From Snow to Spring Beauties

West Kill is a small town wedged in a wide valley in the Catskill Mountains. The houses nudge each other in the small town, then out route 42 the houses space out, become farms. I wonder about the brave farmers who first settled this valley.

“Do you think you would be lonely living out here?” I ask our car full of women, all dressed for a day hike up West Kill peak. I used to romanticize living far from everyone and everything, craved silence the way some people crave chocolate.  Mary responds quickly, “Yes.” I would be too, I admit.  Though I often spend long days alone I always see another person: the post mistress, or Mikee the baker where I buy a brioche on Wednesday mornings. In the bakery I’ll know someone, share a few words, a laugh. I may only talk to another person for five minutes in a day but that is five minutes of touching the world. I think of these moments as ballast, keeping me upright. This Catskill town’s emptiness feels vast. To add to it, there is evidence, deep, piled up, destroyed evidence of Hurricane Irene from this past fall. Some bridges have been rebuilt, some remain in progress. But the river bed is wide, wider than is needed for the stream that now flows through. The debris that lines the riverbank includes massive logs and piles of brush. Looking at it I sense the force of the water that swept through here, altering this landscape.

The trailhead follows a stream into the hills and to a series of beautiful waterfalls. The trail then shot uphill for two and a half miles. 

I am sure that I used to be a fun hiking companion to Mary and Connie, with whom I’ve shared many peaks. We would gab our way up and down mountains covering life’s most important topics: family, food and sex. Now, I have my binoculars strapped to my chest, eager to see what birds are living their lives on this snowy mountain. Rather than talk, I linger behind everyone looking for movement, or a small chip.

I am rewarded right away with a plump rusty Fox Sparrow. It’s one of my favorite sparrows and not just because we share a name. A Junco trills from the woods and further up the trail I hear a flock of Pine Siskin where they belong: in a pine tree.

Soon we are tromping through snow, and clambering over downed birch trees. We have had so little snow this winter that to walk through the soft layer pleases me.

A picnic on the summit offers one of the finest views from a Catskill Peak I have ever had. Often from these summits there is little or no view. In fact, you hardly know you’ve arrived at the summit. Here, we look into the valleys, the trees brown, but beginning to shade to green with new buds, the spread of the mountain range before us. We pick out other peaks: Plateau, there, Hunter, there, and share food.

view from the summitA Turkey Vulture soars into view. And then a Raven swoops past. I could hear—felt—its wing beats. Perhaps we were sitting too close to a nest.

The quiet of the woods is my company on the descent. Too soon we are out of the snow and back at the stream, the falls. And there to greet us is a patch of Spring Beauties.

Flow On

Water-side trail at Falling WatersIn the final chapter of The Hudson, Carl Carmer writes of how he imagines the Hudson developing, changing, flowing on. The book, published in 1939 as part of the Rivers of America Series, remains a wonderful resource about the history and quirky stories of the river and Carmer is a lively story teller. That Carmer chose to imagine the future is a wonderful task: what might I see if I squinted past tomorrow? It’s not something I have been good at in my own life. Never could I have seen myself living in the Hudson Valley and teaching writing. And yet that I am here feels most natural.

Bloodroot in bloomCarmer cheered that people, ordinary people, were gaining access to the land along the shores of the river, land that had for so long been the preserve of the rich. The rich included the Livingston, Astor, and Vanderbilt families, all of whom had many estates with views that spanned the river.

The movement from rich to ordinary involved an influx of religious from Father Divine and his cult at Crum Elbow to the Ursline nuns in Beacon. When Carmer wrote, of the eight country seats, thirty-three were no long operated as estates and nineteen were medical education or religious institutions. “Thus in a strange way the people have won the river,” Carmer applauds.

Carmer writes about John R. Stuyvesant’s home, Edgewood, three miles north of Poughkeepsie that was sold to the Jesuits and was renamed St. Andrew’s-on-the-Hudson. This Jesuit monastery has become the Culinary Institute of America (known to locals as the CIA). Could he have imagined how these properties would flow on to the next generation?

A property in Saugerties, a  town on the western short of the river just a bit north of Tivoli, has also flowed into the hands of anyone who wants to take a walk by the river. The northern end of the property belonged to Gilbert Spaulding, not one of the rich of the valley, but rather a veterinarian. He named the property Falling Waters, which remains to this day. The Dominican Sisters bought this property in 1931, as well as land where a former ice house operated, in 1932. And there the sisters had a summer vacation retreat. The sisters remain on the property, but they have opened up a portion of it for people to enjoy. Working with Scenic Hudson and the Esopus Creek Conservancy, the sisters have built a system of trails, with stunning views of the river. From time to time a bench invites walkers to sit by one of the two waterfalls. It is one of the few places along the river where you can walk in the woods and skip a stone on the Hudson River.

That is where Peter and I were headed on a drizzly Saturday morning. We had started our day at the Great Vly, a swamp just north of Saugerties, where we were delighted by Virginia Rail skulking its way through the reeds. Coots with their startling white bills hid among the reeds, and Tree Swallows, newly returned, swooped low over the water. Wood ducks took flight making their crying sound, while Horned and Pied-Billed Grebes floated on the placid water. Grebes are neat birds, with lobed toes that make walking on land difficult. So they mostly swim, float, and build floating nests (which I have never seen). The Pied-billed Grebe has a goofy thick bill that makes it one of the cutest birds on a pond.

We then drove to Falling Waters, cheered by our sightings. Had we stopped there, our day would have felt complete. But there’s a hunger that takes over after seeing a few good birds, all of these migrating through. Perhaps there were other treasures that had flown in through the night?

The trails at Falling Waters are gentle, winding through the woods, with strategic views onto the river, east to Magdalen Island, and north of that the Village of Tivoli. I always enjoy viewing my village from a different perspective, to see the crooked line of Friendship Street and the houses that open out to the water. But they are gazing across the railroad tracks. Here, no tracks ran nearby to jar our walk. We passed vinca in bloom and Bloodroot as well. Spring is here.

In the next two hours we had an assortment of ducks that had us grinning with excitement, above all the Long-tailed Ducks, with tails that look like they are a radio-receiver. There were Bufflehead and a Double-crested Cormorant. The Cormorants would stick around through the summer but the other birds were just moving through, all part of the cycles of a bird in migration.

The day seemed complete, but we couldn’t help ourselves; if these birds were floating through what other migrants might also be in the area? It was my first day of spring break, and I had promised myself a rest from papers and grades. So there was no reason not to head back to the water’s edge.

Our good luck continued with more Bufflehead on the water, joined by Green-winged Teal and to Peter’s disbelief five Red-breasted Mergansers. We stood on the edge of the river, which was at low tide, to get a better look. Indeed, the birds did have dark chests and wispy crests, unlike the more rounded head of the Common Merganser.

It was dusk when we drove out of the parking lot, tired from gazing onto the gray waters of the river, the light shimmering through thick clouds.

View North from Falling Waters“Let’s check the waterfront,” I suggested. Glasco has a small waterfront park, situated on the water in front of their water treatment plant. Birds often congregate there. My suggestion felt like greediness of another order.

“You don’t stop, do you?” Peter asked with a grin, turning toward the waterfront.

We pulled out the scopes, scanned the river.

“My god,” Peter said.

I peered into his scope. More Long-tailed ducks. I grinned.

We scanned some more.

“My god,” Peter said. He stepped away from the scope. “Just look.”

I looked, recognizing right away that we had some more Grebes. This time, Red-necked Grebes, a bird I had never seen before, bobbing in the fading light. Two neat birds with elegant flat heads, and red necks. They were making their way north, to breed somewhere in the Arctic.

Flow on. Flown on. Water, land and air: movement is inevitable. Land changes hands, birds fly north then south. Rivers are movement; this river carries birds and trash and once carried bricks and ice. Sometimes this flow is encouraging, sometimes unnerving, but always it is inevitable. To walk on some of the land of change, to see some of the flow in the fading light of a gray day makes me feel lucky. Flow on.   

First Paddle of the Season

When I arrived at the Tivoli landing at 5 in the evening a group of people were hanging out at the dock, playing bad music and chatting. I didn’t know anyone and for a moment I had this horrible feeling that my landing, my reach, had been taken over and was no longer mine.

This feeling vanished once I was on the water. The air shifted between spookily warmed and cooler patches that rose from the water itself. The smell was of an enclosed room that needed to be aired out after a winter. I pushed South against the current and a level wind. Moving slowly, I was able to take in my river for the first time this season. And this is what I thought: there’s a lot of garbage out here.

It’s not a romantic thought, I know. Usually when I write about paddles in my reach, I glow with a certain satisfaction that I am in one of the prettiest places I know. But on this evening things looked raw, barren, the colors gray and brown dominated. I struggled to find my way into the beauty of a place I have come to love.

My delight commenced once I slipped under the railroad bridge and into the North Tivoli Bay. A Northern Harrier loped through the air, skimming the tops of the dried cattails. Red Winged Blackbirds made their dinsintctive conkladee call. A flock of Black Ducks flushed, taking to the air. I was back in my world.

The crocuses are up. The first Woodcock peented ten days ago. The bright yellow Winter Aconite dots the woods. Yesterday Peter and I found a Wilson’s Snipe as well as some Painted Turtles sunning on a log. It’s spring. It’s a time of firsts. You would think that at mid-age I would not get so excited over crocuses in the garden, but it’s the opposite in fact. Every year it seems to be more miraculous; those flowers bring me more pleasure. I took the cycles of the seasons for granted when I was younger; now I feel lucky I’m here for another round.

But my most treasured first is this first paddle of the season. It always feels as if something miraculous should happen. What did happen: I felt a tightness in my right shoulder, and then an ache in my lower back. I felt the cold seep through the bottom of the boat to cool my feet. The sky hung gray and uninviting over the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge. I liked this quiet reentry into this water world, into my reach. The miracle was in the familiar, the grays and browns, the garbage, the ordinary.

As I returned to the big river, the Catskills shimmered in the distance, and shadows stretched in front of me. I started to see colors emerge, and felt the joy of movement under a wide gray sky.

Rufous-capped Warbler

Florida CanyonOn my first day in Arizona, my friend Deb and I went in search of a Rufous-capped Warbler, a bird that lives in Mexico but from time to time pops over the border. This bird had flown north, to Florida Canyon, a small canyon just north of Madera Canyon, one of Southern Arizona’s birding hotspots. The Arizona birding community was in motion to see this special yellow bird with its rufous cap.

That day, we had had no luck finding the bird. No one that day found it, not even the friendly couple who had driven down from Tempe. They helped us identify the Hammond’s flycatcher, and when I pointed toward the sky he was the first to call it: Golden Eagle. Later, we joined this couple sitting on a bench and watching one of the famous feeders in Madera Canyon as Lesser Goldfinch and Bridled Titmouse came and went. Everyone but me drove home disappointed. I hardly cared about finding such a special bird—I was still intent on orienting myself in this new birding landscape, on finding the usual birds. I was happy—no, thrilled--with my Black-throated Sparrow (not to be confused with the Black-chinned Sparrow) and with the Lesser Goldfinch, and the Bridled Titmouse birds I had never seen before.

Two days later, Deb and I left for Bisbee stopping at Patagonia Lake on the way there. As we left Tucson, a flock of Gambel’s Quail crossed the road. I had Deb pull over as I admired the plump birds that disappeared amidst prickly pear, and palo verde.

“It’s hard to get excited about them,” Deb said as I delighted in seeing the birds and mentally checked them off of my imaginary life list.  “There were half a dozen in my backyard this morning.”

Coot on Patagonia LakeI thought of the birds I saw every day in my tiny back yard in Tivoli. There were too many house sparrows at the feeder these days. They were joined by house finches. Yes, I was tired of both of these birds, and yearned for something a bit more special. But these brown little birds were not as cute as a Gambel’s Quail. How could anyone tire of them with their plumy bonnets? The Quail is named for William Gambel, a little known 19^th century ornithologist who explored the West. When he found the birds he wrote: “We met with small flocks of this handsome species…inhabiting the most barren brushy plains…where a person would suppose it to be impossible for any animal to subsist.” But here it was and here it has remained, flourishing in a hard place.

I wondered at how spoiled Arizona birders are. There are wonderful birds year round—they hardly knew the poverty of an east coast winter where we are left with silence and stillness and hope. And they have the luxury of becoming bored with an adorable bird. I was painfully jealous and spent the rest of my trip fantasizing moving to Patagonia, a sleepy, quaint town near the Mexico border with  a restaurant that sells great BLTs and amazing birding areas from people’s backyard feeders to Patagonia Lake. This is also the location of the famous “Patagonia Picnic Table.”

Deb and I spent a lot of time hopping across the maze of small streams that leak into the Lake, which is filled with Common Mergansers, Pied-billed Grebes and Coots.  Great blue herons poke the edges and somewhere in the sycamore trees lurked a Trogon. A man with a large camera ran up to us, his breath short, his heart racing. “Today I am the luckiest man in the world.” And he showed us a photo of the Trogon. I did not see the Trogon but everything from the Gambel’s Quail to all of the birds at Patagonia made me feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

Those Arizona sunsets!Deb and I spent several days driving through grasslands, hiking up canyons, tromping through high desert and swooning over sunsets. We saw 115 species of birds (not that I’m counting). Of these, 36 were new birds or me. I was now back in Tucson, tired and satisfied. That’s when Deb called to ask if I wanted one last shot at the Rufous-capped warbler.  This was purely a generous offer as she had seen the bird on a day I had visited Catalina State Park alone.

“I’d be up for it,” she said in her off hand manner.

“Really? You’d go down there again?” I smiled into my cell phone.

Deb was indefatigable. So off we drove on my last day in Arizona to find the warbler. We arrived at the lonely canyon around 9 in the morning, not exactly prime birding time. But the sun was just beginning to touch down in the desert canyon. We walked by a dry streambed where sycamore trees grew strong. We passed through a gate, and started up the dusty, rocky trail.

Coming out of the canyon was a trio of birders. They all looked glum, shaking their heads. “No warbler.”

This didn’t dull my enthusiasm, somehow I sensed that Deb and I were a golden duo. After all, we’d seen the black-chinned sparrow, hadn’t we?

We crossed over a dam, water trickling over the edge, green algae lacing the edge of the spill. Then we tromped by a narrow stream, thick with brush. Above us white-throated swifts soared. A photographer passed us, also looking discouraged. “It’s not here,” he declared.

“OK,” I said, remaining confident.

He headed downstream, while Deb and I climbed a bit higher.

Deb on a warbler huntDeb perched on a rock, small binoculars to her eyes.  “Got it,” she said, all confidence and some glee in her voice.

I snapped my binoculars to my eyes and there it was, the yellow warbler with a striking brown cap. I motioned to the photographer, and he ran back, camera at the ready. The bird flit from one bush to the next, escaping any but the briefest looks. But this small chase delighted me. Deb and I hopped along rocks by the streambed, emerging scratched and my pants ripped.

We returned to Deb’s car, the trip ending on a high note, thanks to Deb’s persistence and generosity. 116 birds, 37 of them new for me.  But everyone one of them a special bird.