The One That Got Away

Words. They get away from me all the time. When I want them, they wander off in an aphagic haze. When I don’t want them, they release themselves in a raging torrent.

Words come flying out of my mouth without my permission. Like a dog off leash, they wander at will through the forest of my mind and leap at shadows. They come out when I least expect and seldom want them: the loud burst when the crowd suddenly falls silent, the wrong greeting on a holiday, or I find myself speaking out loud at the supermarket. And then I wonder: What just came out of my mouth? Who’s in charge here?

Then there are the words I want to go away but that stick around like a bad cold. Loud words spoken in the heat of the moment. The conversations looping endlessly in my mind at night, replacing dreams under my pillow. Words of resentment and retaliation (“I should have said,” “Next time I’m gonna tell her off!”) Words like darts thrown at a loved one that can never be reclaimed.

On the other hand, there are the words that disappear, the ones that get away from me on the page. I could be planning some writing time, wait for days for my husband to go out so I could enjoy a little solitude. I put on soft music, light a few candles, pull on comfy clothes. Take out a new pen to a fresh page in my notebook, and wait in a cloud of writerly sanctity for the muse to show up. I wait for the dance to begin, wait for the opus to opine, wait for an image, wait for an idea, wait for the phone to ring to distract me from the approaching anxiety that the words have gone on vacation.

When I didn’t drool in hysteria when discussing children’s issues with one of the mothers at work the other day, she accused me of not caring because I didn’t have children myself. It was a blow I did not see coming, so the mom scored a direct hit in my bunker of private pain, creating a massive breach of security. You would think all the words I have ever known would have taken up arms and marched to my defense, brandishing admonishments. But nooooo. The shrapnel of sudden anger blew a hole in my arsenal of words, and left me speechless before her cruelty.

Where do the words go? Why do they abandon me when I need them the most? And then, why do they come roaring back in full color and fancy fonts, waving brilliant flags of phrase and designing clever plots when I’m driving hell for leather down Route 17 during rush hour? Is this some kind of joke? When I cannot grab my pen to pin them to a page, they jump in front of me, taunting me with their elusive sexuality, their sensuous phrasing, their poetic tones. They are like an elusive bird that shows up when you are looking for something else, and when you turn to look at it, it flies away.

Belize: Jungle Sounds (Last Belize story)

This is a journal entry from a former trip to Belize, and the last of the blog series about my time there.

I almost forgot to mention the sounds of the forest, the underlying purr like a radio tuned to static all the time until you realize its presence only by the lack of it. Always there were the songs of the birds: the “boop-boop” of the Blue-crowned Mot-Mot, the loopy soprano of the Spot-breasted Wren, the crazy lurp of the bowing Oropendulas. But below that, almost out of consciousness, was a steady vibration almost visceral against my skin, the thrum of a million miniature wings.

Bee hum.

I became aware of it when our guide pointed to an enormous gray-black termite nest that looked like a boulder stuck in a tree. Be careful, he warned, do not get too close; a hive of bees has taken over that nest. We stepped back while raising our binoculars to inspect the swarm. Sure enough, thousands of tiny wings sequined through the morning light. I could almost feel my cheeks vibrate. Bee hum surrounded us all that day and the next, like a dream that follows you slowly into daylight.

We trailed our guide like chicks down a jungle path that was lined with sweeping fans of olive-green Cahune palms. He led us to an unexcavated, but sadly looted, Mayan plaza site. 40,000 Mayans once lived there, but all that was visible now were gently lolling mounds of tree-covered earth. The jungle has taken herself back again, jamming insistent roots into Mayan bedrooms like fingers in a cookie jar.

While we were busy finding birds, the black howler monkeys sounded. They roared back and forth down the corridors of centuries to the handful of humans now toeing their way down a path once occupied by an ancient civilization, a people who birthed their babies and buried their dead under the mounds of the years before us. The howlers’ roars were stupefying. I wanted to make the sound a part of me, or somehow take a picture of their voices echoing through the jungle so I could show my friends what it feels like to have the earth open up before you by the power of a howler monkey’s roar.

This is the last posting about Belize (for now). I have been back at work for a week and a half, and it's time to move on. I admit, however, that little country is getting under my skin.

The Last Day:

Somewhere in the jungle, a Red-capped Manakin drops into a shallow pool and snaps his wings. The plaintive cry of a Limpkin calls from an invisible copse, and a Barred Ant Shrike passes a seed to its mate. The single note of a Great Tinamou winds its way from the jungle to entwine its way around the hearts of us who have shared its Song.

We are sad to leave here. We hope some day to return.

Belize: Leaf Cutter Ants & Garage Sales

The leaf-cutter ants fascinate me, probably because it is the only animal whose behavior I can observe that does not run or fly away. The leaf cutters leave a wide, well-defined trail where no vegetation grows for the stomping of so many little ant feet. Thousands scurry single file back and forth from their underground nest which is approximately the size of an underground Volkswagen. The worker ants go out and lug in food; chunks of cut up leaves with one straight edge so an ant can heave it onto its little stick back and haul it home. They carried fuzzy seedpods, some with stems still attached, some twice the size of the bearer, causing it to stagger under the weight of almost nothing. They brought it all back to the nest as if coming home from a Saturday morning garage sale.

We have seen the strangler fig at work, winding its way up some innocent tree and gradually wrapping stemmy arms around it, hugging and growing wider from the base until it has enveloped its host, which it then uses to hoist its own crown to the sun before standing on its own to face the day. It kills the tree that originally befriended it, not unlike some people I have known.

Red Bank and the Scarlet Macaw

The Mayan woman dog-trotted over the two miles we had just traveled by air conditioned bus. Her bare feet padded through muck, instinctively searching the driest ground. She looked neither left nor right but drilled steadily uphill at a ground-eating pace.

Behind her was a man riding a rusty bicycle (her husband?) . A shotgun was hanging over his left shoulder. The front wheel of the bike was almost touching the back of her legs. If she were to stop suddenly, he would have plowed right into her back. It did not matter whether they were going up or down a hill or how deep the mud was, they maintained their pace like a heartbeat.

Our guide, Robert, saw me watching them from the corner of the bus.

“They are going to hunt food for their family,” he informed me. “The woman is often the better shot than the man, so she goes too.”

They were headed in the direction we had just come from, a direct path toward the river and the copse of trees favored by THE BIRD we had traveled to Belize to see, the Scarlet Macaw. At one time, it would have been those birds that were hunted as food to feed the Mayan village of Red Bank, but several years ago, the village agreed there was a better future if they embraced the birders instead. The villagers were paid for their knowledge of where to find the magnificent parrots by hiring guides like Pablo, who delivered us on cue that morning to a display we had never seen before.

We all knew what Scarlet Macaws looked like. We've seen them in color plates in the guide books. And who hasn’t seen the bird-on-a-stick at Disney world or a zoo or (horrors) someone’s “private collection?” There are few left in the wild. Red Bank hosts a small population.

We hiked up hill, grateful for walking sticks to balance our steps through heaving sloughs of mud. The morning sun pressed down. Walk down one hill, climb up another. Pablo pointed out mahogany saplings he had planted. They would be mature trees in about 50 years, a promise and a hope a future. Corn struggled through the soil in a field to the right, planted by Pablo for his family.

“Raaaack!”

“There it is!” Pablo called. “That is the sound of the Scarlet Macaw! Watch over there!”

As he pointed, a streak of scarlet and sapphire shot over our heads. We could see the massive bill and featherless white face. The bird’s wings claimed the blue from the sky itself. A narrow shawl of bright yellow traced a horizontal path across each side, as if grazed by the sun in mid-flight. The male Macaw flew steadily, with strong, shallow wing beats out to the tree canopy on the horizon. His long, pointed tail flamed behind its body.

“Rowwwwka!”

“Watch! Here comes more!” Pablo cried.

A pair of birds burst from the trees behind us. Another pair, and another and another. They flew in unison, one slightly behind the other, their wing beats in perfect synchrony. We heard them first, then the sky seemed to burst with a rainbow of flight. Blue, ruby and gold were no longer just colors but living, breathing, flying spirals of air and water, darkness and light.

I wiped the tears from my eyes.

Friday's Snowstorm: A New Generation!

The Owl and Eternity

“Raptor!” I called. From my seat at the back of the bus, I knew the dark shape was not the usual Roadside Hawk.“Up front, going forward and to the right!”

“Spectacled Owl!” our guide said.

I swelled with serendipitous pride at being the momentary birding hero. It was dusk. We were returning from an afternoon of birding at the Coxcomb Jaguar Sanctuary. We had already stopped to admire the Green-fronted Parakeets and Red-lored Parrots, then moved a boa constrictor off the dirt road so the bus wouldn’t squish it. Gordon spotted two Gray-necked Wood Rails, their soft pastels and persimmons looking more like fur than feathers. Out of the corner of my eye, where all good luck comes from, I noticed a large, dark shape launch itself from a tree on the left and soar down the road in front of us.

The bus stopped. We piled out of the door, as excited as children just out of school. The bird, about a foot and a half tall, had perched on a dead branch on the side of the road next to a termite nest almost the same size as the owl.

This was a first bird for all of us. In birding lingo, a “life bird.” We were elated. All eyes were trained on the dark silhouette against the sky. The owl turned its head. We could just make out a glimpse of the off-white feathers forming a broken ring around its eyes, making it appear the bird was sporting Benjamin Franklin spectacles. The worst thing that could happen now would be to make a move that would startle it into flight before we could get a good look. We clumped outside the door of the bus. The owl remained perched. We shuffled to the front of the vehicle, eyes clamped on the bird. It did not move. We took a few steps forward, then a few more until we walked to the other side where we could face it head-on.

The bird appeared dark against the fading sunlight. We could see tiny hairs bristling from the base of its bill. As we watched, the Owl turned its head and dropped its gaze in our direction. We could see the spectacles for which the bird was named, the clean buffy belly and enormous yellow eyes. I stared in amazement and wondered what he saw, what impressions were being formed.

The owl swiveled its head again. His gaze came fully on me. I caught my breath. From my patch of dirt in the waning light, I peered into the bottomless eyes of the owl and suddenly realized I was looking into the eyes of the universe. I could see every star ever born, all the constellations from the beginning of time until the end of eternity. I was immersed in an absorbing blackness but was filled with light. I saw the promise of a life we cannot fathom. It was a soul flare, the unexpected and brilliant understanding of something the owl knew all along. It was the blink of understanding that we share something in common, something unnamed and unnameable.

A camera flashed and the bird flew. The moment vanished.

I will never be the same.

Betty's Boa

“Ahhhhhhh!” I stepped on something in the grass! Ahhhhh! It’s a snake!”

In the middle of photographing the hand-painted welcome sign for Mamanoots Backabush Resort, I heard Betty’s scream. I turned to see her dancing over the grass in a shallow swale.

“There’s a snake over there! I stepped on it!”

Binoculars down. My fellow birders rushed over, concerned that Betty might have been bitten by the fearsome fer-de-lance that was known to lurk near trailsides. A ranger happened to be nearby and identified it as a boa constrictor. Whew. The ranger stepped forward and slowly waved his hand right and left in front of the animal. The boa, which had been trying to slither away from these loud humans, sensed danger and stopped. It curled its powerful coils to prepare for a fight, then raised the first third of its body as it waved back and forth to follow the motion of the ranger’s undulating palm.

Enough, it seemed to decide. It dropped its head and made a break for the deep grass. We followed it, cameras clicking. The Belizean ranger grabbed its tail and held on. The boa immediately wrapped its body around a nearby sapling and swung around at its attacker. It flexed its entire body, distorting itself into a string of “S” shapes as it pulled against the grip of the hand that held it.

“Enough,” said Fred quietly. “Let’s leave it alone.”

The ranger laughed. “He is too strong for me anyway,” he smiled.

The incident reminded me of another drama during my trip to Belize in 2004. Our group had piled into the back of a truck to see the night animals that lived near the lodge where we were staying. On the way back in the darkness, the beam of our headlights picked up something scurrying across the road. The driver stopped. It was a tarantula. We leaned over the side for a better look. We marveled at its size, its shape, its color, the long, hairy legs. Someone remarked that tarantulas make good pets. We shivered a little, grateful to be in the truck. Yet here was the creature, naked in the false light, paralyzed before fifteen pairs of shining eyes, human beings flashing photographs, all perched high above him on the road in a towering, clattering, noisy truck, poisoning his every breath with the fumes of a diesel engine.

And we were the ones who were horrified.

A Bird by Any Other Name

Whap! Whap! Whap!

The first night I awoke to the slap of someone running in sandals, or so the unexpected rain sounded in the jungle darkness.Was it a horse? A tapir? Jaguar with heels? Someone who was here at Mamanoots last year said they discovered the footprint of one of the big cats in the sand right outside the room where I now slept. I fell back asleep. Later I woke again, astonished at the crashing of water around my ears. It was like sleeping in a car wash.

It was past dawn and pouring out. Dripping, drowning, pouring, streaming, running, sopping, slapping wet. The road washed out so the day’s outing had to be scrapped. Even our most dedicated birders watched from behind a screen in the dining cabana as the waves deluged the surrounding landscape, leaving everything in a misty haze. Every path was sodden and water squished from beneath our boots at every step. Our guide, Robert, predicted the rain would last all day.

Good thing it was the dry season.

As the hours passed, Gordon, Fred, Charlie, Phil and Stiles sneaked out during occasional lulls to report back a White-necked Jacobin or Clay-colored Robin. A Long-tailed Hermit hummingbird fluttered among an array of persimmon flowers on the other side of the screen while I watched, and it was then I learned the bird’s name had been changed to Long-billed Hermit. I have not kept up with these avian name changes, so for me, it will probably remain Long-tailed Hermit because, well… the bird has a long tail. Many hummingbirds have long bills. There is no such thing (that I know of) as a short-billed hummingbird. Besides, calling a bird by appearance helps me remember it. Birding has always been sketchy in this area, or so it seems to me, but then, I am not “hard core.”

It’s all relative. My nonbirder friends call me and exclaim, “There’s a Red-headed Woodpecker at my suet feeder!”

I answer patiently, “Does the red color cover its head like a hood, or is it a swipe down the back of its skull?”

“Uh…well…it’s not around its head. It’s red down the nape of its neck.”

“Then it’s a Red-bellied Woodpecker,” I say.

“But it doesn’t have a red belly!” they whimper.

Now it would make sense to a non-birder that you would not call a Red-bellied Woodpecker a Red-bellied Woodpecker unless it had a red belly. Saying there is a rosy wash where they are expecting the same raging scarlet that is on the bird’s head just does not cut it. But there you have it. Potential birders fall silent at this point, contemplating how you would name a bird by attributes it does not seem to have. It would even baffle Einstein, whose theory of relativity suddenly makes sense.

The Binocular Bridge-Old Bins Can Learn New Tricks

Now that you have upgraded to the latest and greatest pair of binoculars that have set you back what people used to pay for a small car, are you wondering what to do with the old pair? Are your very first pair of Swift Audubons gathering dust in the focus wheel? Have they been cleaned in the past five years? Or are they consigned to the pile of stuff you cannot bear to throw or give away because you saw your first bluebird with them? What about the Fisher Price binoculars you gave your son or daughter when they were little, hoping they would grow up to be the next Roger Tory Peterson?

Well, I have good news for you. You can send your old bins back to school. They can learn new tricks. Your old binoculars can be filled with the birds of Crooked Tree, Belize in the hands of the children who will be your future guides to that fair country. During a recent visit to Belize with a group of birders, we discovered a spark of interest among the grammar school children to learn the names of the birds they were growing up with and that we traveled so far to see. Birds like Fulvous Whistling Duck, Ringed Kingfisher, White-Collared Seedeater. Georgie Thomas, who has been traveling to Belize with her family since 1991, donated three copies of the Belize Bird Guide by H. Lee Jones. The kids seemed eager to learn more about them, but as the teacher pointed out, many of these birds cannot be seen clearly unless you have a pair of binoculars.

Oh, I thought. Now I know what to do with my old bins. They will be born again in the hands of a child discovering birds. What could be a better second lease on life for your old binoculars?

If you are interested in donating a pair, contact me via the comment option at the bottom of this post. I will be collecting them over the next several weeks and will see that they are delivered to the children of Crooked Tree.

Belize Books, Birds, Boys and Girls

“I promise not to kill any more birds with my slingshot.”

“Again. This time, I want you to mean it.”

“I pledge not to kill any more birds with my slingshot.”

The teacher smiled approval.

So did the Guest Speaker.

So did the birds of the Village of Crooked Tree, Belize. http://www.birdseyeviewbelize.com/home.htm. The Vermilion Flycatcher could perch on his wire in peace. The White-fronted Parrots could forage among the mango leaves in safety. The Brown Jay could snap up her berries without fear of being dropped by a stone.

And the children of Belize learned the birds they killed for sport were held in high esteem by the rest of the world. Their birds. The birds they grew up with. The birds they heard every morning on their way to school. The birds they teased as targets for their boredom. But on a hot morning in February 2008, they learned to embrace the bounty of beauty in front of them every day of their young lives.

The birds. The birds that brought people from across continents and seas and nationalities. The birds that brought men and women wearing strange clothing and speaking other languages and sporting binoculars. They also brought something else. Something the rest of us take for granted. We pick them up at airports and supermarkets, then toss them aside when we are done. We pay cash for them, borrow them, give them away, complain we have too many of them.
Books.

But on this day, a birder and her family brought what the children hardly knew existed. A book about birds. Not just any birds, their birds, the birds of Crooked Tree, Belize. The red birds, brown birds, yellow and black birds. They heard their names for the first time: Red-throated Ant Tanager, Spot-breasted Wren, Great Kiskadee. They learned people came to their country and gave money to their mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles in exchange for food and lodging just to see their birds. The birds whose worldly names they did not know because there were no books.

But the Guest Speaker changed that by bringing three copies of the Birds of Belize by H. Lee Jones. She also brought them an idea. The idea was simple and the books would make it possible. There were men in Crooked Tree who were feeding their families by doing it. Not only that, some were traveling the world doing it, while others made a living at it right in Crooked Tree. They were in popular. They were in demand.

The children could use the books to learn to be bird guides. They could be the ones walking with the people from other countries who stayed at Bird’s Eye View Lodge and who needed help finding the birds the children knew so well. Their slingshots had proved that. But the Guest Speaker had taken away their weapons and replaced them with a book.

“Learn their names,” she advised. “Not just boys can do this, but you girls too. You can be girl guides as well.”

The children giggled and whispered to each other, eyeing the big book with the colorful pictures. They recognized the wing patterns, the scarlets and golden yellows. And now they could learn their names.

“There is something else the children need,” the teacher whispered.

The Guest Speaker leaned forward.

“Of course.” She agreed.

What else would the children of Crooked Tree need to ignite their lives into the wonder of their own back yards? Tune in tomorrow for the next update….

Belize It or Not!

Somewhere in Belize, an Agami Heron preens itself. A Montezuma Oropendula gurgles and bows deeply to its mate. The haunting call of a Great Tinamou sounds from deep within the jungle of the Rio Bravo.

I leave early tomorrow morning. Here is what my week will be like:

Sat. 2/9: After landing at the Belize Airport, we will drive to Mama Noots Backabush Jungle Resort in the Mayflower Bocawina National Park. Lots of birds here, including the Speckled Owl, and with luck, a Keel-billed Motmot. The last time some of the group was here the cabanas leaked rain and mosquitoes, but I am promised the food is good (for whom, I wonder….)

Sun. 2/10: Search for the Motmot, then breakfast. Then off to Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary for the day. We will have a choice of birding or river tubing. Since I can go tubing in the States any time, I think I will be on the trail that day.

Mon. 2/11: 615am birdwalk before breakfast, then more birding or swimming at the waterfalls. After lunch, we will be off for the next three nights at Jungle by the Sea in Hopkins, a short drive away. They say their cabanas are “rustic.” Hmmmm.

Tue. 2/12: Off to Red Bank Village, the Scarlet Macaw Capital of Belize. We are advised to bring walking sticks to maneuver the steep climb at Red Bank to see these magnificent birds in the wild.

Wed. 2/13: Tobacco Cay for snorkeling (with my new black shorts). Hope to also pick up the Brown Boobie (yes, that is a bird, you non-birder types) and the Magnificent Frigatebird (yes, that is a bird too).

Thur. 2/14: Off to the Village of Crooked Tree and Bird’s Eye View Lodge, http://www.birdseyeviewbelize.com/home.htm, where I stayed before with members of this group in 2004. We will stop at the Blue Hole on the Hummingbird Highway for a swim and, you guessed it, more birding. We are hoping for Orange-billed Sparrow, Black Hawk Eagle, Golden-hooded Tanager, Buff-throated Saltator and White Hawk. In the evening, we will sculk around for Common Pauraques.

Fri. 2/15: At 6am, we will board the Jungle Queen (sans Humphrey Bogart) for birding on the lagoon: Boat-billed Heron, Black-collared Hawk, Green, Belted and Pygmy Kingfisher are all here. In the afternoon, it’s the Pine Savanna for the Yucatan Jay and the Yellow-headed and Yellow-lored Parrots. Don’t you just love this?

Sat. 1/16: We will squeeze in an “Hour on the Tower,” which means we bird within a prescribed circle for 60 minutes and call out whatever flies our way. We do as much laughing as birding during these games. Then…off to the airport, and home.

See ya here next Sunday, Feb. 17.

Until then~

Good Birding!

DjBrown

Bathing Suits and Belize

Have you ever shopped for bathing suits in February? No? Well, let me tell you, there are slim pickin’s. Since I only had a year to prepare for my trip to Belize this coming Saturday, the pressure is on.

I have been putting off buying a new swimsuit since June 2006. I promised myself a really nice one if I lost 20 pounds. You know, the kind that comes with the filmy wrap-around skirt that you tie in a knot around your narrow waist and flounce around the beach in.

I wake up every morning making promises to myself that I will not be tempted with the afternoon bag of nachos, but fail getting past the 10am bagel and cream cheese. Let’s face it. Getting up at 5am Monday through Friday is no bed of roses. Coffee and orange juice only gets you so far. Cooking and breakfast are only in my vocabulary on weekends. By mid-morning, I am ready for lunch. What to do?

Most of the time, I am really not all that hungry, but…I am hungry. Carrot sticks don’t cut it before noon. It has to be a little something, well, sweet. Like a honey granola bar, which is healthy, right?

Lunch is okay. I am in the ballpark with salad or chicken. But then, 3pm rolls around and I am sneaking around looking for a dose of dark chocolate antioxidants. (I know where the stashes are kept around the office…I know who you are….)

I try to work out every day. It’s the time I need to plan the meal for the evening, which is the grand celebration of having made it through another day. It’s a food affair, with me as chief celebrant. Nothing fancy usually, though I adore cheese. You could melt it over ice cream and I would eat it.

I have no control over these moments. A very reasonable voice says, “What if you die tomorrow? Do you really want to look up at the truck that just hit you and think about the dry can of tuna fish you just ate?”

And so, here I am, packing for Belize where we will be snorkeling in the sea and tubing a Belizean river that I will never see again. I prefer to hide beneath my full-body sweatsuit. This is the female legacy. Our bodies are never thin enough, fit enough, relaxed enough. I know it is all a lie, but I am hopelessly sucked into the myth that I don’t deserve to live unless I wear a size two. But because I want to go snorkeling in Belize, I have to wear a bathing suit.

Here’s what is available in early February: Last year’s lazy models hanging on the back wall. Swimsuits that would fit my cat crammed onto a rack. Leftover flouncy skirts drifting in a corner. Sigh. Where are the bag styles?

There they are! Black blobs with pink fringe, dark brown squares with ridges, and here is a racy one: scarlet with enormous palm frond straps flung across the left shoulder, intending to look alluring, but its value comes in distracting the eye byond the body who is wearing it. Don’t look at me.

I end up buying light-weight, quick-drying, black shorts. What the heck. I will wear a tee shirt with it, which should take care of the invisibility look.

And I will go snorkeling in Belize.

GO AHEAD ~ BASK!

Carolina Wren in Winter

A frigid morning. The deck cracks and pops. I stuffed the suet feeder full of a dead animal’s energy and trust it will help see the birds through another day of survival. To maintain their core body temperature, they must continually stake their inner furnace to fund flight. I am doing my part by offering a continual supply of clean, fresh suet. A few years ago, we bird-splurged on a heated birth bath. My neighbor has one humming a few doors away as well. I am certain the avian community is aware of the location of the few working watering holes, just like they flutter in right on time for a jab of pearly white suet.

Yesterday, I was rewarded with repeated views of Hairy and Downy woodpeckers (great for size comparisons) as well as a Red-Bellied woodpecker, and my favorite, the saucy Carolina Wren. The wrens are vulnerable to an icy death, since they seem to remain in their natal neighborhoods to be pounded by the wind and ice and sleet of winter. If conditions are extreme for too long, and food is not available to keep their tiny hearts pumping, they perish. How were they missed on the migration thing? With Red-Footed Falcons making their way from the coast of Africa to the beaches of Cape Cod, why can’t a Carolina Wren find her way out of my backyard to find a seed in Virginia?

Around the Lake

I love winter. I like the cold slapping me awake in the morning, reminding me there is life to be had. I have more energy, feel more relaxed. I like to think I am even more intelligent when it’s cold outside. (So you may not want to talk to me in July).

If it’s not too icy, I walk around a nearby lake on my days off. It’s a hilly three miles, enough to “blow the stink off,” as my father says. Inspired by my talented friend, “B” (author of Murmuring Trees.blogspot.com and Behindthebins.wordpress.com) who is my blog initiator/cheerleader, tech support, birding buddy and all around best friend, I’ve been toting my little camera along and managed to pick up this cardinal, who was practicing his spring nuptials.
Both male and female cardinals sing, so when you hear “what-cheer, cheer, cheer,” it could be either bird. They countersing one another. One starts, “birdy, birdy, birdy,” then the other will match it. Then the first one will sing a new phrase, ““whoit whoit, whoit,” and the other will match it again. Stand and listen to the duet; it is an important symphony to unify members of a pair, and a very sure sign of spring.
The earth is rolling over, daylight is getting longer, and the the sun has left a warm kiss upon my cheek.

Barn Sour

In a previous life, I owned a bay thoroughbred gelding. His name was Dandy. Originally from the racetrack, he had been purchased and retrained for a 14 year old girl. She quickly outgrew his limited potential as a jumper, so was put up for sale, at about the same time my friend and I had decided to buy a horse. After a year of weekly lessons, we yearned for a personal steed of our own to nurture and care for. Keeping a horse is not cheap in northeastern New Jersey, so we pooled our money and went off to find someone who would sell us a horse.

We bought Dandy for $100, including the saddle. There’s a sucker born every moment.

All you horse people out there, have a laugh on us….

The scars on his legs told a story of a rough time at the track in this horse’s earlier years, but once we got him, he was coddled, groomed, fed, petted and fussed over. We bought him a winter blanket that had tough canvas on one side, and FLEECE on the other. Nothing too good for Dandy. We brought him apples every day, combed the knots from his long tail, washed the spring mud off him, bought him shoes every month, more than we were able to do for ourselves. We were finally horse owners, no longer limited to one hour a week lessons. We could go up to the barn any time we wanted, saddle up and ride away into the sunset.

There was one problem. Dandy was barn sour. Which means that he was great while you were riding in the ring, responsive and yielding and soft. He would even pop over a few rails now and then on his own, just for fun. But take him through the gate and onto the trail into the woods, and we had a wild, snorting stallion exploding under our legs. All he wanted to do was run back to the barn, RIGHT NOW. We tried everything. We led him from the ground, whispering encouragement into his twitching ears, we ponied him beside other trail-happy horses, which seemed to work okay as long as you didn’t mind sitting on a high voltage electrical current with a brain. He was terrified. The other barn people tried to help. More experienced riders pushed him out day after day, but he always came back drenched and foaming with fear. Poor Dandy. He had spent so many years in the artificial enclosures of barns and race tracks, rings and corrals that he could not face the freedom that was his birthright. He was an equine agoraphobic.

We finally gave up the airs above the ground and just played with him in the ring. On the days we did not ride him, he hung out with his horsey pals. After two years, my friend and I made the decision to give him to a family who needed a companion for their pony. All he had to do was hang out in a large paddock with his new pal and munch hay. A part of my heart went with him.

All this to say, I have discovered that, like Dandy, I am a little barn sour.

I was looking forward to packing for my upcoming trip to Belize, but now that the process has begun, I am seized by a strange anxiety, like my feet can’t touch the ground. It feels like a thousand bees are stinging my spirit. I know what it is. I have become accustomed to my daily life on my own trail back and forth to work and to weekends. I talk about traveling, and in fact, love to travel. Let’s just say, there are “limited opportunities” so it does not happen very often. My normal, every day is familiar, predictable, safe. I know where things are. I know how to drive from point A to point B. The thousand tasks of a single day are done mindlessly, comfortingly.

But next Saturday, the chain will slide off the gate. I will be facing open country.

The Preparation Journey

Ice rime circles the rim of the heated birdbath on the deck, making it appear like a giant Margarita. POP! POW! The deck whines—it’s cold! Bare tree limbs droop against an iron sky. In the hemlocks, the north wind ruffles the hunched feathers of a Black-capped Chickadee. It’s early February in New Jersey.

Well, I mused, swallowing a Mefloquin tablet. At least I won’t get malaria. You can’t be too careful these days.

Taking an antimalarial drug is part of my preparation for an upcoming trip to Belize (known as British Honduras until 1973). You take one pill every week starting two weeks before you are in an area that might host the mosquito that carries the malaria (Plasmodium) parasite, then one per week while you are on the trip, then continue for a couple of weeks after returning home. It’s very simple. The hardest part is remembering to take it. But it’s part of the preparation, and for me, very exciting, which gives you an idea of how fascinating my life is. Preparing for a trip is part of my enjoyment of the journey. It’s the bright anticipation of meeting new people, exploring new cuisines, listening to the tongue roll of another language. (English is the official language of Belize, but most Belizeans prefer their local Spanish or Creole dialects). It’s the sometimes scary, and brilliant unknown.

It’s also about the BIRDS. It’s my second trip to that tiny country and my third to Central America, a birder’s mecca. There will be birds whose names you can savor all day long. Try saying these wonderful words out loud: Agami Heron, Common Pauraque, Blue Crowned Mot-Mot, Vermilion Flycatcher (it really is that delicious color), Barred Antshrike (which looks like it was just released from jail). Wouldn’t you like to say you saw a Buff-throated Foliage Gleaner? Or a Tawny-throated Leaf Tosser? You may have never seen the bird, but you know something about them already! One of the group’s most-hoped-for birds is the Scarlet Macaw, so keep your fingers crossed!

So, that’s what I will be doing, nonstop. I will be looking for birds and looking at birds. I will watch them fly and feed and flirt. I ask you, what could be better than spending all day, every day, looking at birds, and doing it with ten other people who want nothing more than to do the same thing? I could swoon! I tried coaxing my non-birder husband to go too, but he looked at me from reading the sports page of the newspaper and smiled the patient smile of a man with a bird-loving spouse:

“Let me ask you a question. How would you like to go with a bunch of people to spend ten days watching football? And not only do you watch football all day, you talk about football during breakfast, talk about football during lunch and talk about football during dinner? You go, and have a good time!”

Point taken!

It’s Saturday, only one week away from the ride to the airport. It’s time to stage my stuff! Quick-drying pants with hundreds of pockets, and lightweight, long sleeved shirts with another hundred pockets, underwear (no pockets), socks, a wide-brimmed hat, boots, sneakers, bug spray, sunscreen, camera, batteries, flashlight, notebook, rain jacket, alarm clock, passport, BIRD BOOK, BINOCULARS.

I am almost ready.

The Present Fence

It happens to all of us. The furnace breaks down, the water heater suddenly springs a leak. The unexpected expenses, the bills that come out of nowhere. It leaves me reeling. Where did that come from? How can I pay it? Where is the money supposed to come from?

Telephone calls to the offending company. The 24-hour 800 service number, answered by a human being. But I realize I am not talking to someone in-country. I am speaking to a woman in India who is excessively, maddeningly courteous. (Just when did I get irritable with courtesy?)

Call another number, she directs. I get transferred back to the United States and hear the familiar snarl of a fellow American. His answers are clipped, abrupt. The company is owed the money. Too bad I didn’t think to look at page 4 where the accumulated utilities were quietly collecting like a secret gang.

Now I have to pay the balance. Oy.

I flew into a panic. We live a comfortable life but need to be constantly vigilant. Little things like this upset the apple cart. As I motor off to work, I add, subtract, figure out what I can borrow from Peter to pay Paul. I drive down the highway working on this problem, picturing my checkbook, making mental notes about what can be put on hold, what should be paid right away. I change lanes, fiddle with the radio. It’s just another humdrum workday, driving the same route for the past umpteen years. What to do? What to do?

An enormous tractor trailer lumbered past and shook the Toyota. I opened my eyes wide, and suddenly remembered the fence lesson. It was from a speech given by Christopher Reeves while he wheezed from his wheelchair at a convention years ago. He told the story of the terrible accident that ended life as he knew it.

"I never blamed my horse, he said. The fact that he stopped at the fence was not because of him. It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t there for him.

You see, when you are riding, especially at that level of competition, you and your horse have to be mentally and spiritually connected. You have to be tuned in to each other all the time. You pick up signals from each other. It’s an animal telepathy.

When you are jumping a series of fences, you have to keep preparing. You focus on the fence in front of you, and then while you are going over that fence, you look at the next one. By the time you land, you are preparing, signaling with your body and your mind, letting the horse know what to do and how to prepare. He signals back with his own body and his own attention. You can see it in their ears. They swing forward and backward to listen. They can hear you in those moments. They depend upon you, and you on them.

On that day, I wasn’t thinking about the jump that we just went over, or the one up ahead. I was concerned about a difficult jump that was three jumps ahead of us, and was planning how we would take it. I wasn’t paying attention to the present moment. My horse was asking and I wasn’t responding. He was confused. When we got to what turned out to be my last jump, I wasn't there for him. So he balked.

I wasn’t present to my horse in the moment. And the present moment is all we have."

As my red Camry rocketed down the highway during the rush hour traffic, I remembered Christopher Reeves and his last fence. I glanced around at the speeding tractor trailors, the zippy little red BMW jumping lanes that just cut off three other drivers, the stream of FedEx trucks that were just let loose onto the highway lanes from their parking lot headquarters.

This was my present moment. This was my fence. I had better pay attention. I took a deep breath and focused on the road in front of me, adjusted my speed, woke up to my present moment.

I’ll figure the rest out later.