Dead Bird

The river was windy last night. Both current and wind were against me as I shoved south in my kayak on the Hudson River. To the side, I saw a lump in the water. I assumed it was a fish, and was hesitant to pull near—marinating fish is not a smell I enjoy. But the shape was not entirely fish-like, so curiosity won out. What I found floating in the water was a gull, its bill hooked through the slit-like nares, by a fishing lure, and the web of its feet hooked by the other end of the lure. It was clear what had happened: the bird had come down to the shiny object expecting a fish meal, was caught through its bill and, in trying to liberate itself with is feet, entangled itself further. The lure hooked the bird to itself, bill and feet joined to shape the bird into a circle.  It then plunged into the water and drowned. Not too long ago. The body was soft in my hands, and the feathers intact.

As I held the bird, I said out loud: I hate people. I don’t actually. But I hate the carelessness of people, how someone had let this lure go. I transported the bird to a place where I could liberate it from the lure, then I unceremoniously dumped it in the water—a meal for a snapping turtle, perhaps. I watched the limp bird float off and let the mixture of sadness and outrage play through me.

This hook was just one of the ways that we make life for birds an obstacle course. Four of the top killers are these:

Glass. The Toronto-based organization FLAP—Fatal Light Awareness Program—estimates that every year 100 million to 1 billion birds are killed colliding with windows. 

Wind turbines. Wind farms kill about 572,000 birds a year.

Cats. A 2013 study estimates that cats, both domestic and feral, kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds a year.

Planes.  “Avian ingestion” or BASH—Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard—forces one plane a day to land; the cost to the industry is in the millions. But the cost to the birds?  It’s hard not to fall into a feathered hopelessness.

When a bird is killed by a window strike, a feral cat, a wind turbine or an airplane it is absurd.  Their natural lives—finding a meal, and staying safe from natural predators—are challenging enough. And perhaps the greatest challenge for a bird is migration. Many end up with tattered wings, and  bodies that weigh half as much as when the bird started out.

The ludicrousness of a bird dying by colliding with a window, or electrocuted on a wire, or snagged on a fishing lure is hard to describe. But since I have been reading pages of Arctic and Antarctic literature this summer, this is the analogy I can make. Let’s take the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen who was the first man to sledge his way to the South Pole, most likely the first to fly over the North Pole (in a dirigible), the first through the Northwest Passage, and the second through the Northeast Passage. He is the Arctic Tern of polar explorers. Now, imagine that he has just returned from the South Pole and he stops at the local grocery store to buy some food—perhaps the lettuce he missed after three years of polar mush. And as he walks back to his car, he is crushed and killed by a car backing out of the parking lot. It is that absurd for this bird to have been killed by a fishing line. 

August 24, 2014 in Birds, Environmental Issues, Hudson River, Kayaking

Snapping Turtle Tradition

We love traditions: Thanksgiving dinner, or that annual trip to the beach, or the first trip to the ice cream stand in summer. For me, the annual events that I look forward to are Christmas Bird Count, the salamander big night, and the week in early June when snapping turtles lay their eggs. All of my traditions involve preparation and excited anticipation.

I prepared for snapping turtle week by buying a fishing net. As I left Gander Mountain someone called to me: “butterflies?”—those would be some butterflies!

“Nope, Snapping turtles,” I called back, cheerful.

He rolled his eyes.

my finest rescue techniqueBecause snappers travel to lay their eggs, they cross roads and railroad tracks—and often are crushed. Already I had clumsily shoved a turtle across a road, the turtle snapping, four or five of us offering suggestions, stopping or slowing cars, and from time to time screaming in surprise when the turtle lunged with a snap.  The net was the solution to all of my turtle rescuing problems.

Last year, I stumbled on the maternity ward of snappers along the train tracks that slice the North Tivoli Bay from the main artery of the Hudson River. There, in the black gravel laid as foundation for the tracks the snapping turtles can easily dig, then the sun warms the eggs beautifully. On June 6 of last year, I saw dozens of turtles digging, and rescued one caught between the rails. The next day, dozens of turtles lay crushed, mangled by the trains barreling north and south. This year, I was going to save as many turtles as possible.

Snapper laying eggsAt seven in the morning, Christina, Kate and I tromped out Cruger Island Road under a gorgeous blue sky. Red-winged black birds showed off their velvet red epaulets, Willow Flycatchers called out fitz-bew, and the world seemed perfect.  When we arrived at the tracks, we spotted a turtle right away. Scooping up a turtle in a fishing net isn’t as easy as I imagined. Added to that, the turtle wasn’t happy with being displaced from there, between the rail lines. It hissed, and snapped at the net, while I looked cautiously over my shoulder for a train in the distance. With encouraging calls from Kate and Christina, I loaded the turtle and wobbled over to the edge. Untangling a turtle from a net is even more difficult, its long claws caught in the webbing. After a bit of work, I released it with a tumble into the cattails. There it looked at us in disgust before we walked off.

Further up the track it was a regular egg laying fest. Over twenty nests had been dug and raided—no doubt by raccoons. Shreds of the eggs littered the disturbed holes, the white so white against the black soil. But over a dozen lady snappers were still in holes, quietly laying their round, white eggs. Three had gathered near to each other, hind ends burrowed deep in the soil. When we returned half an hour later, one was gone—and her nest already empty. How quickly the thief works! 

And yet--though the raccoon was hard at work, we saw no turtles crushed by the steel wheels of the train. This, a small relief. 

We stopped for tea and sticky buns brought by Kate from the Tivoli Bakery—for any tradition to be a success, good food is essential—and watched barn swallows wing in and out under the underpass.

Kate & Christina with netted turtleAnother stray turtle on the tracks pulled us south for a second rescue by Christina and Kate. Here’s hoping these two we pulled from the tracks continue on their path and that some of those eggs escape the hunger of the raccoon. In August I’ll walk out, looking for baby snapping turtles.

Does saving two snapping turtles make a difference? Maybe, but maybe not. It is comforting but naïve to think that every little bit helps—because in the face of our environmental problems this doesn’t even register. What matters, though, is that saving these turtles is what I can do, it’s what I do. It’s one of my traditions. 

Baby Beaver

Horned GrebeI am an optimist. But on Tuesday morning as I launched my kayak onto the Hudson River at 7:30 in the morning I was not filled with my usual sense that just around the corner was the next glorious sight. I wouldn't say I was feeling pessimistic, but rather more grumpy. And I was grumpy because the height of migration has passed--it comes and goes so quickly it is excruciating. I decided that nothing special could come my way ("all the best birds are gone" I said to a friend, sounding like a twelve year old having a tantrum). Armed with this bad attitude, I stroked south under a bluing sky toward Magdalen Island and the entrance to the North Tivoli Bay.

Map TurtleJust to prove me wrong, the river first offered up a Horned Grebe, in elegant breeding plumage, floating placidly at the opening to the North Tivoli Bay. It bobbed along, as if it belonged there (it doesn't--it should be in Canada somewhere far north). I scooted down the main waterway, lined by cattails and phragmites. Red winged blackbirds sang their insistent conkla-dee, and marsh wrens trilled from the reeds. A Map turtle sunned on a log. Two Canada Geese crossed the channel, three babies trailing behind. Fifty yards later, a Mallard mother scooted thirteen young into the reeds. I couldn't help but laugh at myself. This was the most glorious day.

In the distance, I saw the tell-tale V of a beaver plowing through the water. In 1840, the beaver was a rare animal in New York State. Trapping had all but wiped out this large rodent, whose pelts were used for hats and coats. When trapping was finally prohibited in 1895, some claim there were but 10 left in the State. In the North Tivoli Bay, it is hard to believe this desperate history: I always see a beaver. Or rather, I hear a slap of a broad tail, signaling danger before the beaver dives below the surface.

So it came as a surprise when I spied a beaver snout moving toward me. About five feet in front of my kayak, the little beaver crawled up into the mud, and perched there, letting out a darling, but slightly heartbreaking mew. It then plunked back into the water and swam toward me, looping around my paddles and nuzzling the boat.

I guessed it was lost. Across the channel rested a stick pile, a beaver lodge. I moved my boat to the middle of the channel thinking the little beaver might swim to me once again and this would get it closer to home. It did. And I had the foresight to turn on the video in my pocket camera. And sure enough, after it rounded the stern of my boat, the baby beaver swam off toward the lodge. Watch the video here.

Full of optimism, I paddled home.

Back on the water, 2014

I woke to fog. To a duck perched in a tree. It was beautiful and felt out of place, the tree high on a ridge in my front yard. Still, this seemed a good omen: wonders for the day.

Four of us carted our kayaks down the wooden stairs at the North Tivoli Bay launch at noon. Sun, blue sky, a light breeze had taken over. We eased our wetsuit-cloaked bodies into our sleek boats and pushed off. It seemed so normal. And yet but two months ago we were walking this same spot on ice, hefting through snow that reached to our thighs. Now it was all liquid and freedom. To paddle out, under the railroad trestle onto the Hudson River, cold and brown, wide and empty. We skirted the eastern shore, trailing the rip rap, and the still bare trees; the wake of a tug and barge knocked us around a bit. Then we popped back into the bay through a southern passage.

The North Tivoli Bay is a maze of cattail and phragmites. Once before I had paddled from the southern to the northern end, winding through the reeds. But more often, I had gotten lost. My paddle-mates were game to try and return through the reeds. A few dead ends, slicing into muck and forty-five minutes later we had made our way back. None of us were ready to end our first paddle of the season. We all were looking for something that you might call an adventure, not just a lovely meander through reeds. So we launched back onto the big river.

“Let’s see an osprey, a long tailed duck,” Christina said. "And a smew."

I nodded. The osprey was possible. As for the duck, less likely. I didn’t even know what a smew looked like but Christina had been clamoring for one for the past few weeks. (A smew is a dashing looking Eurasian black and white merganser, and a rare visitor to the western Aleutian islands of Alaska).

It is a treat to look for birds with someone more optimistic than I am. “Let’s go find that smew,” I said as we gathered to paddle across the river. The Hudson felt bare, exposed without green to rim the shoreline and boats purring north and south. We spied a few other kayaks but otherwise, it was us, the outgoing tide, and a few spring logs floating south.

Backs already tight from sitting, we stopped in to visit Dock and Kate, who live by the waterfront. They were hard at work, joined by a half dozen others to build a new dock for the Saugerties Lighthouse. We admired their work, stretched our legs, threw sticks for the dogs, and set back onto the water.  

North, we found green-winged teal on the shoreline, a few common mergansers floating nearby and bufflehead out in deeper water. I looked up to see an osprey flying over, the crooked wings distinctive.

“There’s your osprey,” I called to Christina. Sometimes I believe that if you wish hard enough to see a bird, it will appear. Was the smew next? No, what was next, was a one boat parade coming from the south. The unbalanced, brightly colored ship is a replica of the Half Moon, the ship Henry Hudson sailed in 1609. When I think of Hudson I don’t usually have kind thoughts, but looking at this squat ship, I scrolled back to imagine the courage, perhaps folly it took to embark on these early voyages.

“And remember, no gps system or maps, just the moon and stars and a sextant and vast oceans of doubt and wonder,” I said to my travel mates.

Once back in the North Bay, tired and happy from the sun and the movement, we moved slowly, chasing two disgruntled Canada geese. A barred owl hooted from the woods, an early evening call. I spied a lump in the mud--it was now low tide. The shape was odd enough that I stopped to look. Sure enough, the mud lump had two eyes, nostrils. My first snapper of the season. Soon, it squished its head below the surface.

No smew, but a duck in the fog and a snapper in the mud. A river to paddle and friends to paddle with.