Green Woodpecker, Estampes

Green woodpeckers are common in France. But not so common that I’ve been able to see one in the ten days that I have been here. And I want to see one. Something about woodpeckers I find fascinating, and the names help. When I saw a three toed woodpecker (really, three toes?) in Maine, I was thrilled. When this past Christmas Peter and I saw a black woodpecker in the forest of Fontainbleau outside of Paris it was the highlight of the trip (not, as some might think, visiting Notre Dame…). So a green woodpecker was my goal for the morning as I rose at 6—the world still dark and quiet—and was out before seven. I walked south out of town, a winter wren singing to me from a bush that has taken over the courtyard of the abandoned house that once belonged to Francine. In the freshly cut field to one side I see a fox trotting my way.  It’s tail is thick, a dark red, lined with brown. It doesn’t see me, so I stand still, and watch. I can tell what route it intends to take, out of the field, across the road and into the corn. So I pull out my camera and wait until it is mid-road. As I snap the photo, he becomes aware I am there, and picks up his pace as he moves into the corn and vanishes so fast.

The sun pops over the hills on the eastern end of the valley and the world is washed in light. The fields of sunflowers and corn look magical, bright. I hear the cackle of woodpeckers in the far woods. As I make my way there, I hear a gunshot from the same woods. It is not any hunting season so I decide that may not be the place to walk. Still, I loiter about on the bridge that separates the Gers from the Haute Pyrenees, visiting with a great tit, and some red tails.

taken with a point and shoot!The return brings me a sparrowhawk in a tree, its long tail magnificent when it flies. And then I hear it, the cackle of a woodpecker in flight. It lands in a tree and I rush my binoculars to my eyes. I see it, green, with a splotch of red on top of its head: my green woodpecker. I can feel my heart race with excitement.

And here’s the strange thing: by the end of the day I will see five of these green woodpeckers. The question is, were they around all the time and I simply did not see them? Or, have they emerged? I think probably the former, how knowing what to look for triggers something in our minds so that we can see it again. I remember when I first followed the call of the great crested flycatcher to find the bird sallying at the top of a tree. After that moment, I heard and saw flycatchers every day, and a bird I did not know,  seemed suddenly a common bird.

I loop up the hill, taking the long way home, and another woodpecker screams overhead, landing in a nearby tree. Also green! I feel as if I have conjured these birds.

I walk the same path I walked last night. It was the full moon, the Sturgeon Moon. At home, I always paddle out into the night on the full moon, and the Sturgeon Moon is my favorite (yes, there’s a chapter in my book devoted to the somewhat hallucinatory experience of paddling the full moon). So a walk through the village would have to substitute for my watery ramblings. The moon shone down, illuminating the rough road, but not bright enough that I could find the owl calling from behind a crumbling house.

Odette and chickenWhen I arrive in Odette’s barn, to say good morning and tell her my woodpecker news (Odette has taken to my birding, giving me tips of birds she has seen), she has a chicken slung under her arm. The chicken has been sitting on its nest, trying to hatch her eggs. Odette is sticking it in a cage—sticking it in solitary confinement as it were—in the barn. The chicken has water and food. She’ll spend two days meditating on her eggs and come out a new bird, Odette tells me. No more trying to hatch them; the chicken will go back to laying.

I wonder when Odette, now 82, will stop tending to her chickens. Last night as we sat outside in the courtyard and ate our dinner of duck confit made by Odette we were all aware that this was the last time we would eat this rich, dense meat. The days of raising ducks, of feeding them corn, then making foie gras and confit are over. It’s just too much work.

One winter I was living in the house and would hover in the barn while Odette fed her ducks. It was an odd, loving process. She would place the duck in a box, its neck sticking out. Then she’d straddle the box and take the duck’s neck in her hands (vegetarians can just skip the rest of this account). She’d talk to the duck, massaging its neck. Then she would insert a long funnel, and grind the corn that would fall directly into the duck’s stomach. In this way, it fattened beyond what is natural. Any stress or abrupt motions might break the duck’s neck. So Odette’s movements were gentle, tender.

That was the case as she stuck the chicken into its cage to relearn its relationship with eggs. She spoke to the bird, reminding it to drink water, to be well.

Why I Love a Storm

At six thirty in the evening my young friends Sasha and Liza knock on my door. I have a headlamp attached to my forehead to guide me in making dinner, something exciting like rice and beans. “We’re collecting food that might go bad and making dinner at the bar,” Sasha explains. The bar has gas burners so they can still cook. Many have electric powered stoves so they are out of luck. We are not supposed to have power for the next two to three days so things will no doubt start to turn in the fridge. It’s a great idea. But I have almost nothing in my fridge. So I take them out to my garden and give them tomatoes and chard, some basil. Who knows what they will cook up, but I love that what they want to do is feed everyone after a long day of wind and rain.

In a big storm, birds are pushed north, ahead of the winds. For a birder this is a chance to find rare birds, that is, southern birds not usually seen in these parts. So Peter and I are up at six, and soon driving through a grey, torrential downpour toward the Hudson River in Kingston. The roads are littered with debris from trees: twigs, leaves. A few downed trees block roads. Lights are out at intersections but there is little traffic at this early hour, so the road is ours.

As we navigate the streets of East Kingston we spy the white truck of our friend Mark DeDea. He has spied us as well, and backs up to join us. I love this, that the only other car on the road is a nutty birder, doing what we are doing: stomping around in plastic boots, soaked to the skin looking for birds.

As we walk down an abandoned train track to peer into the grey mist, a flock of birds circle in the distance and both Peter and Mark get excited. These are good birds. They are Hudsonian Godwits, birds with long upturned bills heading north, into the wind but away from the storm. How do they know to do this? And will they escape the fury of this storm? I feel my heart constrict as I think about this remarkable flight.

We drive north, dodging downed trees and listening to the radio that tells us to stay home. I couldn’t stay indoors and miss the wind that knocks the floating docks against the shoreline at Glasco. We look into the grey, straining to see some birds. And as we stand there cars circle into the small town park. Everyone wants to see the waves, the rising water. But few get out of their cars to experience the wind.

Wind! That is why I love a storm.  

The day after the storm it is all blue sky, all smiles, as if nothing has happened. But there are still trees littering the roads and in the river the most amazing range of debris: a fuel tank, a bar-b-que, hundreds—thousands?—of bottles, an entire dock, all of the water chestnut that has ripped out and rafted south. There are many without power and further south there are people who have lost their lives to this storm. Everyone is pitching in after the storm, friends calling me to be sure all is ok, and me calling others to learn that all is ok, and everyone there to help out if help is needed. There is good will and gratefulness and, I dare say, even love. Love for this world, each other, this life, the birds, the wind.

Fox and Chickens

Francis Morlass arrives in the morning to check the trap he has set for the fox, which has killed a few of Odette’s chickens. The plan is to catch it in a have a heart trap and then shoot it. I’m on the side of the fox, of course. Not that I want it to take Odette’s chickens, but I want it to live, to thrive. So to rid me of my wild animal love Odette tells me stories of how destructive the fox can be. There was the time she came into the chicken coop and found all nineteen of her chickens dead. “A massacre,” she explains. I get it that tending to chickens every day would make me want to protect them, but more—they are worth something, as a meal for Odette.

Almost every morning on my walk I see fox. They work the freshly cut fields of hay. I stood and watched one stalk and pounce, all four feet lifting off before it landed on its prey. But so far the chicken-stealing fox is not trappable. He’s sprung the trap twice but has not yet been taken. I’ll continue to quietly side with the fox and publicly hope that Odette’s chickens are safe. Both of these things can be true.

Francis is outdoors a lot and loves the natural world. He’s about an inch shorter than I am, but square, like he was built to move things around. He has a quick smile and like most Gascons, can stand and chat forever. Odette tells him I am looking for birds, and right away  he says: we see birds here that we never saw before. He is not the first to say this to me, so I’m beginning to think there’s a real shift in the area. I ask if there is a reason for this. They both agree that it is because there’s less use of pesticides in the fields. Neither say anything about global warming.

find the foxWhat is new is the cattle egret that I see accompanying the cows in the fields. Francis tells me that Damian shoots at the egrets (one explanation for why I find the birds here so skittish) to scare them off. But Francis likes them: they eat flies. He has a lot less flies since the egrets have arrived. The other new birds are the kingfisher, a bright blue, practically turquoise on the back. There’s the Hoopoe, he tells me. I look it up later and see a black and white bird with a long bill and a dramatic crest.  I want to see one! And the oriole. As he tells me this, the bright yellow bird lands at the top of the fig tree in front of us. I point it out to them, and they both say, “yes, the oriole loves to eat figs.” So do I. So I walk over to the tree and take a fig to eat as I begin my morning walk.

The "Wonderful-Pitiful" song of the Henslow's Sparrow

When I end up at a particularly beautiful spot, or see a particularly wonderful creature in the woods, I often think back on the series of choices that landed me there at that perfect moment. I had to head out at such a time. I had to turn left, not right. Sometimes it seems so random—how does one get to see that eagle or fox?—and always I feel lucky that I was there to see.

Last Saturday, what first felt so lucky was the black bear. Peter and I were walking a wide path in the woods of Partridge Run Game Management Area near Rensselaerville, New York. The trees are thin but dense, so we were in a cool shade, at a higher altitude; the sun sprinkled through the summer-green leaves. In the shape-shifting light, a galumpfing creature took shape to my left. I first imagined dog, then realized it was too big, and dark. “Peter,” I whispered, as he was just ahead of me. I scanned for the mother. “No mother,” Peter explained. “This is a first year bear.” That is, this was the first year that the bear was on its own. It didn’t seem to notice us, 150 feet away. He wandered into the woods, then turned, showing us its long muzzle framed with brown fur. Its dark eyes. It looked at us, then swung around and on its way.

We saw a few birds including several  more northern species, like the junco and white-throated sparrow, at this higher altitude. But the woods were quiet. Though a birder likes for things to be well, birdy, in some ways, I enjoyed the quiet. When we heard a song it stood out. I could be sure I knew what I was hearing: yellow-bellied sapsucker, rose-breasted grosbeak,  blackburnian warbler, chestnut-sided warbler (photo of chestnut-sided at left).

As hunger took over we packed up and continued our drive north. This was the second time this summer that we were taking mini-vacations, that is trips two hours or less from home. We would explore, find a place to stay but not go that far. Peter wanted to see the Upland Sandpiper that had been reported in a horse field near Ames. We drove north, spying many kestrels on the phone lines. I haven’t seen many kestrels this year so to see several of these beautiful, little falcons cheered me.

On west Ames road we scanned the fields as we drove slowly, the windows down, listening for birds. This area of New York is a gorgeous series of rolling fields,  some freshly mowed, but also lots of open fields filled with wildflowers, the wild parsnip that looks so like a yellow-green version of Queen Anne’s Lace. At thirty to forty miles an hour Peter can pick up sounds that erupt from the wide fields.  Bobolink. Savannah Sparrow. Meadowlark. “Stop,” Peter directed. He’s heard the Upland Sandpiper—really a sound worth listening to--working a field on the north side of the road. We get out and see the long legged bird—a bird I would expect to see trotting the sand of high tide line (though on this I am utterly mistaken, it is a “shorebird of grasslands”)—working through the tall grass, nicely camouflaged with its speckled breast and long straight bill. It seemed to be a mother and two young, though it was hard to tell as they kept well away from the road. It was wonderful to see these birds. Still, seeing them was not one of those moments of random encounter, because someone else had found them and reported them on the New York State bird list. We knew where to find them.

We folded back into the car, and decided to start looking for a place to stay. But a narrow country road that flowed uphill drew me in. “Mind if I just see what’s up here?” I asked as I turned south. These are the sorts of roads that would be paradise for a cyclist. Quiet, with endless skies and long views. Earlier we’d seen Amish buggies moving along such roads. The day was perfect, cool enough under a high sun. And here’s where the series of choices comes in. At the top of Mac Phail Road, at a level crest of the hill Peter asked me to stop. We didn’t even get out of the car, but just sat and listened. And then Peter’s face lit up. “My god, Henslow’s!” he said, throwing open the car door. There was no mistaking what Peter describes as the “wonderful-pitiful” song of the Henslow’s (a song I could easily have missed). Peter grabbed his camera and we scanned the field until the bold little bird perched up on the parsnip, singing away.

The Henslow’s Sparrow doesn’t belong in this part of New York State. It’s range ends west of us, and even there it is, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “uncommon and famously inconspicuous.” If I’m honest, it’s not a particularly interesting bird to look at, with its light brown breast and streaked upper parts. What was most distinctive was the big bill on such a small bird. But what was completely intoxicating was Peter’s thrill at finding this bird.

Sun-cooked, elated and exhausted we were on a bird-high. When you find one special bird, you want a flock of special birds. It’s an odd greed, but it seized us both. We drove toward Root, hoping to see the Mississippi Kite that had been reported earlier in the spring. Was it still around? But our greed was not fulfilled.

We now had to find a place to stay for the night. We wanted a pool to cool off in. And we wanted something a lot less ragged looking than the motel off of route 90, which blasts across the northern part of the State. After an hour of calls, and hesitation we had the good luck of landing at the B&B A White Rose in Fort Plain. The owner Melissa was welcoming but not over-bearing. The rooms reflected her: comfortable but not overdone.  

On our return the next day, we stopped at the Mine Kill Falls. A young man was peering into the trees, but without binoculars. I wandered over to ask what he was doing. Listening and looking for the Canadian Cicada. Okanagana Canadensis, he told us. He had driven up from New York City to find out how far south the Canadian Cicada travels. He was thrilled to have found them. We listened with him. Peter and I both immediately recognized the sound, one we had heard many times before.

We were an odd bunch, standing looking into the trees. And a lucky bunch. I thought about the choices this young man had made to land here in this park to find his Cicada. And the choices we had made to see a black bear, or to find a special but ordinary-looking bird—up MacPhail Road, and a stop by that wide, green field, just when the bird wanted to sing.

(There really is a bear in this final photo! Photo of the chestnut-sided warbler and the Henslow's Sparrow are by Peter. This photo and finding this bird generated a lot of interest in the birding world--people drove from Manhattan the next day--four hours--to see it.)