Robins!
On December 18, I rose at 2:45 in the morning, and in perfect silence and darkness drove out to Ulster County, intent on starting Christmas Bird Count with the secretive birds, the owls. They were holding out on us—that is, not hooting--as Peter and I drove to perfect owl locations, listened and whistled. Eventually we heard a few Screech Owls, but we never heard a single toot from a Saw-whet (an owl that has been reliable on our count). Peter and I both felt this was a bad omen, surely a lousy count was going to unfold in daylight hours. Plus, we had dreadful weather. As our sector leader, Steve Chorvas put it: “Environmental conditions can best be described as wet and dreary with low visibility.” Indeed!
But we were wrong. There were birds. On this 2021 Christmas Bird Count—my eleventh in this sector, marking my years as a devoted birder—in Ulster County, New York, what we saw and counted were American Robins. Thousands. At every stop to look and listen and count we heard the song of the Robin, giving our rainy day the sound and feel of early spring, not early winter. They darted near the winterberry, they hopped through tangles of multi flora rose, they speckled small lawns. There were 416 of them. The only bird we saw more of were European Starlings, at 418. Together these two species made up half of the birds that Peter and I saw on that long day of counting birds.
American Robin!
On December 18, I rose at 2:45 in the morning, and in perfect silence and darkness drove out to Ulster County, intent on starting Christmas Bird Count with the secretive birds, the owls. They were holding out on us—that is, not hooting--as Peter and I drove to perfect owl locations, listened and whistled. Eventually we heard a few Screech Owls, but we never heard a single toot from a Saw-whet (an owl that has been reliable on our count). Peter and I both felt this was a bad omen, surely a lousy count was going to unfold in daylight hours. Plus, we had dreadful weather. As our sector leader, Steve Chorvas put it: “Environmental conditions can best be described as wet and dreary with low visibility.” Indeed!
But we were wrong. There were birds. On this 2021 Christmas Bird Count—my eleventh in this sector, marking my years as a devoted birder—in Ulster County, New York, what we saw and counted were American Robins. Thousands. At every stop to look and listen and count we heard the song of the Robin, giving our rainy day the sound and feel of early spring, not early winter. They darted near the winterberry, they hopped through tangles of multi flora rose, they speckled small lawns. There were 416 of them. The only bird we saw more of were European Starlings, at 418. Together these two species made up half of the birds that Peter and I saw on that long day of counting birds.
Finding a Robin nest is fun, but not hard.
Did we get up imagining that we would see Robins? Did we hope for Robins? No, and no. We knew we would see some Robins—we always do (though more like 25). But beyond that, we never know what we will see, which is part of the magic of Christmas Bird Count. We become footloose ornithologists as we try and explain why we heard no Saw whet Owls, or what the Great Horned Owls were doing at 3 a.m. besides talking to us. We scan and listen and Peter always tells me I won’t hear anything with my window up, the cold air blowing through the car. I roll the window down to hear a Blue Jay, a Crow, adding them dutifully to the list of birds seen. And always, we hope for something special. But on this day what is special is not a species but the volume of an utterly ordinary species.
I want this number of birds to be just a “wow, so many birds” cool event. But, it’s hard for that puzzling not to take a dark turn. Our winter has hardly been cold. (Where is the snow? Please snow!) If the ground is still soft, if there’s open water—there’s plenty for the Robin to live off of. Why migrate if you can stay put and stay fat? But is the reason it is so warm another sign of climate change or is it…just a warm winter? Since I do not have the answers to these questions and I do not want this to be a dark post—I want a joyous one to bring in 2022—I will, instead, just think about all of the Robins.
Edwin Howe Forbush, who wrote the wonderful, three volume Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States (published in the late 1920s) begins his entry on the American Robin by celebrating that the bird sings every morning, all across the continent. The Robin is everywhere and everyone knows him. So he asks: “Why then should one write about his haunts and habits, which should be well known to everybody? In answer to this it may be said in truth that most people really know very little about him.”
It is in “Haunts and habits” that is the charm of these guides. Forbush combines his experience and observation of the bird with those of people around New England who write in with what they’ve seen—mostly quirky experiences with a bird. And together they start to form a portrait of the bird, a way to know what it eats, where it nests, what its relationship is to humans.
It is true that a creature too familiar often gets less real attention. We dig into the lives of those who are more mysterious (with people as well!). Like a worn couch or comfy chair, the Robin just is there. It is the one bird that all children know, not just because the bird is present everywhere but, more importantly, easy to see as it hops on a lawn or makes a nest in a nearby bush. Forbush observes that it is often very social with humans, and has stories of Robins that follow farmers in their fields. What is it that Forbush thinks we don’t know?
European Robin—not really an American Robin, except for the red breast
We don’t know that it’s really not a Robin—that is the European bird, and Britain’s national bird. Our Robin reminded early ornithologists of the bird they knew from home so they assigned it the same name, with American attached (here I will not make a detour into protesting the names of birds). He goes on for six long pages about the Robin, as if it were an unknown species, giving information on its less-than monogamous ways (even though the bird is seen as a model of constancy) and that it often does spend the winter in New England (though most migrate south, often to Texas or Florida). And what I really did not know is the brutal way that these birds were killed (at night, while roosting, their heads snapped off)--then sold for sixty cents a dozen to be eaten (do not tell me Robin tastes like chicken!). Though our bird populations are plummeting, at lease the decline is no longer from this sort of slaughter, where in one night a person could kill 400.
And here is what I want to know that Forbush doesn’t tell me: What is a group of Robins called? One piece I read said, a rash, a hood, a riot. Another says, a round of Robins, and a final one, a worm of Robins. Whatever the name, a lot of Robins--5,949 total in our count circle (which surpasses the high of 3,504 seen in 2017)--is a wonderful sight. Here’s to Robins and all of the birds in 2022 and beyond!
Mama Robin bringing food to her young
Jungle Dawn Chorus
The dawn chorus in the jungle has a particular bass beat, like a deep wave washing through the dense trees, or like the earth itself is exhaling. What is that, I wonder. I’m sitting in a dinky plastic pack raft on the Las Piedras River, cradling my camera, and straining to see something in the green on green on green that lines the river. I’ve set out with three others on this foggy dawn float, but they are already a bend and a half down the river so I feel alone. Alone with the caiman lounging on the sandy banks and the Pied Lapwings tip-toeing along the river’s edge. Alone with the Parakeets that flock across the river, screaming their destination and their joy. Alone with the Sunbittern and the Hoatzin, birds that seem created from an artist’s fantasy of a bird. Alone not at all.
The dawn chorus in the jungle has a particular bass beat, like a deep wave washing through the dense trees, or like the earth itself is exhaling. What is that, I wonder. I’m sitting in a dinky plastic pack raft on the Las Piedras River, in the Amazon of Peru, cradling my camera, and straining to see something in the green on green on green that lines the river. I’ve set out with three others on this foggy dawn float, but they are already a bend and a half down the river so I feel alone. Alone with the caiman lounging on the sandy banks and the Pied Lapwings tip-toeing along the river’s edge. Alone with the Parakeets that flock across the river, screaming their destination and their joy. Alone with the Sunbittern and the Hoatzin, birds that seem created from an artist’s fantasy of a bird. Alone not at all.
Swept into this stream, cradled by my boat, I feel embraced by the land as if at a big family reunion. Every bit of me is there, a perfect meditation that is not focused in on my breath, but out on the breath of the land. What is that? The sound, hollow, almost mystical, fills my bones and I lean back in the raft as I flush downstream in the silty river. And then I remember what our guides told me: the sound that is so deep is not birds, but howler monkeys.
At home in the Hudson Valley I bird mostly by ear. Once the spring leaves come in it’s hard to lay eyes on a bird so learning the bird songs is necessary if you want to know who is stopping by on your driveway or singing near the feeder or sliding out of the reeds in the Tivoli Bays. But the denseness of leaves in the Hudson Valley is a joke compared to the jungle where the green is often so dense it blocks out all light. In this denseness birds thrive, and I know they are out there: the songs punctuate the air. There is no attempt at harmony here, no overall tune, but rather it’s every bird for himself, a great crazy medley that leaves me delighted and baffled.
But on the river: you do get to see things, the little birds, the Water Tyrants, that come to the river’s edge for some water, a bug, a slap of sunlight. Or the Yellow-billed Terns that course up and down the river. Or the Amazon Kingfisher, cackling away on a fishing expedition. Hoatzin fumble about in the bushes, so clumsy, then pose for a photo.
Mid-float I arrive at a sandbar where on a drying log Sand Nighthawks are roosting for the day. I pull onto shore, and shove myself out of the boat (which is leaking just a bit, so it’s become soft; I do a bit of repair work with some duck tape and have faith it will get me back to the station). I walk close enough to the birds to see clearly and to take photos but I don’t want to disturb their day-time snooze, which looks, through my binoculars, like the perfect morning meditation. Are we all meditating out here, at peace with the self and the land?
Soon, the sun rises, more birds sing, and then I hear a motor on the river and it’s Paul, our guide on this trip. He’s in the long wooden boat with his mother, who is making her first trip to the jungle. “Isn’t it great seeing your son in his proper habitat?” I joke with her. But it’s not really a joke: Paul belongs here just as the Tapir and the Jaguar do. And I think it’s sweet that he’s taking her out for a morning boat ride. But that’s not his goal: he’s checking on me. Paul is the best of guides, letting people do what they want to do, giving us our freedom here in this big place. So I have to wonder: have I really been out here so long that even Paul has become curious of my whereabouts? I have. A float that should have taken an hour and a half has stretched to four hours. “You good?” he calls across the water, thumbs up.
I nod and smile and give a thumbs up that says, “More than good.” Excellent. Never been better. Happy. And off he goes to leave me with my happiness.
Four hours of meandering, of observing, of delighting. Four hours during which I am not thinking about breakfast that waits for me, or the mess that our country is in (in fact, for two solid weeks I had not a single political thought, which is a shift for a MSNBC junkie), I am not over-thinking a small heartache. And if none of these things matter, than neither does time, an hour just like four. And perhaps space either, the land here infinite, the land here precious down to a grain of sand.
Malheur is for the Birds
I love the word malheur, the way my neighbor in France sighs over the weather or a chicken that is ill: Quel Malheur. It’s impossible to translate the woe of the world, the adversity of life woven into those two words. Quel Malheur. But the Malheur in the news these days is the 187,000 acre Refuge in Eastern Oregon where a group of armed men are staked out, and not planning to leave.
In three days, I will slide into my Subaru wagon, loaded with skis and snowshoes, and head west, for Oregon. I’ve chosen a northerly route, through North Dakota and Montana, two states I have never visited. I’ll stop along the way, in search of northerly birds, hoping for such treats as a Great Gray Owl, but also less glamorous but still wondrous species for this Eastern girl, like Gray-crowned Rosy finch, or Evening Grosbeaks.
I love the word malheur, the way my neighbor in France sighs over the weather or a chicken that is ill: Quel Malheur. It’s impossible to translate the woe of the world, the adversity of life woven into those two words. Quel Malheur. But the Malheur in the news these days is the 187,000 acre Refuge in Eastern Oregon where a group of armed men are staked out, and not planning to leave.
In three days, I will slide into my Subaru wagon, loaded with skis and snowshoes, and head west, for Oregon. I’ve chosen a route through North Dakota and Montana, two states I have never visited. I’ll stop along the way, in search of northerly birds, hoping for such treats as a Great Gray Owl, but also less glamorous but still wondrous species for this Eastern girl, like Gray-crowned Rosy finch, or Evening Grosbeaks.
At the end of the journey I will be at Playa, a residency for artists and writers in Eastern Oregon. There, I intend to finish (ahem) writing my book, which chronicles the first two years of my bird-obsessed life. (Two chapters have been published online, here, and here.) I’m having a great time poking around in the past of bird watching history, learning about murders and murderers, adventures and misadventures, saints and sinners. The bird world is as complex and rich as any writer could hope for. Malheur certainly fits the definition of complex.
Malheur is not far from Playa, and I was hoping that it would be a stop on my route West, or a day trip away from writing. But the refuge is closed, the workers gone, many scared for themselves and their families. It is hard, for those of us in the East, to understand the Western relationship to land; the conflict between Dwight and Steven Hammond and the National Wildlife Preserve is decades old. So I don’t feel in any way qualified to speak on the situation—should these guys be in jail? I don’t know. What I do know, is that Ammon and Cliven Bundy have taken over the Refuge without support of locals, or the Hammonds. And, according to a writer in the National Law Journal, the standoff is legally untenable and many have written that the Bundy’s understanding of history and the constitution is poor at best. We all want them gone. More importantly: the birds want them gone.
The story that moved me is of the Malheur Field station director leaving the refuge (where birders and others can spend the night—the loss in revenue will be substantial). Before heading out, he spread seed for the wild Quail that count on him through the winter. What will happen to these and other birds, like the Great Horned Owls who have historically nested in the tower where the Bundy’s are staked out?
What I’m interested in is how birders—let’s call us a more peaceful group—have responded to this situation. Birders watch—and we are watching Malheur.
Renée Thompson, a birder and Oregon-based writer, has a terrific—that is historically based and reasonable—blog post on the history of the Refuge. Malheur was first protected in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt (who created the first National Wildlife Refuge, Pelican Island off Florida in 1903, with a snap of the two fingers). The goal was to protect birds. So let’s remember that. But some birders are using the same inflamed language as those who have taken the land, issuing warnings and declarations of “we will get you.” Maybe this is the way to go: fight fire with fire (which is a bad joke, as the at the heart of this stand off is that the Hammonds started a backfire to stop a fire ignited by lightening).
Kenn Kaufman is tweeting on the subject while Andy Revkin in his dot earth blog post for the New York Times analyzes the solutions to the standoff and ends with the intriguing idea of flooding the refuge in the spring with birders. It’s great idea. And then there are suggestions that “old lady birders” (you know, those of us in floppy hats) should stage a sit in. Why not? Is it possible to organize the estimated millions of birders in this country to peacefully win this standoff?
Closed or not, I’m stopping at Malheur to see this land, home to over three hundred species of bird. And for now, what I have to say about the Bundy men taking over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge: Quel Malheur.
A Small Difference
Ucross, Wyoming, population 25, is situated just east of the Bighorn Mountains, on the western edge of the Powder River Basin. It’s 20,000 acres of high desert sagebrush, rubbing up against wetlands, grasslands, and riparian habitat where the Clear and Piney Creeks run. It’s ranchland, dotted with cows and emptiness, studded with boulders tossed from space; there are pockets of petrified wood and lots of cool birds. And the news this fall is that all of this land is now designated an IBA— Important Bird Area—a designation made after careful review by the Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy. 20,000 acres of protected land where birds can breed or migrate through unmolested, is not much in the grand scheme of this planet. But for a few key species—the Greater Sage Grouse and the Long-billed Curlew —these 20,000 acres is a big difference, perhaps the difference of survival.
Ucross, Wyoming, population 25, is situated just east of the Bighorn Mountains, on the western edge of the Powder River Basin. It’s 20,000 acres of high desert sagebrush, rubbing up against wetlands, grasslands, and riparian habitat where the Clear and Piney Creeks run. It’s ranchland, dotted with cows and emptiness, studded with boulders tossed from space; there are pockets of petrified wood and lots of cool birds. And the news this fall is that all of this land is now designated an IBA— Important Bird Area—a designation made after careful review by the Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy. 20,000 acres of protected land where birds can breed or can stop on migration, is not much in the grand scheme of this planet. But for a few key species—the Greater Sage Grouse and the Long-billed Curlew —these 20,000 acres is a big difference.
Fall of 2010 I had my first leave from teaching at Bard College and in that marvelous expanse of time, was able to finish my book, My Reach, while in residency at Ucross. Ucross isn’t a town—there’s no deli or saloon or even a post office. It’s really just the residency, run by energetic, smart people who have created their lives wedged between the vast empty silence of Wyoming and the busy neurosis of grateful creative people who flow through.
While at Ucross, I confess it was hard to push myself indoors to write in my clean, cosy cabin. There was so much outside that I wanted to see—the proghorn and rattlesnakes, but especially the birds. When I arrived, I was but four months into a bird-obsessed life (which continues without slackening). I hardly knew a sparrow from that Loggerhead Shrike but I was out every day getting to know my Vesper Sparrows and Townsend’s Solitaire. One evening I made a trip to a nearby reservoir and in front of my car strolled four birds that looked like goofy chickens with black bellies. Sage Grouse! The landscape I hiked and explored seemed to be filled with unexpected treasures. Soon enough, the Grouse vanished into the sage brush.
Ucross is the child of a visionary oil man from Minnesota, Raymond Plank, who bought the land and refurbished historic homes and schoolhouses to provide a place where artists and writers could realize their potential. Now, he’s providing land where birds can reach their full potential. He tells his story in his memoir, A Small Difference. His relationship to the land, both drilling for oil and protecting it, reveals the complexity of our relationship to land. These two things can co-exist. And it is exactly such moves of protection by Wyoming landowners that we are counting on to save the Greater Sage Grouse.
This fall, the Sage Grouse was under consideration for Endangered Species status. This was hotly debated because to protect the bird would mean to limit all kinds of activity on the land, especially drilling. Trying to avoid a blanket of restrictions that comes with the Endangered listing, landowners and conservation organizations have been working together—just like at Ucross—to provide habitat for the bird to breed. According to data compiled by the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service the species is doing well enough—a breeding population of 432,000— that it was not listed. Usually this failure to list would put me in a funk, but the work of Ucross makes me believe that “do it yourself” land protection might in fact work. I suspend my skepticism because Ucross, after all, is a place where an oilman believes in artists and in birds.
I know that some will remain skeptical that our government fell short. They may have. But Ucross—they’ve made a small difference. Let’s keep adding up those small differences all across the country. For birds. For all of us.