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

Pyramiden

The Antigua docked at Pyramiden in the evening and Sascha, the guide to Pyramiden came on board. He was slender, mid-thirties, with shoulder length black hair that needed a wash.  He gave a brief history of the town, without cracking a smile.

Pyramiden is a Russian ghost town of the north. It was founded by the Swedes to mine coal from the pyramidal shaped mountain in 1910. In 1927 they sold it to the Soviet Union. The town, on the  Billefjorden, was officially closed in 1998 but about 20 people continue to live there, running a small tourist business.

When Sascha was done talking, someone offered him a drink.

“I don’t drink,” he said in a strong Russian accent. “I smoke weeeeeed.” We all laughed.  Sascha continued with his deadpan look, eyes wide.

Our guide to PyramidenThe night before, Antigua had docked in Berentsberg, a still active Russian coal mining town (owned by the Russian mining company Arktikugol, which also owns Pyramiden). The school in Berentsberg is solid yellow brick, painted with images of whales and bears and a great gray owl in blues and reds and purple. But despite the cheerfulness of these drawings, the place was decidedly depressing, with buildings falling down and workers, who sign on for two year stints, passing without a glance or a smile. So I wasn’t prepared for how alive Pyramiden would feel.

The next day Sascha greeted us wearing a Russian cap and a long, formal coat. His rifle slung over his shoulder, he looked like a guard outside of the royal palace. He began the tour of the of the once wealthy community by telling us that “It was a privilege to live here.” He showed us the northernmost empty swimming pool, and the cultural center complete with a stage and the northernmost out of tune grand piano. Outside stood the northernmost statue to the grandfather, Lenin. The wide, open central walkway of the town was known as the Champs Elysee, and the apartment reserved for women was known as Paris. Now only two women live in town, and Sascha lives “like a monk.” Above the town hovered the wooden frame that houses the rails of the coal mining cars. It snaked high up the mountain. On the face of the pyramidal mountain someone had placed wooden planks spelling out Peace on Earth.

Kittiwake hotelLike many abandoned places, wildlife has moved in. What was once yellow brick apartments was now a Kittiwake hotel. On every window ledge the white gulls had constructed mud and grass nests where they sat brooding over their eggs. The constant calls of the gulls sounded like Italian mothers sitting at a balcony chatting with each other. From time to time there would be a silence, followed soon by a great uproar.

A short walk brought us to some healthy looking reindeer. “This is special grass,” Sascha explained. When Pyramiden was in its heyday rich soil was brought in by ship from the Ukraine. “Big ship, Ukraine to Pyramiden,” he repeated to emphasize the absurdity of this. It isn’t special grass, it’s really just grass, but it doesn’t belong in this landscape. It did thrive, however, and for a time there was a farm, complete with cows and chickens. The grass is still growing green and the reindeer love it.

Coal mine on Pyramiden mountainFurther on a fox crept across the above-ground pipes, then turned and stared at us. Nearby, a line of charred wood made me wonder if this could be the remains of what was burned during the Second World War. The town was abandoned and destroyed as the Nazis approached. In 1946, Russians returned, building what we now toured, all proof that communism works.

Until Berentsberg and Pyramiden I was living with one image of the north, one filled with icebergs and snow covered mountains and fantastic wildlife. From time to time we’d pass a wooden trappers hut, which told the story of subsistence hunting on this land, a life spare and hard that is easily romanticized (for the best of such narratives, read Christiane Ritter's A Woman in the Polar Night). I was imagining a peaceful land as well, not one touched by war. Pyramiden re-sculpted my view of the north into something less pristine, less peaceful. Pyramiden might be a ghost town, but the story it tells brought to life the complexity of this Arctic landscape.

August 15, 2014 in Arctic, Birds, Norway, Travel

Little Auk

PuffinI left the narrow, gravel beach and walked across the layer of snow, uphill, toward the side of the half green mountain towering above us. From time to time the grainy snow collapsed under my weight and I punched through to thigh level. At one point, my foot came up without the Muck boot; I dug down to liberate my boot.

At the top of the short hill stood Sara Blue with her husky dog Nemo. I wondered if, standing there scanning into the distance for bears, she was bored or content. Did she want conversation or to be left with the silence of the Arctic landscape?

That silence was punctuated by the calls of the Little Auks (known in the States as Dovekies) on the mountainside above us. I could see the flurry of activity of the auks, skimming left and right in small flocks. Their busyness was dizzying, dots disappearing against a craggy mountainside, or landing on a flank of the mountain, like pepper sprinkled to season to the snow. They seemed to know what they wanted, where they were going.  Self preservation and propagation—that is the whole story.

Black Guillemot“What does that sound make you think of?” I asked Sara Blue.

She hesitated a moment and leaned back on her hips, her legs spread wide. She was wearing a thick wool sweater and blue pants. Her gun rested easy on her shoulder.

“It’s not a sound that belongs here,” she said.

I smiled. She was right, the cheerfulness of the birds seemed out of place in this vast, austere landscape tinted with grays and whites. Below me the ship sat quiet at anchor in a green-gray sea.

The calls made me think of a warmer climate, of a bazaar in North Africa. I thought of the chase scene in Casablanca, the chaos of cars and voices calling out with things for sale. These little black and white birds did not have narrow streets to negotiate but the entire side of a mountain on which to sell their wares. They were dots of vibrant life coming together in a “loomery” (a group of Auks can also be called a colony or a raft—but loomery, can’t beat that).

Little Auks in flightThe Little Auk is a surely tenacious bird. It’s the smallest of the Alcids, that family of birds that includes the Black Guillemot (which kept our ship company throughout the trip), and Puffins (Atlantic Puffins floated near the ship as well). They are shaped like a nerf football, and when they fly it’s as if they have been launched, fast and precise, by the finest quarterback. They are black on top and white below, with a stubby bill. Against a blue sky, they look like sparkling snowflakes.

When I travelled to Alaska, seeing a Dovekie wasn’t a given. On the island of Gambell, we scanned a high cliff laced with Least and Crested Auklets to find one lone Dovekie. And then a few months later, one showed up at home, in New York.  The call went out to all of the local birders, the little bird a sensation. Perhaps it had been blown off course from Greenland, home to the largest breeding ground of Dovekie’s (about 30 million). Where Dovekies spend the winter is out in the open ocean, at the edge of the ice. They come to land only to create life.

Little Auks dotting the snow sideWhen Nansen and Johansen head south from their winter alone on the ice where they sleep as much as 20 hours a day, the first birds they see are Little Auks. It is February 25^th and lovely weather, even spring-like. A flock of six Little Auks fly by, then a flock of four. “Once more we heard their cheerful twittering, and it roused a responsive echo in the soul. …It was the first greeting from life. Blessed birds, how welcome you are!” 119 years later, standing below that busy mountain of Little Auks, I too felt that blessed echo in my soul.

Arctic Birding

Northern Fulmar in flightI often tell people that if they want to learn birds, start in the winter (at least on the East Coast). Learn the limited winter birds well and in May, the height of migration, you’ll notice a song or color different from what has become familiar. Another option is to start birding in the Arctic.

There are few species in the Arctic—and often lots of what is there. You can see hundreds of Little Auks, Kittiwakes, Black Guillemots, Arctic Terns. There is time to memorize the shape of each of these birds at a distance, to love the orange-red feet of the Black Guillemots, to marvel at the grace of the Arctic Skua. If you memorize those birds that come to the Arctic in the thousands to breed, you will then pay attention when something new comes along, like a Long-tailed Skua.

Long-tailed SkuaThe other upside of of Arctic birding is that there are no songs to memorize—the only bird singing is the Snow Bunting. The Long-tailed Duck make their marvelous, yodeling call, and the Arctic Terns cackle as they fly overhead, but these calls of mating or alarm are easily added to a birder’s repertoire. Above all, you don’t have to pick the birds out of dense bushes or leafy tress: there they are, in all their glory, flying in a blue blue sky or perched on an ice berg.

Birding from the deck of the AntiguaIn two weeks of traveling by boat in the Arctic I saw but 30 species of birds. And that was hours every day on deck, on shore, scanning into the distance, past icebergs and around glaciers, into the gray or blue sky. The most constant companion on the boat became my favorite bird of the trip: the Fulmar.

At first, the Fulmar seems a dull bird: a gull sized sea bird, grayish in color. But they were such great acrobats it was hard not to admire and then love them. Often, a Fulmar soared a foot above the water, not a wing-beat keeping it aloft. It would bank toward the boat and then glide over the deck before plunging to water level once again. Several of the birds played with the ship like this for hours. I made it a sport to try and photograph the birds in flight, but they snuck up on the ship in such a way that they most often caught me off guard.

FulmarOne afternoon our boat floated near one of many green blue glaciers for a few hours. Kittiwakes mobbed the base of the glacier and from time to time a hunk of  ice calved off, putting all the birds into the air. Meanwhile, near the boat, Fulmars floated. They dunked their heads into the water and then, like trying to perform a butterfly stroke, they lifted their wings. But the wings barely made it out of the water, as if a wing were broken, the bird floundering. When I first saw a Fulmar bathing like this I thought it might be wounded, slowly drowning. But soon I realized there were many flopping about in the water near the glacier. Perhaps this water is fresher, washing off some of the salt from the long winter at sea.

The Fulmar belongs to that strange family of birds with tube noses, the Procellariiformes. Fulmars have a short, thick bill with a tube on top through which they secret excess salt water. This allows them to live in the ocean, coming on land only to breed (they are long-lived and late breeders, starting at 8-10 years old). I spied a few content on an ice flow, and when one rose to move about, it was clear those legs are not made for walking.  

pick out the special bird!The birds that Nansen sees in 1896 are those that I saw in 2014.  “We had not expected to meet with much bird life in these desolate regions. Our surprise, therefore, was not small when on Whitsunday a gull paid us a visit.” They regularly see birds including Kittiwakes, and the big and aggressive Glaucous gull, which he calls a blue gull, the Black Guillemot, Ivory Gull, and of course the Fulmar.  Nansen’s pleasure in the birds is lovely to read. The difference in his pleasure and mine, is that the birds are not just beautiful to see.  “Today my longing has at last been satisfied. I have shot Ross’s gull.”  Well, my longing was not satisfied: I never saw the rare Ross’s gull.