Yesterday, we were driving between cliffs, as we so often do this time of year. It's the solstice; after a month of squinting over windmaps, of tracing the squiggles leaving Asia (and losing them somewhere over the Okhotsk or Bering long before they ever reach St. Paul), a month of willing winds from all the wrong directions to change, we secede a little. Of course, we've still got hope for a late migrant--a flycatcher or a cuckoo--but the listers are phasing out, replaced by the photographers. We spend much of our time at cliffs or traveling between them.
Priblovian weather had driven us off Reef Cliffs early. It was the sort of day where you spend more time reclaiming your optics from sea spray than you do actually looking through them. We were headed to Ridge Wall. Not because I expected conditions would improve--all our cliffs are a rough time in southeast gales--but because traveling to Ridge would allow us the longest recovery before we'd exit the van to cold and misery somewhere else.
We stopped at Salt Lagoon, and I peered between the raindrops on my binoculars. Even through the condensation, Glaucous-winged Gulls remained various cycles of sorry. Guides on St. Paul, like workers anywhere, carry a toolbox. Not just physical--lens cloths and spotting scopes and field guides--but one less tangible. Tools like: a soft touch to ease a decrepit 12-passenger van from a treacherous sand pit; the sense of working with wind, light, and a Jack Snipe so the group gets the best views as it flushes; how to best console a client who got PenAir'd.
This spring, "endurance", "optimism", and "art of convincingly using time" have been tools in regular rotation. The fun tools--"pin a name on that Asian flycatcher" for example--have not. The winds haven't been with us. We've been poised, ready--begging the winds for an opportunity to use our full repertoire. There's so much that we could do. But there's also only so much we can do, because we need luck.
Yesterday, it was luck that bad weather drove us from the cliffs early.
It was luck that Gail wanted a scope view of the Red-legged Kittiwakes on Salt Lagoon.
It's luck that, after setting her up, I happened to look skyward at the right place, the right time.
A bird cut over the harbor towards us. It didn't fly like a regular, I was catching a weird angle--maybe a Tringa? A Wood Sandpiper would be nice. I swung my bins up and here's where I was wrong: what I'd thought were legs was actually a tail...
"SWIFT!!!!" I shrieked. "GET ON IT IT'S ASIAN!"
Suddenly, I needed all those tools I'd been longing to use all migration. Dropped bins, raised camera, fired off shots before the dark manifestation of aerodynamicity vanished to anonymity. Dark. That'd been the first impression we'd all gotten.
"Well, whatever it was, it was an ABA-bird for me," said Sam, speaking for us all.
Swifts are aptly-named; this one was gone, evidenced just by my adrenaline shakes and our photos. Thankfully, these showed both the dorsal and ventral. All dark, all right!
"It was COMMON!"
Despite its name, Common Swift is anything but--in North America. In fact, the amount of times it's been seen here can be counted on one hand. This is all according to "Rare Birds of North America", the only North American field guide where you'll find Common Swift.
There's a lot of "common" birds in Rare Birds of North America: Redshank, Rosefinch, Cuckoo, Sandpiper...
So what are they? Common or rare? That depends on where you are and where you care. If you're Sam, who's been to Attu and has spent a lot of time chasing down birds in the ABA-area, it's a mega. If you're like John and Janet, UK photographers, a Common Swift is well-named.
"We've got them in our garden," they laughed.
Where is St. Paul, really? Any map would show it being really far from anywhere. A map from 2016 would say USA, but a map from the 1830s would say Russia. In town is a Russian Orthodox church whose congregation bear Russian surnames. There, Russian (and Aleut and English) are used. 4th of July, a decidedly American holiday, is celebrated in decidedly American ways: beer, a loud parade and community barbecue, red/white/blue everywhere. Our birds are conglomerate also. Here, crecca Green-winged Teal reach the eastern limit of their range, carolinensis the western. The two often hybridize, producing offspring with both stripes and no stripes.
But to a lister it's pretty clear: St. Paul is definitively (albeit barely) inside the ABA-area, a volcano-made island in a man-made construct. And listers tend to flock to the limits of this man-made construct--places like southeast Arizona and Newfoundland and the Florida keys--places where extralimital birds show up from time to time.
"Extralimital," said a client a few weeks back. "I love the word...it conjures being in the right location in the right place, at the right time, when the alchemy of wind and El Nino and season finally works itself out."
Today the alchemy had come through. We continued on to the cliffs, high on a "common" bird rendered rare by a boundary. The listers were satiated, the photographers keen on Ridge Wall's Beringian specialties, which, ironically, are birds unrecorded in most of the world yet common on St. Paul. In the end, who's really after the rare birds?
Last week, I had a day off. A day off, but also a date--with the cliffs, the hinterlands, and myself. Away on the north shore of the island is Tsmanna, a windswept camp house adjacent a muddy pond. A seven-mile walk down a grassy four-wheeler path, it's a bit of a commitment to get out there. And it's always worth it. Sometimes it's a bird surprise: a McKay's Bunting or a Common Ringed Plover. Sometimes it's sitting on the edge of a cliff shuddering under the pounding surf. Sometimes the beauty comes simply from the opportunity to unwind, to reconnect with the parts of your soul that become neglected through the constant rewind and replay of vagrancies and weather patterns and future North American records that our clients love to dream about.
Tsmanna trail
This evening I head out from Southwest Point with an objective in mind, rare for me on a day off. I want to smell the lupines and watch the kittiwakes gather mud. The evening is calm, quiet, wrapped in Beringian Fog that lifts and settles. It beads on my eyelashes when it descends; when it lifts, it's as if a curtain has been drawn. Now, as far as the eye can see are purple plains--painted by the explosion of Nootka Lupine, two weeks earlier than it came last year. Above it all is a wild tinkling like wayward windchimes--the Lapland Longspurs, skylarking over the tundra.
Rush Hill
Southwest lava fields
Nootka Lupine
Despite frequent falling to my knees to bury my face in lupine perfume, I make it up and over High Bluffs, beyond Rush Hill, past myriad Rock Sandpipers. There it is: Tsmanna, the pond shimmering in the distance. I'm now accompanied by a constant stream of kittiwakes, also Tsmanna-bound. They leave their cliff ledges, veer over the tundra towards the pond. When they return, they're toting bill-fulls of sticky black mud. This is not just a sprinkling of kittiwakes. It is hundreds. Although days are long, summer is short and if the nests are to succeed, the gathering must happen now.
The gathering
The gathering
The whole way to the pond, I walk beneath the kittiwakes and think about intimacy. Although their movement is above me, past me, I still feel a part of some wondrous happening. Their urge is biological, mine more spiritual. The world is big and I am small and I, like most humans, yearn for intimacy. Intimacy with place, intimacy with relationships, intimacy with my place in the grand scheme of things. Intimacy is something that cannot be demanded, nor is it immediate. Yet we want it so badly that we try to bypass the process, often settling for poor substitutes.
Rock Sandpiper
For example, you have two weeks to experience Thailand, so you pay for elephant rides and trek to hill villages and photograph temples, like everyone else that has just three weeks to try and grasp the essence of a place. Or you meet someone as intent on intimacy as you. You get too close, too fast. We crave intimacy, but we're afraid of the investment, loathe to take the time to develop a true connection. We desire to go everywhere and try everything, and in that pursuit accept surface knowledge and shallow relationships. They're not the real deal.
My relationship with St. Paul, a month into its second season, is beginning to become intimate. There is still much to learn, but I know that the lousewort will follow the lupines; that the Rock Sandpipers will have chicks within the week; that now is the time to join the kittiwake gathering.
Tsmanna
Tsmanna
The white shimmer on Tsmanna pond slowly comes into focus. Hundreds of kittiwakes dancing on, flapping over, extracting the mud that will house their eggs and young. I get a little too close, and the whole flock lifts, distrusting. I guess I'm not intimate with the kittwakes yet. Though I know a good deal about them, they can't say the same for me. Intimacy is a two-way street.
Mud-gathering
Mud-gathering
Black and Red-legged Kittiwakes
I apologize for the interruption and start the trek back to the van. The kittiwakes, still uncomfortable, adjust their trajectory so they don't have to fly directly above me. It's almost midnight, but the kittiwakes continue their cycle between cliffs and mud; longspurs tinkle above the tundra; back in town, they're still working on the harbor. So it goes where days are long but summer is short.
Sometimes, the birds win. We don't like losing, rarely do it gracefully. Sometimes though, you've got to hand it to them.
Last night after dinner, we went up to Hutch for the wheatear and the rubythroat, but mostly the rubythroat. My stress level was solidly in the red zone, for my experience with rubythroats out here is basically uniform across the board: they're bitch birds. We'd found out right before dinner--the worst possible timing so, consequently, the slot when most birds are found.
I'd eaten at Trident with the group to maximize efficiency. Turns out I didn't even have to pay the $20 because we had a sulker that stayed in the van. He'd wanted to skip dinner and go straight to the bird, but in a group majority rules and he'd been outnumbered. I ate his dinner for him. Didn't even enjoy the halibut though, thanks to anxiety and the fact that I more or less swallowed it (and the scalloped potatoes and the recently-frozen brussel sprouts) whole. I'd bypassed the crab linguine--every move was being made in the name of efficiency.
And now we were at Hutch, cresting the hill. I'd tried to scheme a plan, as always, there were a plethora of factors: wind direction; the habits of the bird; the mobility of the group. Rarity-oriented guiding is a much different game than the Kirtland's tours I used to lead: higher stakes and high-complexity strategies. In a strong south wind, the bird would be hunkered on the north side, probably low and in the rock gardens and celery at the base of the hill.
I was wrong.
Our heads were still in the wind when a small brown bird shot out to my left, dropped into some rocks in front of me.
"BIRD! RUBYTHROAT!"
A few of us saw it, but most of us did not. Someone saw it in front of where it'd gone in, running on the ground. Frantic directions ensued.
"It's in front of the rock..."
...we were in a rock garden...
"...with the orange lichen on it."
...like all of the other rocks in the garden.
I thought of two things that we could do. We could push forward fast, flush it again--maybe it would fly up and be gone forever. Or we could wait and hope it popped out again. We tried the latter.
It didn't work.
So we edged forward. Into view, at, past where we'd last seen the rubythroat. Fucker had slithered low through the rocks away from us, fitting for a bird that's more or less Satan's spawn when they show up out here. Those bitch rubythroats.
We hatched a few plans and acted on most. We swept and scoured and squinted through the bright green terraces that will soon be covered by seals. In the process we found the wheatear, a few Wood Sandpipers, Pacific Golden-Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones, and an Eastern Yellow Wagtail. Not the rubythroat.
Some of us wanted to stay, some of us wanted to go, and the hill needed us to go. I spoke on behalf of Hutch--
"We've combed it over. It needs a breather. We can sit and watch, but we're not walking it any more tonight."
There was dissent, which I'd expected and affirmation, which I hadn't, but none of that matters, because in the end it was my call. And my call was to let the bird win because sometimes, that's what you've got to do.
Postlude: The next day, we went back, and more of us won. Twice. Because I'll lose a hand but not the game.
"Welcome to St. Paul. If this isn't your stop, feel free to get off the plane, but you can leave your bags," the PenAir flight attendant announces over whining props.
I know it isn't St. Paul because there are trees, a lot of them. Unless the island's undergone dramatic change since I left 6 months ago, we don't have those here.
"This is DILLINGHAM," someone at the back of the plane pipes up, quickly following with "Didn't mean to put you on the spot, Savannah."
That's one of the pluses of PenAir--most everyone's on a first-name basis with the crew. The drawbacks of PenAir, though...they're numerous. In light of this, the first thing I did yesterday morning was pack defensively: bins on, boots on, sourdough starter & Bailey's in my carryon (that's right, there's no security). Turns out this was oversight. At the gate, the only unhappy people were those bound for Dutch Harbor, socked in with fog. I felt their pain. It was rumored the St. George leg of our flight might not happen either--too windy.
"Well if they cancel George, at least our bags will have a better chance of coming out with us," Scott mused.
Because of the perils associated with flying a small plane over the temperamental Bering Sea, PenAir has strict weight restrictions and sometimes, your body ends up on the island well before your bags do.
We take off from Dillingham and cut out over the water. I'm here on the plane with a bunch of seasonals and St. Paul residents. In front of me is Claudia, another guide. She's going over peep identification and has a tab open that reads "Thai Cashew". I smile, for I'm doing the same thing: looking at Rare Birds of North America and furrowing my brow over a shopping list I'll be taking to a store that never has what I really want.
Across the aisle is Caitlin, who's about my age, a newly sworn police officer and St. Paul resident. We could be friends. There are also two female techs sitting somewhere behind me. We could be friends, too.
This is my second season out here, and I love St. Paul the island. The people who call it home love it too. I don't want to love it separately from them. I want to love it with them, together. For me, it's been a hard community to break into and that is one of my biggest regrets from last year: I used the island for its birds without investing in St. Paul the community.
The Saab Turboprop's landing gear locks into place as the Bering Sea comes closer and closer. I look out my window, it looks windy down there. The island comes into view, and I can see dust trails from cars heading to the airport. Flights are kind of a big deal out here.
"I'll do better this time," I silently promise St. Paul. We're on the ground and stepping off the plane; I almost get blown backwards by the stiff north wind. Yep, feels like home.
Inside the hangar, I see familiar faces. Dennis gives me shit for getting stuck so many times.
"This year, we got a special tow truck just for you. Says Alison on it!"
"TDX needs to make a special position then, too--just to pull me out."
That's something else I can do better at this year.
Paul smiles, Barbara gives me a hug, Z says,
"Beer-thirty this Friday!"
"I'll be there!" I grin.
And I will. I promised to do better.
We make our way into town: Gray-crowned Rosy Finches, Rock Sandpipers and a Bar-tailed Godwit on Salt Lagoon. I'm cautiously evaluating the status of the Sequoia. Engine's not knocking, windows are okay--and good, the brakes seem to work too.
At A-dorm, we spend just enough time to deposit our stuff, gear up, and deduce the fridge has had a rough winter. Now, it doesn't just howl intermittently: it's added Willow Ptarmigan and Barred Owl sounds to its repertoire.
We're all excited to get out and see what birds are waiting to be discovered. Our first stop on Salt Lagoon reveals a flock of Bar-tailed Godwits and a sharp adult Black-headed Gull. We visit Pumphouse, Antone Lake, and Weather Bureau. At Tonki when we get out into the wind to scan the ocean, it starts to spit rain. Oh we're definitely on St. Paul.
In Anchorage everything was warm, pleasant; there was actually a dawn chorus. Now it's like we've gone back into winter. Rotting snow, brown tundra, that unceasing north wind. No more tap beer, trees, dogs, mosquitoes, or phone service.
We swing by Charles' house to eat reindeer steak and warm up. We talk about the dearth of produce and Biff's rent-a-wreck (going rate $1500/month) and the time I wore the skirt to the bar here. The meal is delicious, the friendship nourishing. It's so good to be back, even though knowing what to expect out here doesn't necessarily make what I do easier.
After dinner we drive out Northeast. Last year when I came out, these places were just names, names I often couldn't remember. Now, they have memories attached to them: Polovina Hill, where Brandon finally got his Willow Warbler. Hutch Cut, which still has yet to impress me. Nova Stoshna, where we saw a Bristle-thighed Curlew last year...and, as a burly shorebird flashes in front of me and shows its buffy rump, it's where we saw a Bristle-thighed Curlew this year, too.
So, Philippines again. Some things don't change--all of Kensuli has malaria. The baseball-sized circle of red and purple on my right buttock is evidence that the trail is at least as treacherous as it was when I left. The first scoop of a bucket shower is still a frigid mental barrier.
A lot is different, too. All my friends got married, had new babies, or got married AND had new babies. Kensuli is mostly abandoned, pigs are everywhere, it's messy. It's not safe for me to walk on the trails by myself anymore.
Drying rice at Mirikewbew
Things have been heavy on my mind. I've changed too, and I'm not the same person as I was nekana'in, when I lived here 11 months. After I left Kensuli, I romanticized it so much, forgot all the hardships. Now, I'm back after 2 months of lounging around vacation destinations, and Kensuli is not a vacation destination. Furthermore, it's hard to simply visit without being invested wholly in the people and the work here. I feel guilty being an observer instead of a worker, a taker instead of a contributor.
Di'in and Miri
1. Banwe ni Di'in: (Di'in's house):
Although we're drenched in sweat from toiling up, we quickly become chilled sitting on the drafty bamboo-slat porch. Di'in (younger than me) and her 5 y/o Miri both have selet. (Literally "snot".) Her husband Albin went to the Wednesday market in the lowlands where he's probably gambling money they don't have on volleyball and drinking tuba'. When I lived here, Di'in took her birth control religiously--it's not surprising that Miri has no siblings. If I had a child like Miri, I'd probably do everything possible to never have another, too. She bullies children twice her size, races around the dirt yard harassing puppies and chicks all-the-while shouting the Jollibee Song at the top of her lungs. Then, she lights a cigarette in the cooking fire and pulls on it better than I could. "Anday megsigu!" snaps Di'in, to no effect.
Tamleng River
2. Banwe ni Kiri. Carrie has been a nurse in Kemantiyan since I arrived, and I've been staying at her house. It's morning; mosquitoes swarm up through the datag cracksand attack my feet. Huts here let in more than keep out. I am attempting to make fried rice, but the humidity is inconducive to lighting the burner. After three matches, I give up and let Carrie do it. It lights on her first attempt--the burner AND the emaciated cat crouching on the stovetop. For a brief moment, Missy's entire left side is a burst of flame; the stench of burning hair permeates the house. Remarkably, Missy is entirely nonchalant.
Kikid (Mariliya's daughter), Mariliya, and Patma (Mariliya's niece)
3. Banwe ni Mariliya. Mariliya's got a new house. This is because Bep, their paralyzed son, was playing with fire and burned down their other one. They lost everything--clothes, mosquito net, photos I sent of us after I left, the feathers she'd stuck above the door as testament to her husband's skill with a blowgun. And they were already SO poor. But, regardless of that AND of them all being sick, they gift us a bunch of ripe bananas. I look around me--Bep with his big drooly beautiful smile. The unusually quiet rooster trying to steal newly-harvested rice.
Maribel, Runita, Ruwina
Ruwina
Maribel
4. Du'un Mirakubew. Although I lived in Kensuli, I spent most of my time with the people who live in Mirakubew. Today, the women are home but the men are not. I sit on the porch missing the times when I could keep up with their fast words. Some I can pick out, like, "Mam, nelipaten ke at Pelawan." ("You forgot how to speak Palawano.") Ruwina (24), Maribel (21), and Runita (18) are sisters. They've all had children since I lived here--4 months, 2 months, and 18 months. Maribel also adopted an 8-month-old from a neighboring village. She did this because the mother was possessed and wouldn't care for her child; she weighed only 4 kilos at 6 months. Now the father wants the child back, since it's a daughter and therefore she can be sold. But for now, she's Maribel's. The love the whole family radiates to her is incredible, especially given that they all have babies of their own. They extend their love to me and my students, feeding us sticky rice with tlinu't kumbehang (cassava leaves) we eat with our hands. Maribel sits across from me, cradling her child, shooing chickens out of the drying rice with a long bamboo pole. If someday, I am half the woman she is I'll be doing well.
5. Bagung Te'un (New Year's Eve). Carrie and I walk through the night. The crickets are drowned out by firecrackers. Our destination is a hut where a couple dozen Pelawans have gathered. Lilu'lut (sticky rice cooked inside bamboo) is arranged over the fire; the men are hacking apart a goat on a giant banana leaf. Hopeful puppies gather around. A confused duck alternates sleeping with spastic flapping. A little girl I don't know crawls into my lap. I hold her tight, sensing she needs love. She rests her head on mine--I wonder if she has kutu (lice). She scratches her head--yep, she has kutu. I wonder when I'll get kutu. The stars are as glorious as they were when I lived here.
It's hard to return to a place that you were wholly invested in, find that the biggest way that it's changed is in how you relate to and understand it. The hopes and dreams that I had when I lived there before have transformed, I have time to have hopes and dreams. They still struggle to survive. It's not fair.
(Joe Walsh--I.L.B.T. Watch this if you want the rest of the post to make any sense.)
Uh huh. That's where it's at. Tits. I like big tits.
(Sultan Tits, to be precise.)
Let's throw back to mid-November, when I was living a relatively stress and worry-free life bumming around in Thailand with Hope. We'd lived a fantastic few weeks in reckless spontaneity, but like all good things, we were ending--at least that's what it felt like.
My explosion, cornering, and curry-puff partner. Doi Pha Hom Pok, Thailand.
Saturday, November 21st, Arcade Bus Station: we heft our heavy packs from a tuk-tuk one last time, squint in the bright Chiang Mai sun. Our parting is on the grounds of ideological differences: Hope wants to go north to Pai and hang out with fake hippies. My obsession with Sultan Tits leaves me no choice but to head south, towards Kaeng Krachan National Park. Hope and I place bets on who's gonna be the requisite Pai puker (the vans are not for the weak-stomached). She climbs aboard with the greasy smelly white people wearing elephant pants, and I wave goodbye to her for an uncomfortably long time--so long that people around the bus station must've thought we were lovers separating or something.
I cross the street, climb in a double-decker bus that smells faintly of urine and hand my ticket to a brusque woman in unflattering lilac polyester. I sleep most of the 12 hours to Bangkok. When I arrive, it's about 4AM. The bus disgorges us, and illegitimate taxi drivers swarm like fulmars on a processor. I evade this first wave and head towards the taxi-meter line. Thinking I'm safe, I let my guard down for a moment and am successfully solicited by a more convincing illegitimate taxi driver. The plan is that he'll take me to Victory Monument for 400 baht. He fucks up, however, when he stops to laugh with one of his buddies about the stupid American he's just scammed. The only thing I understand is "taxi-meter hahaha."
"hahaha joke's on you", I think.
"Change my mind. Taxi-meter." I reclaim my bag and march back towards the promised land of taxi-meter, while he follows me, assuring that I'll wait a long time and pay a big sum. I wait 3 minutes and pay just under 100 baht. Sunday, November 22, 4:30 AM, Victory Monument. No, despite being a white tourist, I am not going to Ayhutthaya. The first minivan company I find assures me that they go to Kaeng Krachan, great! We get on the van, I confirm with my huge map that we are, indeed, headed the general direction of Kaeng Krachan. Good. I make small-talk with the adorable older woman next to me until our pigeon-English repertoire is exhausted. In Phetchaburi, I see signs for the Kaeng Krachan turnoff. We keep going. Ah well, Kaeng Krachan is a ways off the main drag. Maybe he's dropping the other passengers and then he'll take me to the park. My seatmate looks at me concernedly and exchanges Thai with the woman in shotgun.
"You miss your stop."
FUCK.
Thai people are generally wonderful, and through the concerted effort of the van occupants, I kind of understand what I'm supposed to do next.
"Motorcycle stop...cross street...van."
Just in case, I have them write in Thai script that I want to go to Kaeng Krachan. Sunday, November 22, 9:30 AM, Phetchaburi (I think?) Right now, my only comfort is that I can prooobably get back to Bangkok if all else fails. A Thai flower-seller coaches me across four terrifying lanes of traffic, and I find the "motorcycle stop". I show the oldest man my paper, he seems to understand, and assures me he'll help me get on the van. I sit there and wait...and wait...for like a whole 45 minutes. Vans that could probably take me to Kaeng Krachan pass by frequently; the motorcycle guys laugh and smoke on the corner. Impatient, I stew. Another van appears, they jump to life. "This one go to Kaeng Krachan." Oh ye of little faith, they were just waiting for the right van.
Sunday, November 22, noon. Kaeng Krachan! My destination is Ban Krang, about 30 kilometers from the park entrance. The people at the desk tell me a ride to Ban Krang will cost me 2400 baht. I commit to (but don't yet pay) this price--SULTAN TITS!--and then spend the next 45 minutes trying to surreptitiously divorce myself from this arrangement. I'm not a very subtle person, so I tell the desk people, "I walk," and you know what? They can't stop me!
So, I do just that--walk--until I'm out-of-sight of HQ and then I start to hitchhike. The first pickup I flag pulls over; they say they're going to Ban Krang. SCORE!! I revel in my evasion of exorbitant fees, feeling resourceful and anything but a slave of the system. About 5K into the ride, my revelries are abruptly ended. There's a festival, or a market (are they really that different anyway?!), with a throng of security-type guys. They motion me to get out. They speak zero English; beyond "Thank You" I know zero Thai and I definitely am not feeling thankful right now.
I assume they work for the park and disapprove of my hitchhiking around the fee, so I am frustrated and dangerously close to losing face and we're getting NOWHERE and no one in the fucking place speaks ANY English and the teenage boys are starting to gather to laugh at me. Then I do a skit. I walk, beckon like I'm hitchhiking, and the lights go off in their eyes. I'm not sure what they think I said, but they shower me with water and juice and street meat that is highly sketchy and barely cooked. The guy who ordered me out of my first ride ushers me to his aging Isuzu and we limp up the mountain while I try to allocate my new wealth of food that I don't want to eat.
Sunday, November 22, 1:30. I get dropped off at the family-operated checkpoint 15 km from Ban Krang. Guard dude won't let me walk ("Elephants!"), but says I can hang out until I get a ride. Sweet. I awkwardly make myself at home. We watch boxing.
"Boxing very popular in Thailand."
Then, the wife pushes a plate of food towards me.
"Hot!" the guard warns.
He wasn't kidding. His daughter, giggling at the tears running down my face, runs off for a pitcher of water--all for me. I give them my bag of dried mango in thanks.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and I wait impatiently for a ride. This gate closes at 5:30 (elephants), and it was 1:30. An hour and three vehicles pass; he motions me to wait each time I try to get up. My frustration swells again--is he going to prevent me from my Sultan Tits?
Again, I'm wrong and my impatience is telling. Guard dude has simply factored in my rancid-smelling body and glut of gear, and was waiting for a pickup truck. Smart guy. I climb in the truck he's stopped for me, and finally make it all the way to Ban Krang. There, I alternately lay in my hammock enjoying Violet Cuckoos and Ashy Drongos and rush to the bathroom, thanks sketchy street meat.
Near dusk, I get yelled at by a Thai family to come hang out. They force friendship (and beer) on me, and I am all too willing. They cite ghosts, tigers, and elephants as reasons why I should move my tent closer to theirs. The cook, bringing a mountain of "fry rice", supports their opinion, adding porcupine and leopard to the danger list.
"Porcupine? They just dangerous if you sit on them!" I retort.
We drink more beer and I show them pictures of snow and they show me pictures of Great Hornbills further up the road...wait WHAT? With the help of the cook, we hatch a plan where they'll get me a ride at 5AM. I'll do anything for a Great Hornbill.
The cook comes out and grabs me to come to the kitchen and look at porcupines. They're less enthralled with me than I with them, raise their quills and waddle away. I go outside again and drink more beer. About this time, we all forget that I don't speak Thai, but somehow they've convinced me that I really do need to move my tent. We do it together. The beer is gone, but a flask of brandy appears and starts making the rounds. The cook asks me about birds. At this point, the answer to any bird question is "Sultan Tit", so I say "Sultan Tit".
The best part about this is he knows what tits are, he also knows what Sultan Tits are, and he does NOT speak English. I bid farewell to my new friends and pass out until 4:30 AM.
Sea of Fog, Kaeng Krachan National Park
Monday, November 23, 4:30 AM. The cook, true to his word, helps me flag a truck going up. I hop into the back unsuspectingly. This ride is one for the record books, and so is the road. Thailand generally seems overcautious with its classification of "4X4 only", but this one is awful. Stream crossings and steep grades over a moth-eaten surface that was possibly pavement a few lives ago. The driver wants to race everyone else to the top and he wins and I don't fall out so I guess we all win. At the viewpoint, it's beautiful. Unspoiled jungle and undulating mountain ridges filled in by fog. I really want to see Great Hornbill, but placate myself with the knowledge that birding at least takes me amazing places and the view and ride has been worth it. The driver notices I have binoculars and perks up. He starts pointing out birds--mostly phylloscoshits in terrible lighting. AND THEN THE HORNBILLS COME.
It's great. They float by distantly, prehistoric silhouettes against the sea of fog. They glide...glide...glide, eventually coasting to a stop in the top of a mammoth tree. I am ecstatic over this Life Bird experience. Just down the road, Chinese photographers spill out of a vehicle frantically changing lenses as the hornbills glide serenely by. This I enjoy too.
Ironically, the guy I randomly hitch a ride with turns out to be a Thai birding guide, and he finds me a few more life birds on our trip down the mountain. Upon return at Ban Krang, the cook rushes me towards a bunch of just-arrived Caucasian farangs. I help (confuse?) all parties, and sit down to another plate of fry rice. The cook shows me amazing camera-trap captures: tapir, clouded leopards, and porcupine sex. Tuesday, November 24, 5:00 AM. You see 'em on the street Left and right I like big tits
My last morning in Kaeng Krachan, Sultan Tits are anything but left and right. Being a guide, I understand that the more you want to see a bird the lower the chances of that actually happening. Murphy's Law and shit. That doesn't change anything; I can't think about anything but Sultan Tits. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was this emotionally invested in a bird.
I try to look away But I can't resist Every time I try to call it quits I like big tits
I'd like to see big tits. I wander around the campground in vain, then travel the road (also in vain). I see some nice birds--Spectacled Piculet. Orange-breasted Trogon. Dollarbird. Blue-bearded Bee-Eater. But alas, none of them get the attention they deserve, because even though some of them are Life Birds, none of them are Sultan Tits. My fixation intensifies as I retrace my steps back to Ban Krang. I start informing every bird that I see that it is not a Sultan Tit. A few minutes later, I accuse them of the same thing. I try, in vain, to turn every Black-crested Bulbul into a Tit. No dice, and there are like 30,000 Black-crested Bulbuls.
I walk beyond Ban Krang, towards the youth camp. I turn around at the gate that says "Staff Only", and sadly begin working my way back to camp. It's been a beautiful morning. Sun glinting through the jungle off spiderwebs. Gibbon whooping. Good bird action. I shouldn't be as disappointed as I am, but I've built Sultan Tits up so much...
Well they come in twos Hard to choose Your favorite tit Uh huh
Unlike Joe Walsh, I have no problem choosing my favorite tit. A swarm of bees blows by, and so does a honey-buzzard. A flock of Asian Fairy Bluebirds are nice to look at--so are Velvet-fronted Nuthatches and a Common Flameback.
I like tits for dinner Or a noon-time snack I like tits for lunch A big tit attack
Suddenly, I see a yellow-and-black tail. I decide that it's attached to a Sultan Tit (something I've done with the last hundred or so Black-crested Bulbuls). Then, I see the rest of the bird and it actually IS a Sultan Tit, and there are actually FOUR of them, and the rakish things forage eye-level in front of me in perfect lighting.
They give me shivers When they bounce around Puckered up or hanging on the ground Tits.
For at least the next four hours, nothing else matters.
"Says it all for me. Tits." (Joe Walsh). Sultan Tit, Kaeng Krachan (Alison Vilag).
"How many Gyrfalcons you seen before?"
"Just one, on St. Paul."
"Right. Well, there's a few reports from the Gaspe."
"Cool...any white ones?"
He clicked around on the eBird map.
"Gris...gris...guess that means gray."
"Yup."
"Blanche--white?"
"Yup."
The little French I know has been gleaned from reading road signs, menus, and--in this case--Quebec eBird checklists. The words I recognize are probably of little utility (rendered even less useful by the complicating factor that I'm completely lost when it comes to pronunciation), but I can help you order a beer or find a white Gyrfalcon.
We were holed up in a motel room near the Maine-New Brunswick line, headed north with our snowshoes and heavy coats, in search of Winter. Winter, elusive until this evening, had actually dipped south and found us--heavy, wet snow coated the roads. We'd been forced to stop an entire border short of New Brunswick-Quebec. So, stranded, we plotted our next few days. Our goals: poutine, winter, and a white Gyrfalcon.
Perce, Quebec
We toured the Gaspe, spending the night in the colorful town of Perce (and accomplishing our poutine rendezvous). The next morning, we continued around the peninsula towards Ste. Ann des Monts. Periodically, he would brave the bitter cold to scan the Common Eider and Barrow's Goldeneye rafts. I sat in the car unashamedly and alternated between eating garlic smoked sausage and sweet beef bologna, compliments of Unity's new meat shop that claims too much of my time and money.
A blast of cold wind entered the car. I licked the grease from my fingers.
"So I go out there and look for your King Eider and you just sit in here and sneak meat?"
I grinned. "Yup."
"That's it. You're not feeding any to the Gray Jays then."
"Yes I will. I'm going to make Gray Jay friends."
For the rest of the morning, we continued to debate the morality of feeding hand-smoked local pastrami to Gray Jays. Our final stop was at Cap Madeleine--where the Gyrfalcon a la blanche had been seen--on January 10.
"You gonna get out?"
"Yeah, I guess I will here."
I scanned over the slushy St. Lawrence. My arms were shaking so uncontrollably that the Glaucous Gull I was following seemed to be doing figure eights.
"You scope that eider raft yet?"
"Which one THERE'S THE GYRFALCON!!!"
It was blanche.
It bombed down the coast, banked, came at us, perched on a post so close it barely fit in the scope. Ice and charcoal and basalt eyes--that chunk of arctic terror glowered at us for a minute then streaked off, its passage marked by flocks of fleeing ducks.
