Crow Lessons

I've written before about the life lessons that birds provide us, if we can perceive them.  I got another one this morning, and I'm glad to say I was awake enough to eventually accept it as a lesson.

I have a seed feeder, hung high in one of our shore pines to prevent the bears having dinner every night on our shelled sunflower seed (and wrecking the feeder in the process).  It takes a step stool to access it, but it keeps temptation beyond paw's reach for the furry guys.  So - I thought I had it nailed.  All that yummy seed was safe for the nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and other visitors.  The spill was picked up by towhees, more juncos and sparrows.  So really, no waste.  Perfect.  Ha.

I looked out this morning and a small gang of crows was having a ball raiding the feeder.  Probably a small crew of juveniiles that spends the winter in the neighborhood.  They come each morning and eat corn with the ducks, but there are so many ducks that it's a toss up.  Plus those mallard hens can be pretty clear about whose corn it is.  I've seen more than one crow jump straight up as his tail is firmly yanked by an indignant mallard hen.

Today the crows really had their game on. One crow would hang from the platform of the feeder and beat his wings.  This made the feeder swing wildly.  Since the platform is relatively flat, seed rained down from all sides on the other crows waiting below.  It was ingenious.  Dang!  So I went out to the side of the house and yelled, swung my arms and sure enough, they all flew quickly away.  But not very far did they fly.  About fifteen minutes later I heard the leader of the pack give his call, and back they cautiously came.  So I went out again and waved my arms.  But I realized that I probably wasn't going to win this battle.  Because I had made it a battle when maybe it didn't have to be.  They were just being crows, after all.

Zen teachers are fond of saying that the teacher appears when the student is ready.  I take this to mean that we can repeat the same mistakes and heartaches in life, over and over, until one day, maybe we see things through a different lens.  Through a 'student' lens. 

If I want to sit in my lawn chair all day, jealously guarding the seed feeder, I'll keep away the crows.  But I'll also keep away all the other birds, since I'm an equal opportunity scare-crow.  I wave my arms and everyone heads for the thickets.  Or, I can think it through and maybe come up with a flexible solution.  Do the dance, so to speak.

There will always be crows in our lives.  Clever dark beings who jam up our perfect systems, hopes and dreams just when we think we have them all fool-proofed.  Native people have known and respected Crow for ages: trickster and villain - smart villain though, and one with an appreciation for a good joke.

Not to say that this is an easy thing, but seeing lessons rather than battles has to be at least a good thing. 

With the crows, I'm going to try a compromise.  I have a feeder with a screen-barrier that only lets in song-bird size birds.  Others are too big to squeeze through to access the goodies.  I'm going to hang that next to the platform feeder which will still have seed, but much less.  I still want to feed the crow gang.  I respect their smarts and I love to watch them play. 

Each day gives us chances to learn - I surely miss countless lessons, but the birds and all of nature continue to offer to teach us in gentle, humbling and often humorous ways.

Hunting Harrier

It was one of those days in the Northwest:  curtains of fine rain made a foggy shroud right down to the ground.  Gusting wind carried waves of fine rain in every direction.  I had been out at Fort Stevens State Park, checking out Parking Lot C for birds that might have been blown in by the recent series of storms.  It was so windy and wet that even the hardiest of birds had taken cover.  The sturdy wood viewing platform shuddered in the wind gusts and the jetty and sand below trembled with the force of the incoming waves.  I couldn't even scare up a sparrow in the field adjacent to the dike.

As I made the long, straight drive back to the main park I began to pass by Trestle Bay.  There is a beautiful, open grassy field that becomes a marsh,  and in the bay an old wooden trestle that's often good for seeing hunting peregrines.  Not today, though.  I decided it would be more productive to look for birds in the protected, treed portion of the park.

Then, as if out of nowhere, a northern harrier was keeping pace with my car in the grassy field next to Trestle Bay.  It was a female, warm brown feathering with the characteristic wide, white band just where the tail begins.  She was focused on the ground a few feet below her,  head turned down, eyes and ears completely tuned to any mouse activity in the tall, wet grasses.  Her wings tilted and adjusted to the wind, giving her the characteristic  butterfly flight.  Tail fanned and tipped, making aerodynamic adjustments to her chosen path.  A flick of tail and wing could change her course in an instant if a mouse was spotted below.

Harriers have owl-like faces with feathers that form a pattern that carries sound to their ears.  The males are a lovely gray and females  are brown.  Since they must protect the nest, brown feathering, as with many female birds, is necessary.

They're also known as marsh hawks, as this was their name until the American Ornithological Union made the decision to rename them.   If you watch a northern harrier as she very thoroughly and patiently  combs a field, tilting and turning only a few feet above the ground, fierce face always turned down to see and hear,  the name fits.

I used to see  a lot more harriers on the Peninsula.  The grassy dunes are perfect for hunting the voles and mice they need to survive.  As houses have pushed out to and beyond the primary dune, harriers, along with other bird life, have diminished.  They require these open fields to do their work and bring home the food. 

But on this windy, wet day, this bird was at work by the Bay.  For wild things, bad weather is just a factor to work with.  Food must still be found.  As she worked the field, still patiently and thoroughly hunting the soggy tussocks, I wished her well from my dry, warm shelter in the car.  And a small part of me, maybe a tiny, ancient remnant of an older life, wished for myself her keenness  and wild beauty.

One More Guyana Memory

One of the early days at Timberhead Camp our guide took us on a walk along a forest trail to a wide stream.  There was barely a bird in the canopy; Guyana had had a drought the year we were there and maybe that's why there weren't as many birds as usual.  The stream was just at the edge of the jungle where grass savannah took over.  We saw birds, but nothing new.  The black nunbird was still a treat. After a few hours of rather unproductive birding, we were expecting the motor boat to come and ferry us back to camp.  There was no cell service to call and check on arrangements, of course.  After waiting well over an hour past the time the boat was due, the guide and two birders decided to retrace footsteps through the forest and send the boat back for us.  It was restful and relatively cool near the stream, plus there was a white-fronted emerald hummingbird hawking insects over the water.  I decided to stay with the other two birders in our group.

Verna, one of the women workers at Timberhead, finally appeared around the bend, but she was paddling a wooden boat called the Ermentrude.  There was no motor.  Evidently that's why the boat hadn't appeared earlier.  And there was only one set of thin, long oars that Verna was using.  The three of us stepped carefully into the boat and sat.  We had, literally, three inches of freeboard.  Didn't seem like much in a wide, deep tidal stream, but at this point, we were committed.
Verna gamely paddled us against the outgoing tide but we weren't making very much progress.  Oh, for another set of oars!  We came to the main stream which was much wider and flowing much faster.  Verna was struggling at this point, and I was worried that we could capsize.  I'm a good swimmer but I really didn't want to get my binoculars wet, and I wasn't sure how well the two older guys could do in the water.  And there are the leaches...  Up ahead I could see a small clearing.  I asked Verna if she would let me off there, take the guys back then come back for me.  She agreed.  She said that the landing was called The Point and that she would return.
We did almost capsize getting into shore close enough for me to jump.  The stream here did not gradually deepen - it just dropped off.  I jumped, the boat tottered dangerously, taking on a few inches of water, but Verna was able to steady it and proceed into the wide and outgoing tide.   I just hoped I'd see someone again - it was very, very quiet after the boat disappeared around the bend.  Just the wind playing through the long grass that grew in a long, unbroken field up to the edge of the jungle.

I sat on a wooden slat balanced on two wood stumps and looked for birds, animals, anything.  This seemed like one deserted place.   But after ten or so minutes, I heard rustling in the grass behind me.  I wasn't really frightened (I tried not the think of the howler monkeys) but I truly did want to know what was making the noise.  Finally, five small, giggling brown faces popped out of the grass.  Children from who knows where had somehow discovered me.  They were incredibly shy and wouldn't come closer than about five feet.  I asked about birds - pajaros, pajaritos, aves - in Spanish, but they couldn't make out what I was saying or why this white senora was sitting all alone on the dock.   One brave, smiling girl handed me a bouquet of pastel wild flowers and grasses that she had hurriedly gathered.  

Time was passing and it was hot.  There was no shade on this exposed, muddy edge of the stream and I  began to wonder if they could actually forget me.  But of course not - the other birders would remind them.  Wouldn't they?  Just about then, Wendy, another worker from Timberhead, came putting around the bend in a boat with a working engine.   She had a rapid conversation with the kids and helped me into the boat.  I asked her to say thank you for the flowers and that I liked talking with them.  Wendy smiled and spoke again to the kids.  They all waved and called to us as we made our diesel-fumed way back up the stream.  Wendy said that there is a small, primitive village just inside the jungle's edge where the children lived.  The only access to the village is from this tidal stream, then a walk through the tall, swaying grass.

We returned to Timberhead boat dock in the late afternoon.  Shadows were long. I made my way straight to the drinks cupboard in the main lodge and fixed a stiff rum and coke with lots of ice.  I sat in the hammock on the deck with the soft wind blowing away the mosquitoes, reflected at leisure on the day's adventure and admired the bouquet that I had put in water.

From Shanklands back to Georgetown

When it was time to leave Shanklands for our trip back to Georgetown, Guyana, we were greeted by Bernard, another quiet, smiling bush boatman.  Bernard piloted the Big Ben, an long, thin, open metal boat powered by a massive outboard engine.  Bernard was quite proud of his ability to hang incredibly tight turns to bring us back for a bird sighting.  I know I was looking straight down into the river on some of those turns.  We were rewarded with very worthwhile sightings.  The best was the sun bittern.  This is a shore bird about the size of a small egret.  Mottled brown is the dominant color until - until-- The sun bittern has earned its name by the beautiful and surprising display that is the result of the bittern opening wide his wings.  Seen from behind, the bittern looks like a gigantic moth with huge dark eye markings on each wing - simply stunning.
Our guide saw a sun bittern on the muddy shore and signalled a quick turnaround.  The sun bittern saw us but didn't seen alarmed.  He turned toward the bush, hopped up onto a fallen log and bingo- flashed those wings.   And people wonder why we chase birds.

Lewie, our East Indian driver from Georgetown, was waiting at the boat dock with our van.  We said goodbye to the impressive Essequibo River and turned toward the bush.  A long, rutted drive back to Georgetown to our hotel to drop off luggage and pick up lunch, and we were off on a forty-mile trip to the Mahocainy River.  We were met by another bush boatman, this one piloting a formidable looking, heavy metal boat which took up half the river.  There was an enormous exposed engine just behind the pilot that made for possibly the noisiest boat ride in history.  A thin, frazzled looking rope guarded the engine area, where gears ground and wheels turned.  Not a place for the unbalanced!  We moved to the roof of the boat in order to be able to hear and also to get a better view of the birds.  Again, it was so hot, especially on top of the metal roof, that I'm sure we sweated out the last week's water intake.  We kept skin covered and used an old black umbrella to guard from the sun as much as possible.

 Numerous flocks of hoatzins lined the bank.  Like ungainly chickens, they teetered and clung to the foliage just over the water.  It wasn't  unusual to see one or more fall in, and it didn't seem to faze the birds.  They would thrash and oar with outspread wings until they could cling onto overhanging foliage.  At the 'wrist' joint of their wings they have a tiny claw-like appendage that they use to regain their foothold.  The appendages look eerily like single fingers.  With a row of mohawk-like feathers on bald blue heads, they truly look prehistoric.  They squawked and fussed like hens in the bush as we chugged by.

Farther on, a troop of howler monkeys sat in the highest branches overhanging the river.  They watched us silently as we passed below them.  Hunched on the limbs, tails curved softly over their golden backs, they were very wild and beautiful.

We returned that evening to our hotel behind massive walls covered with every possible exotic flower and vine.  Outside the walls,  Georgetown at this time was very rough and dirty.  Trash and stagnant water were everywhere.  Snail kites perched on power lines over slimy drainage ditches, where egrets stepped daintily around discarded bottles and rotten fruit.  Lotuses bloomed in muck.  The streets were packed with cars, vans, bicycles, pedestrians, wary dogs and sleepy cattle.  The stinks were as awesome as the colors of the flowers.

The Trip to Shanklands

I seem to be on a  Guyana kick, so I'll try to remember more of that incredible trip.

After spending a week at Timberhead, we were off to Shanklands, a resort of sorts on the banks of the mighty Essequibo River.
We left Timberhead early in the morning after the usual night of rain.  The six of us piled into an African Queen-like boat called the Elizabeth II.  No one knew the reason for this name-  it didn't seem to matter.  Our first leg was a quiet, putting journey along the creek, guided by Junior, our shy, smiling boat driver.  He was adept at quick stops and turns when Mike, our bird guide would hold up his hand, signalling a sighting.  I learned to sit solidly, feet planted firmly for these unexpected stops.  Birds large and small swept across the water before us- vines, bamboo and small trees looped and leaned into the water.  Long, narrow wood canoes holding one or two people pulled alongside, watching the big, white strangers in the silver boat.
We rounded a bend and suddenly we were in big water:  the Demarara River, silvery, wide and flat.  A sudden violent storm blew up from  behind us, causing both shores to disappear completely behind curtains of blowing rain.  Several inches of water quickly gathered on the floor of the partially open boat, and much of Junior's gear floated near our feet.  Junior was soaked but smiling, drinking Sprite and looking like he hadn't a care in the world.  As  the Elizabeth II tootled gamely along, the shores finally began to reappear, dim and far away.  Junior pulled us closer to river right and suddenly out of nowhere, an opening in the dense jungle appeared.  Two or three old army trucks, looking WWII vintage, rusted in the rain forest clearing.
After securing us to the steep, muddy bank, Junior produced a wonderful lunch of fried egg sandwiches, plantain rolls (fried in butter!) and pineapple.  As we were finishing, two very muddy Toyota trucks pulled up driven by two smiling brown men.  All of us piled into the tarp -covered back of one truck and we rode, military style,  thumping and banging over twenty-six miles of very rutted sand road to Shanklands.  It was the bumpiest ride I'd ever experienced.  The two elder birders from New York chuckled quietly and Al said, "You think this is bad, you should have been in Madagascar!"

Shanklands was a welcome sight.  Rolling green grass dotted with brilliant flowers and enormous trees, and white lattice-laced cottages dotted the sides of the lawn, shaded by trees.  The Essiquibo River extended the length of our view, flat and endless.  The far shore shimmered and danced in the distance.

Shanklands - some memories:  sitting under the kitchen awning out of the sun; listening to the torrents of rain falling on our cottage roof and splashing in pools in the grass; smelling the delicate white grapefruit blossoms from the tree outside our window at night;  steep, rickety stairs to the river and the long, narrow boat dock;  turquoise-colored tanagers sharing the pepper tree with the family of barbets;  screeching, clamorous parrot flyovers;  salt and pepper in dishes at the table;  free liquor setups under the awning; homemade hot sauce that was deliciously, indescribably hot.  Breathlessly humid forest walks where we heard much more than we saw; walk-in white tile showers; plumbeous kites soaring; the shy, white kitchen cat; the smelly peccary who lurked near the buildings; the loud macaw; and always,  always the unending silver ribbon of river,  moving away from us,  away.

In the Rainforest of Guyana ~ Another Adventure II

We returned to camp for  a lunch of roasted chicken and corn salad, tired but jubilant.  I have never been so hot.  Insect repellent mixed with sweat causes my fingers to stick to the binocular casing.  Our clothes are wet from the inside, glued to us in the stunning humidity.  As we shower in the tepid water heated by the sun, crested oropendolas gargle and whistle in the trees above the camp.  Their yellow and chestnut feathers flash as they swing upside down from the branches.  Their relatives, the yellow-rumped caciques, hop from tree to tree, endlessly repeating their mournful, wheedling call.

An afternoon siesta is in order.  A blue-gray tanager hunts insects in the palm thatch above our bed, rattling and scratching softly.  He occasionally peers down through the loose weave of the false ceiling to be sure the humans below are staying put.

Before dusk we walk to Pokerero Creek to watch the tiny fork-tailed palm swifts swoop and sail above the tea-colored water.  The dry tan fronds rattle in the evening breeze as the swifts dart up into the protection of the dead leaves to their roosts.  Long-legged wattled jacanas flash their yellow underwings and tiptoe daintily in the shallow of the stream.  A female white-chested emerald, a tiny hummingbird, perches on a limb over the water.  She hawks insects, sips nectar from the orange asclepias flowers, and chases butterflies from her territory.  The low sun flashes green jewel tones on her back as she pirouettes over the water and returns to her perch.  So her days passes. 

We walk back to the camp in full darkness.  The Captain, a wizened Arawak gentleman of more than seventy years, carries a lamp to light the torches lining the path.  He nods and shows brown teeth as he smiles.  We can see the dim light of the lamps he has lit and carried to each of the guest huts.
The night sky pulsates with stars and planets that burn in pale blues, reds and greens.  The Southern Cross leans halfway up the sky, pointing out north and south for wanderers in the southern hemisphere.  Meteors trace brief, fiery paths across the blackness.  The buzz and screech of the insects frogs and owls is turned to full volume.  Tiny fireflies wink on and off ahead of us on the trail.  We find our sleepy way to our hut, pull the mosquito netting around us, and fall asleep under the palm thatch and the turning stars.

In the RainForest of Guyana ~ Another Adventure

Although we spent less than two weeks in Guyana, it made a very deep and lasting impression.  I would like to share my impressions of this wild and only partially tamed place.  It is the true third world, with all its wonders and trials.  The utter beauty of its wildness, the colors, smells, sights and sounds were gifts that I will never forget nor fail to appreciate in our easier, tamer world. 



The absolute black of the rainforest night begins to fade to day.  The screeches and grunts of insects and frogs give way to the softer, fuller songs of the birds.  The tropical screech-owl cries once more, lifts heavy wings and flies deep into the forest.  A small yellow tongue of flame still gutters in the glass of the kerosene lamp that was hung in our hut last evening.  Dawn and dusk near the equator do not linger.  Night becomes day within minutes.
The noise of dawn suddenly increases through the camp as a flock of little chachalacas courses through the camp.  The turkey-like birds flap and jump from treetop to treetop, making an unearthly squawking ruckus.  They move away toward Pokerero Creek and other birds songs emerge.  Mel's old windup alarm clock, two cabins away, gives the official clanking notice of day.  Early morning is fresh and cool.  Last night's rain shines on our open porch.  Mist rises from Pokerero Creek, just visible, shimmering in the dawn light at the bottom of the sand incline below Timberhead Rainforest Resort.  Orange-winged parrots fly over, two by two, heading for their day's work of finding and eating fruits in the top of the green canopy.  Their metallic screeches ricochet through camp.  The captive scarlet macaw, crippled years ago by a bullet in his wing, bobs his head and screeches back from the kitchen porch where he eats sliced pineapple and mango.
This is the first week of a birding trip deep into the rainforest of Guyana.  Our small group of birders assembled at JFK Airport in New York City following months of planning and anticipation.  After arriving in Georgetown, the capitol of Guyana, we  traveled by van and then by boat down the Demerera River, then up one of its many tributaries.  As the purple-throated fruit crow flies, we are about twenty miles from Georgetown.  It couldn't feel more remote.
Our raised wood huts comprise a camp built and run by the Arawak Indians who live in a small village a few miles down the creek.  Palm-thatched roofs shield us from the tropical sun and the brief heavy rains that often come in the afternoon.  The huts are roomy and airy, with big windows on all sides that have shutters but no screens.  (A lesson quickly learned in the tropics is that at night it is wise to close the shutters before turning up the lamp.  Light attracts many flying insects, including commonly named flying cockroaches and tiger moths, which appear larger than hummingbirds in the shadowy light.  The only effective way to remove them is to wait until they land and then grab them in your fist and toss them out the window.)
A large bed with soft linens sits in the center of each room, generously swathed in mosquito netting.  Bathrooms are modern with sinks, toilets, and spacious walk-in showers.  As I open the door to the bathroom this particular morning, the  flock of resident tiny beige-furred bats is just settling on the wooden roof beams above me after their night's flight.  A delicate slate-colored frog sporting ruffled toes flutters away from his perch behind the toilet paper roll.
The sky is pure, pale blue, covered intermittently with towering purple-gray clouds and wavy flat clouds that look like lavender pen strokes above the rainforest.  Metallic green, dull green, acid green, rich northern forest green are all tossed together in a wild mix around us.  Tall, lanky cecropia trees, palms of every size, and fig trees with ambling, twisted limbs share the camp with us.  White sand is under our feet, punctuated with bright eruptions of pink and green caladiums, a leafy tropical plant.    Blue-gray tanagers, the color of the sky at dawn, are a common camp bird.  Silver-beaked tanagers, red-black as smoldering coal with beaks that look like silver neon, fuss and argue in the fig above the kitchen.  Great kiskadees, with their bright yellow breasts and masked faces, occupy every post perch and proclaim kis-kil-dee throughout the day.
After a generous breakfast of boiled eggs, ham roll-ups, fish salad (very salty but good), local buns, watermelon and good, strong coffee,  we take the trail through the rainforest toward the Arawak village.  We walk along the edge of the forest where the land begins to slope to the creek.  Wild, white lilies nod in the slight breeze.  They look like snowdrifts in another land.  Across the creek, a tan-green grass savannah stretches for two miles until the rainforest again absorbs it.  A yellow-headed vulture, much like our turkey vulture, but with a bald head the color of egg yolk, tilts and circles above the savannah.  Our guide points out a black-collared hawk perched on a snag next to the creek.  Heat waves, magnified by our binoculars, cause the hawk to dance gently in our lenses.  We can just make out his lovely rufous breast, whitish head and broad black collar.
Rainforest walking can  become hypnotic:  a brown-shirted back bobbing ahead of me on the trail, the heat, the buzz of bugs, the remote screech of birds in the high canopy, the rhythmic bump of binoculars and pack.  A muted beep comes from Mel's backpack.  It's probably some of his camera equipment.  He doesn't hear it, or perhaps doesn't mind it.
Mike stops suddenly and raises his hand.  I march into John's back and we all look up.  Red howler monkeys, he whispers, pointing to the rainforest beyond the savannah.  A faint but deep pulsating, booming roar floats to us on the humid air.  We gaze across the heat-hazed savannah to the treetops on the other side, and imagine the big, bearded russet monkeys gathered there.  We  strain to hear them.  Of all the forest cries heard so far, this is the sound of wildness that makes the others seem less important.  It makes hackles rise.  It goes directly to some primitive place in the brain that used to hear sounds like this in the forest.  The cries fade as the faint wind changes direction, then intensifies - are they coming this way?  They're far on the other side of the savannah and are shy of humans, but they still cause a frisson of fear in some forgotten spot.  We are reminded that here in the rainforest, we, too, are just vulnerable mammals.

Stay tuned for the next chapter ~ soon to follow
This article was originally published in Bird Watcher's Digest, July-August 2000.