A Lifer for Bill

"Olive-backed Pipit...the bird of the trip...the rarest bird on this island!"
Bill's eyes lit up with frenzied hope as I laid out the options for Brookline Bird Club's first evening on St. Paul.

Over my mountain of rice and octopus, I surveyed my 20 charges with uncertainty.  Out of the three options I'd given them--male Brambling at Hutch Hill; Common Cuckoo at Nova Stoshna; Olive-backed Pipit at Webster Celery Pits--the pipit was the one I was least stoked about. The previous day, Cory, Ashley, and I had failed to relocate it, my gut feeling was that it had skipped town.

Bill, leading his 23rd--and final--trip to St. Paul, wasn't about to be swayed. Unlike the other options, Olive-backed Pipit would be a Life Bird for him. So, after we escaped Trident's caloric onslaught, we loaded into the bus and drove to Webster. A few hours later, I dropped them off at the King Eider, still pipitless.

Two days later and Bill still hadn't gotten a Life Bird. I really hoped we'd find one for him--after all, it was his final trip. It was my day off, so I decided to go turn over some rocks that hadn't been flipped for awhile. It was a beautiful afternoon. Sunny, warm, only light winds. Just beyond the airport is a nice corridor of wet areas separated by lupine-carpeted dune bowls. We often check the wet areas individually, but I decided to just walk the whole complex.

I drove past Weatherbureau, arm raised in Rock Sandpiper salute to the lost Barrow's Goldeneye and Double-crested Cormorant. At the road's end, I grabbed my camera and binoculars and began slogging through the Mare's Tail.

When I guide, I'm constantly "on". You have to be sensitive to the needs of your groups, play off their dynamics, give them the best experience possible. You have to be adaptable, intuitive, three steps ahead of where the group's at. Your work goes far beyond simply finding them birds. You have to figure out the best way of getting everyone in the group on it, then be an ornithological encyclopedia about the identification, the life history, take a stab at explaining why it ended up on this speck of a volcanic island instead of on its Siberian breeding grounds. It's exhausting, gratifying work. To recharge, I must allow my thoughts to outwander my feet when I'm off.

I was thinking thoughts so deep they must have been heavier than my feet (swaddled in sweaty alpaca socks, entombed in rigid rubber coffins) when I saw a bird with huge white wing patches flying away from me. Huge white wing patches are not a trademark of any St. Paul regular, so I drew my binoculars and nailed the bird in my sights.

Awwww yeah--HAWFINCH. Most years, some Hawfinch end up in the Pribilofs as they leave their wintering grounds in Japan and head towards the Kamchatka. It was a Life Bird for me. Was it a Life Bird for anyone else?

The bird landed on the far side of the bowl. After snapping a "record shot", I called Scott, who was taking the Brookline Gang around that day.

"Yo."
"Hey, I got a Hawfinch in the dunes between Tonki and Tim's."
"We're heading that way."

By some miracle, when Scott's group started walking from Tim's, the bird had positioned itself optimally--to escape, it would have to fly by me or Scott, and those glaring wing patches weren't going to make a stealth escape easy.

Scott's small army and their colorful windbreakers crested the dune. The Hawfinch flew. I glared at it bouncing away in finch fashion. They were so close to getting it, this escape attempt was not permissible. I called Scott, barely out of shouting distance.

"Yo."
"It's flying your way...LOOK UP! Oh, it landed. Do you have it?"
"No."
"It must be just over the berm for you."

They marched forward, Scott raised his hand, they stopped. They had it. My anxiety upwelling receded, and I made my way to the group to be greeted by a receiving line of high fives.

During the chase, Bill's windbreaker had slipped down to his elbows. His eyes--those eyes that have been finding birds for more than 40 years--were wild, elated. He shook my hand.

"Nice going, nice going, I've been coming here for 23 years and this is my last trip. Great find, the bird of the trip. Good direction. Well-played, nice going."

Bill had gotten his Life Bird