Nature Notes - Gordon Russell

July, 2008

Rare Calling

The repetitious call came at 5:15 AM.  Drowsiness was instantly squelched and old ears strained, guided by hope that the sound from across the marsh hadn’t been imagined in some sleepy trick of the brain.  The listener, now fully awake, slid out of bed to stand in an overlook porch, hoping to hear the call repeated.  In the early gloom, a lazy mist had yet to awaken and get on with whatever mists do after a night of familiarity with the marsh’s inhabitants .The man lives with voices whose makers reside in the watery environs of a beaver pond that spreads across a quarter-mile to the east of his home. 

Each marsh sound is precious. Raucous choruses of peeping frogs morph, as sunrises move east, into acappella concerts composed by amphibious instrumentalists who specialize, nightly, in filling their world with the season’s full score of notes.  In the day time, wild ducks, geese, herons have voices that join those of smaller birds whose preference for nesting sites is a clumped bush surrounded by the protective embrace of water. For all, mates are being sought, schedules are rigid, made so by the demands of sunlit hours. The business of life of those living in the marsh is absorbed eagerly by the early riser.

There, the call again: “Cow  cow   cow  cowcowcowcowcowcow  cow   cow     cow     cow.” Measured enunciations at first, speeding up during mid-breath, slowing towards the end of the long calling.  To hear that voice, to have waited to hear that voice, one coming much later this year than in the past, was an enormous relief.  Somewhere, far across the meadow, a water bird rested in a thicket of cattails or thick grasses, just returned from some considerable distance.  His kind has dwindled to a threatened few; therefore the sound of his voice stirs emotions two ways.

Ten minutes pass.  Again, the calls make their way clearly, strongly through the murk. The sounds inspire the whole body think, appreciate, worry, wonder, and marvel simultaneously over that one bird who has returned to mate.

The man listener has seen the caller but a few times during the eight years of his meadow watching and listening.  A remarkable bird, the shiest of its kind, one who when surprised while swimming, will submerge until only its blunt bill is visible. He is late this year in returning.  Was there trouble along the Atlantic flyway?  Is there – will there be a mate to answer his beckoning?  Hope is sent back through the fog of this sunrise.

The measured calling ceases, but the man remains.  The rarity of the message just heard almost stings the man’s sensitivities with their importance. The name of the species is best kept in the ears.

April 2008

OF MARTINIS AND MERGANSERS

On April 10th, New Boston’s Great Meadow ice was being unzipped from below by currents of sun-warmed waters. American Mergansers, moving north from the Gulf Coast find this tiny dot on the continent each year while on their way to Hudson Bay or Newfoundland to nest. Twenty-six were afloat on a patch of open water on the 13th.

On the meadow’s stage, these birds are spring’s main attraction. They demand attention. Deck sitting won’t be commonplace for another month, but when those extraordinary migrants arrive, spring’s tonic comes with them and a chair goes out on the deck so the action won’t be missed.

The tonic preferred by this observer is a goblet holding a martini; fine company for watching ducks. Organizing more or less in an advancing line, the mergansers have prey in mind. They search for fish while paddling rapidly across the water with their beaks and eyes submerged. When a school of fish is spotted, the hunters dive, the fish panic, the water explodes with flapping feathers, leaping fish, and snapping bills. The cooperative hunt fills bellies. A ‘Catch the guy with the fish’ scrum will follow. That race creates a grand chaos.
The goblet is raised; “Long life grand birds. Mine is better for having you a part of it.”

With the fish-in-the-belly exercise completed, flying is next. These birds demand watching when they take wing. Once in flight, everything, neck, body, tail, wings stays horizontal in flight. Red beaks lead the finely-tuned bodies. White feathers flash, blacks glisten as the flock lifts into the air and turns in a wide arc over the icy marsh. (Sips of martini can be taken while eyes follow the grandness of their flight.) In a tight formation at first, one soon understands that it is not an exercise of merely follow-the-leader. Duck minds are working, deciding, choosing; four birds swing away to the east, three bank to the west, a single duck decides its own path, a pair curl steeply downward and skid to a stop on a narrow reach of open water. Give an hour, when stomachs ask for food, they’ll all be terrorizing the wetland’s fishes.

A sip. Such remarkable moments. The mind appreciates what the eyes have been gathering; stunning, feathered life, each garnering nutrients for the thousand-mile journey ahead.

A sip, then a raised goblet to the hope that the unerring memories living in those special ducks will guide them back to Great Meadow again next spring. Cheers.

Gordon Russell

March 2008

There’s Good in Wildness if You Can Find It

I need the non-human environment to find wildness. Wildness keeps company with time in forests, where together there is a free interplay of natural elements. In that realm, life’s most effective teachers stand ready to share stories. Opportunities are open for my eyes, ears, fingers, and inner feelings to take advantage of what’s offered, but only if I allow patience and curiosity to work together. Learning to give freedom to one’s natural senses takes time. It is curiosity that makes possible a moment of attention. It is patience that gives time for wonder and questions to form.

………..and there was a moment, just beyond the tip of my snowshoe. Tens of thousands of moving mites, like pepper specks popping on snow – Springtails! I’d met their kind many times before and had spent hours as a bystander, watching, wondering about those countless lives so active on the snow. Research about them always emphasizes their insect ancientness, but seldom dwells upon their reasons of being, or what defines their wildness?

They move en masse, but to where? Some form of awareness keeps the hopping, springing troupe moving towards someplace; and, they move in formation! They eat, reproduce, and need life’s basics. They are partners in the forest world, therefore they have worth. If they made no contributions to the wild, they wouldn’t be.

Each life fills a certain niche of opportunity as its time on this planet passes. Those Springtails have a near-primal lineage, counting at least 400,000,000 years of being. Two-hundred million years would pass before Springtails would be joined by dinosaurs. Time has proven their worth.

Moments come in the peace of wildness when I find time to ponder my own species’ worth. If quality in wildness has been built upon the long interaction of species over time, how will Planet Earth’s history record the natural worth of my kind? Time will answer that question, but I do have concerns. Meanwhile I’ll try to be worthy. I don’t expect Springtails try. They just follow the wildness they’ve been given. Now, if I could only figure out how to follow the wildness I’ve inherited. I’d better hurry before it’s too late.
GAR

February 2008

Our Handsome Blue Samaritan

A quarter-mile into the forest, there they were; husks of black on white snow. To anyone who feeds winter birds, those black shapes would be recognized as shells of sunflower seeds. We rake them from under our feeders by the thousands come spring, but those seed remnants spotted on the snow carried an important story – that of our grand Blue jays.

Like others I know, my father disliked the jays. “Damn seed robbers,” he’d mumble, then rap on the window to shoo them away.

Here’s the real story: Like squirrels hide acorns, blue jays store their pillaged seeds in folds of bark on tree trunks. When a jay fills its cheek pouches with your seeds, off it flies, sometimes far into the surrounding woods. In crevasses here and there it secrets it prizes. That mission accomplished its back to your feeder for another re-fill of the cheeks.

Like sharp-eyed children searching for Easter eggs, finches, chickadees, titmouse, nuthatches, squirrels – that crew, spies the jay’s treasures in the trees all around your home. Enclosed in each seed found is a snippet of energy – life to survive the cold night at hand.

Blue jays extend your feeder’s gifts far and wide. Feed them well as they’ll disperse your caring among more of nature’s realm than you could ever hope to do. Oh, one more thing: The next time a pugnacious, independent, pushy, handsome, blue and white package of feathers blasts, squawking upon your feeder, crest held high, imagine how thrilled you would be at that sight if you’d never seen a blue jay before. Don’t let that sight become commonplace.

January 2008

Winter Is Here. Let’s Listen

Each of our precious seasons lay claim to certain sounds unique to its condition. Learning to listen to nature takes patience. I believe ears are happiest when they are outdoors where they can practice their purpose. Winter is the time to put them to work, when there are fewer distractions than, say Spring.

A woods walk on a quiet, snowy day is a good time to begin. Flakes of snow fall without sound unless they happen to touch a brittle leaf that still clings to its mother tree. Put an ear close. Concentrate. You’ve just heard the highest tympanic sound in the winter forest. Wonderful!

The music of air moving through the stiff needles of pine will tattle on itself. When thermometers announce their purpose in low numbers, the forest’s older trees will begin to complain about the cold; “Pop.” “Snap.” “Crack.” – trees voicing single vowel laments. Neat.

“Wicker, wicker, wick, wicker,” again the silence surrounding the woods wanderer may be intriguingly interrupted by the ancient, full-throated, lung-bursting cry of our giant woodpecker, the Pileated. Its call is a treasure for ears to hold on to. (Seeing the caller is pure luck.) Oh, a chattering trill, some announcement being tossed through the trees from a deep recess in an old hemlock; Red Squirrel. And that? A trumpeting whistle followed by a series of soft, twittery notes. The ears direct the eyes to the caller’s flash of blue and the brain says, “ Bluejay,” - those sparklers of naughty energy, and the ears are content. And, don’t miss the ‘giggler’. That would be the White-breasted Nuthatch, a bug-devourer, who giggles as it jerks along downward on tree trunks. Hee, hee, hee, hee.

Single voices, speaking in our snowy forests, are waiting to be heard. When they find your ear, the experience will be pure joy, even giving birth to smiles. The rewards will be an accumulation of memories to hold and to share for a lifetime. Winter classrooms in our watershed are open every day of the year. Always bring ears.

December 2007

TWO JUVENILES, TWO LESSONS

When Bald Eagles approach a marsh, their powerful presence is instant and everywhere.  Their aura strikes especially hard into the eyes of ducks, prey for eagles.  The waterfowl quickly vanish into the reeds. In late October an immature Bald Eagle coasted over a thicket of Cat-o’nine Tails, tilted its impressive wings toward open water and caught a young Great Blue Heron by surprise.  Uncharateristically the heron flushed, long legs, long neck, long wings, loud “squawk”; like a cat running away from a dog, the eagle could not resist.

The heron’s ungainliness was no match for the nimble eagle, nevertheless its mid-air twists and sharp turns matched its pursuer’s skills; but only briefly.  Fatigue, realization of a race to be lost, something made the heron swerve left, swerve right, spilling the air from its wings, thus dropping into deep water.  Danger compressed air out of its feathers and lungs until only its neck and head, like a periscope, was above water.

The eagle turned in a wide arc, straightened its flight path and with talons reaching forward, headed directly toward the heron’s head. The heron’s stiletto beak struck. Missed. A second wide turn. Approach.  Strike. Missed. A third attempt came with greater purpose. Low approach, tail feathers and wing tips dragging through the water, the talons found their mark. The eagle’s wings stretched wide across the water giving it buoyancy.  Underneath, the heron, struggling, was drowning.

The scene:  Underwater, a dead heron held in the grasp of an eagle. The shoreline far away and the water is deep. What to do? Using its wings as oars, the eagle – five strokes, rest, - five strokes, rest, - headed for a floating log. Twenty minutes of struggle to reach the log, but a struggle in vain. The prey could not be retrieved. The eagle released the heron. It sank. With one mighty downward stroke, the water-soaked bird-of-prey became air-borne, shook water away from its feathers while in flight, and flew off to the east.

Lessons: Too late for one; Great Blue Herons aren’t worth the effort, for the other.

October 2007

The Comfort of Rocks

The housing was delivered many thousands of years ago in the bowels of a glacier. A warming sky slowly stole away the ice, exposing a jumble of boulders to their permanent station on the land. With the ice gone, only a century or three passed before four-footed wanderers shuffled by.  The rocks extended an invitation; a cavity, not too big, not too small, just right leading to darkness with space, space large enough for a borning sanctum and protection. Welcome home porcupines!

Porcupines live in family associations, but their skin-of-spines does not lend itself to much cuddling.  Cozy quarters are unknown to this specie’s offspring and playfulness among the young is absent. Inheritance instructs them to stay put for three months in darkness, interrupted on occasion by sporadic offerings of warm milk. Only when hair hardens to quills do the youngsters venture forth, moving from dark cave into dark nights.

The chosen quarters may serve generations of porcupines. The boulders require little upkeep. The outside is self-decorating, made attractive by colorful lichens, (Rock Tripe is one), and delightful, wavy ferns known as Poly Pody. Coolness remains throughout hot summers and radient heat from decomposing waste warms the occupants during the seasons of cold.

A splendid habitation.