Arctic Dreams

 “Sometimes there’s an owl, and sometimes there isn’t,” explains Pa in Jane Yolen’s beautiful book, Owl Moon. And what I want to add is: those “sometimes” are not of equal weight. It should read: very infrequently there is an owl, but every now and again when you are super lucky there is an owl. But that is too clunky and it’s important to keep hope, especially for children.

I am a person of hope, which means I spend a lot of time looking up pine trees for owls. I have been rewarded a few times, especially last January when I found a long-eared owl. But if I clocked the number of hours I look for owls, I would be embarrassed.

Come winter I start to hope for something really special, like a snowy owl, that gorgeous, large, white owl that brings news from the Arctic. My goal is to find one, but short of that, I was happy to go see one that had been posted to various bird sites for a few weeks now. It was hanging out near a reservoir on the New Jersey, Pennsylvania border. So on the day after Thanksgiving Peter and I decided to try and find this wintering bird.

MeadowlandsWe had spent Thanksgiving morning not helping with cooking the family feast, but rather birding in the Meadowlands. I’ve always been intrigued by the Meadowlands—a grassy, tidal area that I whiz past on the New Jersey Turnpike, usually rushing to Newark Airport. It doesn’t sound particularly appealing, with a capped dump nearby. But on a sunny, calm day, it was beautiful. In the distance we could see Manhattan, and in front of that the steady flow of traffic on the Turnpike. But what we focused on were a series of ducks: a black duck, a set of ruddy ducks with their erect little tails, buffleheads, with their dramatic black and white heads, and a duck with a black butt—a Gadwall. We then threw in our weight with the pumpkin pie (both making and eating).

Black Friday, while some had already spent a few hours shopping, we were speeding toward Pennsylvania, passing right by the Merrill Creek Reservoir near Phillipsburg, New Jersey. No one had posted a sighting of the owl in the past few days so we headed out with scope, cameras and only a little bit of hope. The parking lot had a line up of cars; all were intent on seeing the owl.

The reservoir is a beautiful, vast lake, a few ring-billed gulls loitering overhead. A pair of bald eagles perched in a tree. We walked down a wide dirt path then along a breakwater. A jumble of scree lined the breakwater that held the water back. And somewhere in that scree sat an owl. In other words we were looking for white on light grey.

We passed a trio of birders heading home.

“See the owl?”
“No owl,” they reported. And I felt my heart sink.

But they had seen a red-necked grebe. My heart lifted a little.

There is a bird in there!The other birders scanned the scree in search of the bird. So did we. The slope was vast, tundra-like, exactly what this bird knew best. And then I put my binoculars to my eyes and there was a rock that moved. That had black spots. That was shaped like an owl. That was an owl. My hands shook in excitement.

A snowy owl hunts at dawn and dusk. And for the rest of the day it rests, in the sun. And that is what it did while we watched, and photographers took thousands of photos of every yawn and fluff. And it watched us as well. And then we left it to sleep, to carry on its Arctic dreams.

Photo by Peter Schoenberger

Hunting

“The river is calm,” the man said, walking past me and my boat. I nodded in agreement. But he wasn’t a boater, just a man at the launch at 7 in the morning with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

The water grabs my ankles, seeps through my aqua socks. Too cold already.  I slip into my boat and settle in. A few strokes out I pause to take stock of a large freight boat shoving north. The water is calm, for now. Ten minutes later the bow of my boat slaps into the water.

The far shore is speckled with the early morning light, while the eastern shore remains cloaked in shade. I have on two jackets to keep warm. But the rotation of my shoulders and torso warms me quickly. I spy a few yellow-rumped warblers in the scraggly bushes that grow in the rocky shoreline.

The north Tivoli Bay lures me in. As I glide under the train overpass, the stillness of the bay immediately wraps me like a comfortable blanket. I stop paddling and coast.  In front of me is a dock that cut loose during Hurricane Irene. It washed into the Bay a few weeks ago and stands there, an odd adornment in a wide bay.

I move forward, wondering what treasures I will find this morning in the north bay when gunshots erupt from the reeds. My shoulders hunch. Duck season. I should have known that the same place I wanted to be would be where a hunter wanted to be. Part of me believes we can both be in this bay, part of me doesn’t want to get hit by a stray bullet.

Just as I decide I should backtrack onto the river I hear the call of a great horned owl.  Hoot hoot hoot hoot. It’s like a magnet to my heart and I forge into the bay. I follow close to the reeds, spying white throated sparrows, and  a chipping sparrow or two. Swamp sparrows peak out at me when I pish.  

Though I’ve decided to go into the bay, I’m not at ease. I try and calm my thoughts, which ping with ideas. The shots I heard were to the south. Hunters shoot at close range, and I’m visible in my pepto-bismol pink boat, wearing a blue jacket.

Truth is, I have respect for many hunters. They know these woods, the bays and the secret spots where ducks hide better than I do. They know ducks better than I do (this actually isn’t saying much! Ducks are low on the list of birds I am capable of identifying). But I wish they didn’t need to bring them out of the sky. As my friend Sonia said, “I just don’t like guns.” It’s that simple.

I spy a marsh wren, tail erect, in the cattails. A white throated sparrow practices its song. And then there’s the owl again. As I round a bend, my heart races, but not for the bird; I’m wondering if a hunter is around the corner. It’s happened before. But I often don’t see the hunters in their camouflage until I’m right next to them.

Today, though, there’s no hunter. And I start to wonder about insisting on paddling on, on insisting on sharing this marsh area when the sounds of guns in the distance leaves me on edge. The point of the paddle is to take in the morning light, the morning peace.

The owl hoots one more time, then I turn and take sure strokes back to the wide river.

Paddling to Nowhere

The DEC launch, located beneath route 481 in northern New York, clanked and rattled with the movement of traffic overhead. A pick up with an empty trailer parked to the side. A sign advised us to clean our boats of invasive species. Like every boat launch in the country (it seems) a man sat in a white Buick, watching the water go by. And watching me put my boat in the water.

I write “the water” because at the point I was slipping my boat into the calm river I did not know the name of the Oneida river. I noted the launch site on my map, and as I drove home from a lovely visit to a writing class in Oswego, decided to make a short paddle stop. I didn’t know where this river ran or what I would see. In this way I concoct small adventures.

I struck out to the east. The river divided and I chose the left fork. Houses lined the water, docks allowing easy access for small motorboats.  The river was about one-hundred and fifty yards wide. I paddled down the middle, flushing mallards and a stray great blue heron that loitered on the far shore from the houses. The river felt intimate and calm and I wondered at these hundred or so people who got to live there, watching the river shift along: what did they see? No one was home, though I wished for someone to appear so I could ask where this river led, what this river is called.

The sun hovered high in the sky warming the air and my thoughts. I thought in comparisons: the Hudson is wider, bolder, more textured. Would I be happy paddling smaller rivers. Would I have become a paddler if I lived near a smaller river? Because the truth is, I bought my kayak in order to know the Hudson, to enter onto and into a big river. I’m not a paddler; my boat was a way to get to know the Hudson. I have only twice paddled on rivers beyond the Hudson. It felt, I hate to say it, a bit traitorous. I was cheating on my river.

Soon, the riverside houses started to bore me. I wanted  the intimacy of cattails and maybe a turtle or two soaking in the last of the summer’s warmth. I wanted sparrows dashing from sight. And if I could not have that peacefulness of no-people, I wanted a cement plant to entertain me.

Just as I was deciding to turn back, to give up trying to find the magic of this little river, it took a sharp bend. In front of me yawned an underpass. A man stood with a fishing pole on the far side of the pass, as I coasted into a narrow channel, grass and cattails in front of me. My heart soared. “Excuse me,” I said, “what is the name of this river?” The man looked surprised to hear a voice. “I don’t know it’s name. But around these parts we call it Big Bend.” “Thanks. What are you catching?” “A few sunnies.”

I coasted onward into the reeds and isolation. The houses had vanished. Calm descended. I stroked forward feeling as if my paddle had just begun. This wide, empty swamp land confirmed my sense that if you just paddle long enough you’ll end up nowhere.

Perfect Fall Days

Perfect fall days are a particular torture.

            Perfect: Blue sky, cool, sun, a crisp snap to the air. Apple days. Cliched days.

            Torture: You know they won’t last. There’s nothing you can do to properly celebrate them, short of being outside all day. And even then a sense of desperation tugs at my skin.

When I was younger the only way to do justice to these days was to rock climb. Sitting on a ledge, looking down into a valley of yellow, orange and red tinged trees, while the turkey vultures soared below me was heaven. The pull and tug of climbing, the sore fingertips, the dusty smell of chalk on my hands all aligned with the wrestle with the day, which was the wrestle of my soul. The way I knew I had taken all the day had to offer was walking out at dusk or in the dark, the clank of climbing gear a sort of music. My climbing partner and I were always hungry and tired and satisfied.

Now, since I climb little, I am learning new ways to swallow these days. On Saturday Peter and I started our bird search, which was really a sparrow search, at Southlands, a large horse farm south of Rhinebeck, New York. There are fields of uncut grasses, and in them sparrows sprung up, allowing us a peak: Savannah, White-throated, Field, Song, Chipping, and one special Lincoln’s. A kestrel—my favorite little falcon—soared from one end of a wide field to the other. We heard pileated, red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers in the woods. It was beautiful. And after three hours of walk, it wasn’t enough.

So we drove north to Rockefeller Lane. This road runs beside Greig Farm, which in this season is putting up beautiful lettuce, celery and not much else. Some of the fields are left fallow. From all of the rain earlier in the fall, puddles remain. Just as we were following a few pipet-looking birds, a flock of five shorebirds circled in front of us. “Those are good birds,” Peter said as we followed them with our bins. “Keep an eye on them.” They circled and circled. “Land,” Peter whispered, willing them to ground. And sure enough, they landed in a large puddle about 150 feet in front of us. I stayed put with the scope, while Peter inched forward with his camera. I saw two pectoral sandpipers and a least sandpiper (that shorebird workshop paid off!). And then there was something else amidst these birds. It had blue grey wings, a white belly, a dark stout bill. A phalarope. But what sort. Phalaropes do not frequent this part of the state, so it’s not a species Peter knew well. Peter’s first guess was a Red, and countless emails and analyzing his photos later he decides the first instinct was correct. 

A red phalarope is an uncommon bird anywhere, and in this area, downright rare. Seeing the phalarope added to the exhilaration of the day: there were treasures out there to be seen! So after a short break we had to be out once again. We drove to the road to Cruger Island. The passageway there was thick with mud. We walked out with a duck hunter wearing camouflaged waders; duck season has begun. Out by the island a tin boat lurked with four hunters waiting near their decoys. In the distance the shot of a gun. This wasn’t how I intended our day to end, with the birds I had sought all day being shot from the sky.

We walked the train tracks, skirting the South Tivoli Bay. Mute swans graced the far shore, mallards hid, a few blue herons stood stock still in the shallow water. Five coots, unusual at this time of the year, bobbed together, their white bills evident from a distance.

The sun headed west. We headed home. A fat moon rose. A perfect day had ended as it should: walking out in the dark. There was no clank of gear or smell of chalked hands, but rather the squish of our rubber boots in the mud, and the silence as we listened for owls.