly tucks and drops out of view below the bridge. I can’t complain about having Peregrine Falcons on my morning commute.

May 26, 2012 12:20 – There’s an adult Bald Eagle flying over the freeway, being dive bombed by a Red-tailed Hawk. I’m driving with my mom, trying to split my attention between the road and the birds. An American Crow joins, focusing on the hawk. The eagle does a series of barrel rolls, extending its talons at its oppressor. They form a strange triple tiered circus act that begs a giggle. Birders aren’t always the safest of drivers.

May 30, 2012 15:40 – My first Willow Flycatcher is calling somewhere amongst the Red Alder stand before us. I’m guiding a group through the Hummock Trail in Mt. St. Helen’s National Monument. There’s no time to suss out the bird, to actually see it. Satisfaction in hearing a fitzbew will have to suffice, and it does.

June 3, 2012 11:00 – Hurricane Ridge is coming to life. American Pipits are already twittering about the matted ground where the snow has been peeled back by the sun. An Olympic Marmot lay sunning itself, probably just now unburied from a winter slumber. The precipitous icy peaks, gashed by glaciers and the elements, remind us that it’s not yet spring. In trade for a good portrait, I let a hungry Common Raven take a look in the car trunk.

June 13, 2012 13:00 – I’m talking to one of my Wilderness First Responder classmates during lunch. I hear the piercing call of an Osprey and look up to see one high up, performing a display I’ve never seen. A second bird joined higher still, the first continued a series of shallow dives while thrusting its legs out, screaming insistently. Getting home I discover (as I surmised) that this was likely a male bird displaying to a female. Nuptial displays are bizarre no matter the species.

June 14, 2012 15:20 – Two Common Nighthawks are flying over the field by the Environmental Learning Center at Discovery Park. I’m supposed to be listening to a lecture on reducing dislocated limbs in my Wilderness First Responder class but I’m highly distracted when we’re outside. These two goatsuckers are a surprise and are high enough that they only caught my eye by the pattern of their flight. Normally I detect them by their strange mechanical call. I wonder if they are nesting nearby.

June 21, 2012 12:57 – As I am writing this, a group of exceptionally noisy Bushtits are at my window, dangling about the birch just outside. I presume this is the pair I’ve been seeing all spring, now towing around their fully grown young, just barely discernible from their parents. The fledglings are incessantly crying for food, the parents hurriedly searching for morsels, shoving them in ravenous mouths. Just as I am about to turn away, a crow swoops in, presumably to grab a little bushtit morsel. Alarm calls irrupt but in seconds things are back to normal.

I feel a bit better now that I look at it this way.

3 Comments »

Malheuring Around Part 2

Posted in Birding, Birds, Malheur Bird Observatory, Migration, Natural History, Oregon with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Shoving as much natural history as a place holds into the space of five days will never promise restfulness. During the course of a few days we drove hundreds of miles in pursuit of birds, mammals, and reptiles. I’m feeling pretty pooped just thinking about it now and blogging about it during the trip was ultimately beyond me completely. In younger years I would have blown off writing completely but I’ve come to realize that memories fade and that this is the craft I wish to work and grow in. When these experiences are penned (or typed), they take on a whole knew life. The photos of this trip will always exist but the embellishment of a good yarn is equally important in immortalizing stories. Years from now I’ll thank myself for recording any experiences I had. I’m already kicking myself for not doing a better job in more formative times.

I left off on day three of our twisting navigation of the Malheur area. We continued to drift on and off the refuge and saw much of the birdlife the place offered.  A few surprises even popped up along the way.

To begin the day we decided to drive Central Patrol Road in hopes of seeing some good birdlife by using our vehicle as a blind. While we certainly saw a few nice things, including the first Brewer’s Sparrow of the year, this turned out to be unproductive in terms of seeing new species on the trip. Adam was particularly vocal in letting us all know we’d not seen any new species much of the day. However, it was a pleasant drive along the Donner und Blitzen River surrounded by the eroded walls and hills of basalt. (No, this river was not named after the reindeer but with German for the thunder, Donner, and lighting, Blitzen, that an early exploration encountered in a crossing).

Central Patrol Road runs practically the length of the refuge North to South, ending at the base of epic block fault Steens Mountain. While the gate to the top is closed till June, when snow from Steens has mostly melted bringing life to the wetlands below, Page Springs campground at the base offers variety to the sage weary. We retreated into the bowels of the upper Donner und Blitzen for a break amongst willows and juniper.

As I mentioned before a lot of the breeding songbirds hadn’t arrived yet. So as we entered the canyon, it was to enjoy new sights more than new birds. We heard both Canyon and Rock Wren, the later of which sat singing in plain sight, but that was the extent of our avian experience. Tristan and Ira sprinted off in search of snakes (and a potential Mountain Quail), hoping the hot day would reveal some serpent treasures (they caught a large Gopher Snake). The rest of us took our time along the slow river, admiring butterflies, plants and geology. Afternoon found us strolling about with no particular aim, what I consider a great joy in life. A few of the more bird manic of the group were initially disappointed as this pace but later admitted it a pleasurable way to spend the less active afternoon.

Night drives are one of the pleasures of being out in a place rife with mammals. You’ll never know what will be bounding along the road. What’s more, it offers and opportunity to acquaint yourself with a few of the animals more easily convinced to say a quick hello. Many cottontails and jackrabbits skittered about the roads on the nights Tristan, Ira, and I went out exploring but we were particularly keen to encounter kangaroo rats the most common of which was Ord’s Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys ordii).

These desert adapted rats were surprisingly easy to find along the road on the nights I got up enough energy to drive us around. Most active at night, they spend their days deep in burrows and emerge in cooler weather to find seeds, which I learned they cache for later use. We spent a lot of time catching reptiles and amphibians during the trip, so it should come as no surprise that kangaroo rats were also handled. Luckily I’d learned from past experiences prowling for nocturnal mammals that they are beyond friendly in the hand, cuddling up, sitting calmly, or gently exploring your shoulder and hair.  (You may take issue to catching wild animals simply to admire but I think the benefits of understanding and appreciation that result far outweigh the negatives – every rat we caught was handled with care and released uninjured).

Bleary eyed from rat catching, I woke to rain and wind the next morning. The sage and rabbitbrush turned a pleasant saturated gray-green to match the weather. Us Seattlites weren’t going to let the rain hold us back and besides this weather was needed. According to Duncan, a director of the field station, it was drier than normal, with 60% less rain than the average. The state of the more pluvial loving Greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) was evidence of this, having lost most of their succulent leaves in response to the dryness.

Again we had a full day ahead of us and we struck out on a similar route we’d driven our first full day. This reaffirmed my notion that repeat visits gain you new, different sights. Almost immediately we noticed Clark’s Grebes amongst the Western Grebes on Malheur Lake. Stopping to admire one and some Cliff Swallow nests, Adam spotted a rare sight, a Great-horned Owl nest beneath a bridge on a highway!

The rest of the day was spent tooling around, just like we’d done on days before but with more activity. We were treated to a herd of Pronghorns right off the highway – a cooperatively perched Golden Eagle (we visited a nest too) – hundreds more American White Pelicans (which I tried to sneak close to unsucessfully) – a Common Raven nest – for once a sitting Prairie Falcon (all we’d seen were ones on determined wing). And there was one more delight and total surprise, a Snowy Owl!

If you paid any attention to the news or nature in North America this last winter, you’ve probably heard about Snowy Owls being all over the place. Last season was a good lemming year and there were a lot more owls born, which means they need to disperse to find food, often very far from their tundra homes. Many young birds die when they get far south (and in the case of the first record in Hawaii are shot….). That fact was not far from thought as we crept up to this shining white emblem of the North, sitting placidly right off the highway. The theories to explain it’s reluctance to fly were that either it was very sick or that it was stuffed on abundant food. Snowy Owls eat lots of waterbirds in addition to rodents, which could very well have meant it was simply in a blissed out state of heavenly indulgence while the weather stayed cool. Whatever the case, we saw it three times during our stay and it seemed content, even with two trailer semis zooming by mere feet from its fluffy face.

There will be one more installment on the trip coming soon. There’s some star characters to be sure, spectacularly absurd obligates of the shrub steppe that lek. See if you can guess what I’m talking about and stay tuned!

5 Comments »

Malheuring Around Part 1

Posted in Birding, Birds, Malheur Bird Observatory, Natural History, Oregon with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Hours of driving take it out of you. Even if you aren’t behind the wheel the whole way, you’ll feel tired after a 12 hour trip. There were a few birds along the way to ease the pain, fifty some Red-tailed Hawks, Mountain Bluebirds, a Great-horned Owl, a Prairie Falcon, and quite a few twittering White-throated Swifts.

In Burns, Oregon we stopped for food in a Subway. Accompanying our fine dinning experience was a sour colored water feature which began dripping on one of our party suddenly and vigorously from a crack in the drywall ceiling. The employee’s response resounded with familiarity of such nuisances:

“Oh, is it raining again?”

Welcome to Eastern Oregon.

On the plus side, and there’s always a plus side, we managed to coerce a friendly kangaroo rat to join us for a visit post dinner.


I’m sitting in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon. Yesterday we trundled out of Seattle in a van stuffed with food, camera gear, and skivvies for five days. Somehow we found room for six high school students and four chaperones. I’m out exploring the high desert, of lava fields and wetlands, with Seattle Audubon’s Birdwatch Program.

Wind was tossing the loose, eroding landscape when we all pulled ourselves from a much needed slumber. Ground squirrels (there was a continued discussion of their identity all day), Nuttall’s Cottontail, and Black-tailed Jackrabbits didn’t seem to mind the buffeting and the cold. Neither did the California Quail. I was a bit concerned because I knew wind wouldn’t favor birding.

Feeling like we’d entered an entirely different vehicle, we spread out in the emptied van and readied for a day of birding. For some, like Adam (who you’ll hear from below), this was a new habitat full of new species. For others like myself, though I’m far from an old hand, we’d been here and explored a bit. Either way we had a blast.

People visit the area for various things. The geology alone is spectacular, consisting of eons of erroded lava and I’m pretty enamored with the shrub steppe ecosystem in general. Yet birds always manage to top the list. Waterbirds flock here because it is an oasis in the desert, excellent breeding habitat with abundant food and safe nesting areas for a myriad of waterbirds. Though a very dry and hot for much of the year, there’s a good amount of open water between the lakes and ponds of the refuge. While National Wildlife Refuges are largely purposed with managing waterfowl populations this also means that other animals are about too. Large ungulates like Pronghorn and Mule Deer stand out most, but Coyotes are common and rodents and rabbits abound. With many small mammals come many raptors. And if you get tired of birds of prey and waterbirds you can jaunt over to some sagebrush and find a whole new community of birds there.

With the first day past, we’ve clean up a lot of the birds that are present. This is the “shoulder season” in many ways. Most of the songbirds have not arrived yet and many of the wintering waterbirds are only around in low numbers. No matter, we saw a lot of flashy, sought after birds.

A target bird of one of the teens, a Ferruginous Hawk, flew by within the first half of the day. Ross’s Geese were a nice surprise, sitting for comparison with a few Snow Geese. Black-necked Stilt and American Avocets gave our mobile blind cold shoulders, but we saw them well anyway. Franklin’s Gulls, Sage Thrashers, Loggerhead Shrikes! Birds, birds, birds!

The most notable for me were the multitudes of American White Pelicans, at least 400, which soared overhead, sailed across the horizon and sat majestically in bright groups that shone across the xeric landscape. Adorned with their breeding “horns” (growths that develop for the breeding season on the upper mandible) and neon orange faces, they looked to me the kings of the shallows.

Probably the most numerous besides blackbirds were American Coots. You could sail a rock blindfolded and probably hit one. Their comical waddling and strange noises prompted an amusing quote from a student:

“If any bird makes being a bird look difficult it’s a coot.”

And in some ways he was right. They were the most numerous dead animal we found all day.

It was still cold in the afternoon but the sun soon got to us. After a much needed siesta we explored some proper shrub steppe habitat. A good deal of people, even honest naturalists and birders will see only monotony in such ecosystems and I made it my goal to erode that mentality a bit with the students. It didn’t help that the wind and early season meant many of the migrant songbirds that are obligates of the sage were absent but it forced us to look at bit harder for things to enjoy. A Coyote track, scat filled with reptile exoskeletons, some cryptobiotic crust. We still saw plenty.

Evening set and the Short-eared Owls changed shifts with the Northern Harriers. Snowy Steens Mountain caught the last of the sunlight as the storm clouds lifted, revealing the tall peaks. We watched a Coyote drooling after a group of geese, laying in wait for an opening in twilight. Black-crowned Night Herons and White-faced Ibis flew dark across a brilliant sunset. Our light had gone for the day.

Adam, a member of Birdwatch had this to say about his time out on the range:

“On my first day in Malheur I saw at least 20 new birds. The habitat is awesome and something I have never seen before. The sagebrush habitat holds many different types of animals including jackrabbits, scorpions, and Sage Thrashers. I learned today that Malheur has many different weather patterns from very sunny to all the sudden cloudy and very windy. I will never forget my first day day here.”

Sounds good to me Adam! Stay tuned in the next couple days, I’ll have more to share and a few more dispatches from the students before we are headed home.

2 Comments »

A Very Busy Spring

Posted in Birds, Environmentalism, Seattle, Washington with tags , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Editors Note: This was written several weeks ago.  Spring is in full swing at this point.  The fact that this was composed so long ago is telling that I’ve been out and about, working and playing a lot.  This is no less telling or interesting despite the tardiness of my actual posting of it. 

Spring is here. The vernal equinox past. Suddenly the birds are singing, the flowers bloomed, and my vegetable garden flourished.

Almost.

Approximations are a rule with the natural world, that’s what keeps those of us that are deeply enamored coming back. No lines can be drawn without finding contradictions just around the bend.

At the very least, it is true that our days in the Northern Hemisphere are getting longer.

As I’m writing this, all my body is telling me to be outside. A rare March day is afoot but I’ve a resolve to get this written before I get lost in the revelry of spring sun in the Pacific Northwest.

I’ve been in my new garden all week. For the first spring in quite awhile, I’ve had the opportunity to start a vegetable garden. Some might not immediately see the connection between an urban garden and natural history but they should be considered inseparable, specifically for the urbanite.

If I were to guess at what first got my curiosity started as a child, it probably dates to crawling about the side yard of the El Segundo storefront where I spent my first years. My parents, artists, hippies, whatever you’d like to call them (I usually just call them Mom and Dad) had the good foresight to get me outside. Sure, this was urban Los Angeles, but I was getting my first taste of nature among the succulents in this small space.

Several years later, we moved to the Seattle area. My mother became a master gardener, my father and I became the labor. In those early days I found weeding and meticulously plucking slugs and cutworms off plants a chore (in fact it was, I got my allowance that way). Whether or not it was intentional, my parents’ insistence that I be outside, that I participate, garnered a deep seeded appreciation (pun intended). Like kids that have grown up on farms or in rural areas, plant life makes sense. In turn this furthers my understanding of ecosystems and especially birds.

Messing around in the garden this week I accomplished a lot in terms of getting ready to have spring vegetables, but I also enjoyed a side benefit of getting to know my new neighbors. A pair of American crows, displaying notable sexual dimorphism (the male hefty next to his mate) have started to collect sticks for their nest. Bewick’s wrens are rampant, singing all day, poking about fence lines. Holdover winter flocks of golden-crowned kinglets and brown creepers are beginning to sing during foraging efforts. American Robins are singing non-stop and getting feisty, chasing each other in the median strip in front of my house. There is no shortage of song these days.

My meager garden work finished, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a jaunt down to the local park. I’d been wanting to check the status of the native plants, to look for flowers and fresh foliage. So, it was off to Ravenna park.

I’ve always thought an important trait for a naturalist is forgetfulness in the face of nature. This is a theme I’ve touched on before and others, far greater than myself, have also commented on it. I’m reading Wild America by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher at the moment and have had fits of laughter in hearing these idols of mine running out of gas, losing wallets, and best of all, binoculars. We are all alike in losing track of human realities in the face of birds and landscapes. It was 4 PM before I realized I’d not eaten, had water, or done anything to satisfy bodily needs since 11 AM.

The reason being was that the forest of Cowen-Ravenna Park was awakening. In shambles from disturbance, by no means pristine, with a creek that still stinks of city runoff, there is still much to enjoy in this alleyway through the urban world of Seattle. Restoration is in full swing too, sapling cedars the most obvious of the newly planted. The creek itself runs all the way to Union Bay on Lake Washington from Green Lake, finishing adjacent to a favorite spot of birders, the Montlake Fill or the Union Bay Natural Area (natural in a primordial sense it is not). While only a section of this fragrant trickle is daylighted (1.1 km through the park), before 2006 when a project to show it the light of day was finished, it was practically hidden. Standing next to it, I have hard time believing this creek ever had salmon spawning beneath old growth timber lasting as late as the 1920s.

Disconnected from city sewage and flowing once again into Lake Washington, Ravenna Creek is a great escape for the cement weary.

Indian Plum has already made its charge into new growth, the earliest bloomer in this region and I was not surprised to see it flush with creamy pendant blooms and fresh green leaves. However, as I descended from Cowen Park, the “top” end of the creek, I saw hints of pink amongst bare branches.

“The Salmonberry is blooming!” I practically yelled in excitement.

Really, this is no surprise, just a welcome bit of color to match the vibrant birdsong. Pacific Wren trilled endlessly, a Downy Woodpecker called, and even Ruby-crowned Kinglets, not destined to nest here chortled away, flashing scarlet crowns. I always see and hear birds when I walk in the forest, it was just nice to have the yearly renewal of activity.

I listened, with the delusory hope that I’d hear something other than the Anna’s Hummingbirds buzzing about. Rufous Hummingbirds time their arrival with the blooming of Salmonberry (along with other plants). I kept this in mind, but I also was convinced that it was too early still. Taking a guess, I’d say there were probably only 10 percent of the Salmonberry blooms I’d expect in the coming weeks. Then I’d see my first Rufous. (Note: And I did) 

Along with the discarded trash that’s found a resting place in the creekbed, Skunk cabbage was flowering and leafing out. I was humbled, even in a landscape I feel a belong to, where I’ve come of age as a man and a naturalist, that I knew next to nothing about this plant. How was it pollinated? How did it propagate and spread? Getting odd looks from passersby, I squelched over to get a closer look. (In retrospect, I remembered that these plants are stinky, in this case, meaning they are pollinated by insects attracted to their stench).

Where am I going with this diatribe? I’m not really certain and I think that’s the point. One shouldn’t always have to worry about purpose or goals when enjoying the outdoors, I just had a mind to say a few things, to see a few things.

A Varied Thrush half sang from the shadowed crown of a small Western Red Cedar. I’d gone out with an eye to see things, not a checklist to fill out, and been thrilled at every turn.

Back in the garden Yellow-rumped (Audubon’s) Warblers chipped above me in the trees. Any impetuous for time outside is good in my book.

1 Comment »

What is Adventure anymore?

Posted in Birding, Birds, Interview, Road Tripping with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 22, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

The day was unusually clear, a bite to the air and bare deciduous limbs the only reminders of the season. We stood at the mouth of the Elwa River, watching the sanguine sunrise over the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island disappearing into ocean mists. I thought of what came before. Of the strong Coast Salish tribes, striking off into the strait in dugout canoes made of cedar. Captain George Vancouver sailing in, charting the coastline, naming prominent landmarks after his benefactors and friends. The time before when vast glaciers would have dredged the land that would become the strait itself as well as scouring the Olympic Mountains to my back.

My friend Tyler and I were on a day trip, to one of the most Northwesterly points in the lower 48, Cape Flattery.

A few miles before the Makah tribe’s reservation and Neah Bay, we hit a Bobcat. Driving around a corner, speeding through a twenty year old Douglas Fir plantation, the cat ran right in front of the car. No chance to avoid or brake. It hit hard, with two jarring thumps. Screeching to a halt, we wanted to find the animal we presumed was either fatally maimed or soundly dead. All we could do was curse. Tyler had seen the body go flying, dislodged fur in airborne puffs. Scouring the roadside, there was no evidence of any vehicular violence. Perplexed, we stood as cars sped by mere feet away, buffeting us with their wind and threatening to throw us the way of cat. No one seem confused or interested in why we were standing on a lonely stretch of highway looking glum. Cutting through our silent mourning and confusion a Hutton’s Vireo scolded from the other side of the road. I stifled an urge to start laughing uncontrollably and chuckled quietly, only to keep from getting teary. Who knows what happened to that poor cat.

We kept pushing on, stopping to look at birds on the shore occasionally, hoping to discover something rare. Our decision to drive all the way out to this point meant too much sitting in the car but because it was so far away from where most people birded regularly, we might have gotten lucky. Ultimately it was just a long drive. Somehow though, when we’d walked the three quarter mile trail to the end of the state, looking out at Tatoosh Island in winter sun, I couldn’t diminish a feeling of accomplishment. The sun was already descending, casting rainbows through spray dashing against the dilapidated coastline and towering sea stacks.

The next week I was on the other side of the Cascade mountains, snowshoeing alone above Cle Ellum Lake. Besides the distant, anxious whine of snowmobile engines in the snowpark at Salmon La Sac, I was alone. Ill fitting boots held back a more serious hike, yet I also felt accomplished with my meager ascent of crusty snow in the open coniferous forest of the east slope. On the way down I found Mountain Lion tracks, old, yet recent enough. The hair on my neck rose and things felt wilder than before.

Weeks later I was in the Paradise Valley on Mount Rainier, again on snowshoes but in fresh, deep powder and guiding a group for work. One of the clients turned to me as the eight of us stood viewing the partially obscured Nisqually Glacier a thousand feet below.

“Do people normally get here? Because I’m feeling quite accomplished right now.”

What exactly is adventure these days? Is what I might call an adventure anything to be proud of these days? REI and The North Face sure as hell make it seem like everyone goes trail running in uncharted wilderness and dozens of companies will happily sell you canned experiences deemed “adventure travel.” I am not criticizing this market (for one I am employed by it), more musing on it. Do our adventures seem less noteworthy, dull even, because now they are available to the masses?

People have always been pushing the limits. With so fringe seeking these days (and more people), I occasionally feel I’m worthless if I don’t risk my neck to achieve some feat of endurance. Like a few of my friends, part of me wants to be an adventurer like the old days. You know, the misanthropic, gun-toting, racist white male, blazing an unknown path to conquer nature. Well. Not exactly. However I do pine for days when more of the world was uncharted than today. I’ve done a lot that most would consider adventurous but I have a hard time calling it much beyond work or fun. I tend to question the point of the adrenaline and travel propaganda I hungrily gobble up in Outside Magazine, (which I hope to contribute to someday). Are these people pushing boundaries just to be seen doing it? Again, does it lessen the experiences available to us?

Slowly, I’m discussing a feeling I get from time to time: that there is nothing left to explore. I’ve spent a greater part of my life romanticizing naturalists like Alfred Russel Wallace, David Douglas, and modern equivalents like Jared Diamond or even E.O. Wilson and Bernd Heinrich. As absurd as it sounds, when I envision the intellectual and natural historical adventures I aspire to, I can’t help but think that it’s all been done. That my life is mundane and soft (the latter is true in relative terms).

That is an absolutely absurd and negative viewpoint. Downright ignorant really. We don’t know everything, we haven’t seen it all, and we never will. So I can rest easy knowing that just because I likely won’t get a bird species named after me, doesn’t mean I won’t have an opportunity to contribute to the world. Contribute to knowledge or appreciation or preservation and conservation. Adventure is grounded in questing after something and can be equally in your backyard watching insect behavior through a hand lens or jumping into the Congo blindly. My epics will always be reliant on the same imagination and excitement I’ve had since childhood. The locale doesn’t matter. (Read: has pen and camera, binoculars, and a bag too full of field guides. Will travel.)

And that reminds me. I am not alone in being an adventurer, seeking lofty and humbling moments with nature across the globe. Over the course of the next year I intend to touch base with people I consider contemporaries in their thirst to explore. These are the people I can almost promise you’ll be hearing about as the years pass (and in other places far more noteworthy than Wingtrip). Writers, photographers, scientists, they are all doing interesting and important things. So stay tuned for the first up, my friend Zachary Shane Orion Lough of Sail Panache.

3 Comments »

A (Photographic) Year in Review

Posted in Bird Banding, Birding, Birds, Borneo, California, Chiang Mai, Doi Inthanon, Eastern Washington, Field Work, Fire Ecology, Indonesia, Kao Yai National Park, Malaysia, Natural History, Orangutan, Oregon, Pak Thale, Plants, Road Tripping, Science, Seattle, Southeast Asia, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Sumatra, Thailand, United States, Washington, Western Forests with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

It’s been a year since I left for an adventure in Southeast Asia. With the extremely tardy completion of a small book I made for those who supported my Kickstarter campaign for the trip, I started feeling like I’d never be on the road again. Modern expectations, the realities of money, and my desire to be a part of a stable community all seemed to be working against me, pulling me down. Yet, instead of dragging myself down the anguished path of the grounded traveler, I decided that some careful reflection was in order.

This year I’ve been a lot of places, there’s no doubt. From the temperate land I call home to the Asian tropics. To the crest of the Sierras and down to the Great Basin. Consciously or subconsciously, mountains played an undeniable role in my explorations. I was in the the shrub steppe of Steens Mountain in Oregon, the forests and alpine of Mt. Lassen in California and Mt. Rainier in Washington, the elfin evergreens of Doi Inthanon in Thailand, eruption scarred Gunung Sibayak in Sumatra, and the ancient oaks and tree ferns of Gunung Kinabalu in Borneo. In my home I wound through the high desert of interior western North America, the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest coast, the snow of the Cascade range, and the mosaic of forests in the Sierra Nevada. Abroad I traipsed the lowland rainforests of Borneo and clambered about the monsoonal forests of Thailand. I drove to the summit of Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand, and hiked halfway up to the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, Gunung Kinabalu.

I was captivated by small natural wonders in my own backyard (literally) and stood in awe of a bull elephant thousands of miles away. Birds were held, eyes were met with Orangutans. Animal and plant life always figure highly in my explorations, communities shaped by the landscapes I learned in my wend.

That’s the key. My excitement and passion for this world result from a desire to learn. Curiosity rules my spirit, anyone reading Wingtrip will know that.

Below I’ve compiled a long (yet also very punctuated) series of images from my year in the natural world. If you are curious about the stories behind them please ask or follow a few of the links I’ve provided above (unfortunately, through a flaw in the program I upload photos to Flickr with, literally hundreds of the photos in other entries linked to above are not visible right on wingtrip though still on Flickr – when I have time to sit down to this arduous task, it’ll be fixed). There’s so much worth working to save, these images should remind us all of that.

In short, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I hope you enjoy these shots. May you all have a fruitful year of discovery.

2 Comments »

(Historical) Explorations

Posted in Birds, California, Collecting, Conservation, Natural History, Reading Suggestions, Sierra Nevadas with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

Discussions of natural history can’t escape a parallel human history. Living in Western North America, shadows of the multifarious frontiersman haven’t slipped from the horizon. I’ve been dwelling heavily on these explorers, here for new opportunities, to claim land for their sovereignty, or to assess the biotic diversity held in vast “unexplored” territories.

In the past weeks I’ve had an inordinate amount of time indoors, to think, read, and write. I’m supposed to be outside working. Excessive rain, snow, and wind has kept our daily point counts of birds at bay. If your goal is to detect the full species array and individual abundances, counting in marginal weather will not give you accurate results. If you doubt that rain, snow, or wind can effect accuracy, or think that maybe I’m just being a wimp, go outside on a less than ideal spring morning and listen for bird song. You may hear some but compare that to a nice, warm and dry, spring morning. Then you’ll understand.

Because of all the time indoors, I’ve not had much face time with nature and it’s got me in a philosophical mood. As a modern field biologist, you are sometimes driven to your limits of endurance and forced to put up with uncomfortable situations. But when it all pans out, we still have it pretty easy compared to people who first started exploring the West in the name of science.

While I don’t wish to wholly glorify explorations in Western North America, which ultimately displaced and exploited hundreds of thousands of native peoples, they are certainly fascinating to the modern day natural historian. The most famous of all explorations in the West was of course the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Between 1804 and 1806, it penetrated the Northwest Territory overland, surveying in the name of the United States for what made up part of the Louisiana Purchase (of land that none of the parties involved owned). President Jefferson wasn’t just looking to survey a land grab though, he wanted the expedition to collect and record on pretty much any area of natural science they could. While neither of the party leaders were trained naturalists, they came back with a formidable collection of specimens and journals. I have occasional encounters with two charismatic birds that bear their names, Lewis’s Woodpeckers and Clark’s Nutcrackers. There’s no ignoring these explorers, especially in the Pacific Northwest, yet the biota of the west are riddled with the whispers of early scientific explorers.

Out my door, I can look across camp, through numerous Douglas Firs to a great sentry of a pine. It stands straight, with a smooth, even bark and massive branches, a good height above neighboring trees. A Scottish botanist by the name of David Douglas, described this formidable tree, Pinus lambertiana, the Sugar Pine. The sugar part of the name came from the sweet resin, the lambertiana for Aylmer Bourke Labert a British botanist who wrote a folio on the genus Pinus. When Douglas ventured into the Willamette Valley of Oregon during his explorations of the Northwest with the Hudson’s Bay Company, he eventually traveled far enough south to encounter these giants. Muir, perhaps the most famous of naturalists in California would later consider it as the “king of the conifers.”

Those Douglas Firs, among the most common of trees in the West, bear Douglas’s name, along with hundreds of other flora and fauna he first described. The etymology of plant and animal names world wide is one big weaving romp through a lot of dead white dudes, but Douglas as an actual explorer certainly stands out as one of the most interesting in the West. He endured real hardship in finding new plants for the Royal Horticultural Society, introducing over 240 new plants to England for cultivation and science. Jack Nisbet’s book The Collector is a fascinating account of David Douglas’s life, particularly if you are from Washington or Oregon.

During one of my foiled attempts at work last week, I was only a mile and a half from camp and decided that instead of hitching a ride with my partner, that I’d just walk back overland. I had a GPS with me, in case I got lost, but I was fairly confident I should have no trouble. As I slipped, tripped, and slogged my way back, I was constantly reminded of the hard work of early pioneers and explorers. Walking overland blindly isn’t an easy proposition, even with all my modern accessories and some knowledge of the land before me. Out of laziness, I didn’t put on my waterproof jacket or pants and wound up soaked. It took me an hour to make the hike, with several stream crossings, a 1000 ft down climb with a follow up 600 ft scramble. The whole time I was jumping logs, pushing through trees and brush laden with the morning’s rain. It wasn’t a simple stroll.

A dryer and a drawer bursting with clean, dry clothes was waiting for me. Early collectors, prospectors, fur trappers, and settlers had none of this. No fully waterproof coats (beyond oiled cloth), their clothes were mostly cotton and wool, and were often walking relatively blindly ahead even with the help of guides and friendly tribes. Unlike native peoples, they were often ignorant of how to survive off the land beyond hunting. In short, they were always on their toes. They traveled by horseback, wagon, and boat, so when mountains loomed ahead or large rivers weaved nearby they had to very careful about what routes they chose. I just look at a map and drive through land that must have been horribly daunting to travel, even 100 years ago. The Sierras are still indomitable mountains no matter how you look at them.

In California, European exploration began much earlier than the late 18th century when the first major explorations in the Northwest happened. Spanish and Russian exploration in the mid 18th century included members, mostly botanists, that were keen on the natural world. However, almost all of this was restricted to coastal regions and adjoining tributaries. No European or American travelers with even the briefest of training as a naturalist had breached the Sierras until 1844, only six years before California achieved statehood. The communities of the Northern Sierras, where I currently reside, were first settled by people of European descent during the time of the 1849 California Goldrush. Fourty-niners rushed into the region, founding the town where I live, Meadow Valley, in 1850. Before that the only people living in the region were Maidu Native Americans, residing in summer villages in Big Meadows (even they wouldn’t stay the winter), which is now Lake Almanor, a man made reservoir. Mt. Lassen, a reminder of the boundary between the volcanic Cascade range and the inert granite of the Sierras watches over from the North.

What I’m getting at in all this discussion of history, seemingly unrelated to birds and nature, is a two fold message; that we have haven’t lived this way all that long. Even a place so seemingly grooved out by humans as California hasn’t even been this way for 200 years. Its a reminder that the world still has unknowns, unexplored areas. We don’t know everything – how could we?

Equally I reminisce on how living used to be. I wouldn’t last a week alone in the wilderness in the Sierras and neither would most Americans. People 150 years ago did passably well (with the exception of the Donner Party), with skills that most of us have tossed by the wayside because our practical use for them is nil. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my modern comforts, but it’s easy to forget as society persists, that we’re still privy to the elements and should know how to survive without electricity if need be! Not too long ago, Americans had to cooperate much more fully with nature to survive. In more ways than we likely know, we should still be paying more attention to how we with coexist with the world around us. Of all the things that scare me about being a contemporary human is that we are so easily blinded as to what our actions really mean when they can be so far reaching.

Yet, when I stand under that Sugar Pine or look down the Feather River, I still can’t help but marvel at how recently human history here happened, even the native people are relative newcomers. I don’t furrow my brow, languish in worry about the world, I just take in the chlorophyl bath and enjoy.  If you don’t know how to enjoy it, then how can you save it?

Leave A Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 142 other followers