Sense of Adventure

Not the Sufi classic of that name, nor yet the Chaucerian tale, but my own backyard. See what I mean? Not only can you find adventure in your own backyard, but enlightenment too. Such a deal!

So around 2 PM I wandered into the kitchen. It’s cloudy and not hot outside today, although humid, and while it hasn’t rained yet there’s been enough thunder to discourage me from cinching Emma up in her harness and taking her for a walk. For light I opened the blinds.

And was astonished to see the backyard full of birds. There were dozens of them, perched picturesquely on stumps and the bushy dead treelimb I left for that very purpose by the galvanized tub of water set out as a birdbath, or wandering around pecking assiduously at something. They ranged from mourning doves through chickadees, a few pretty red-headed house finches, and a horde of what birders call LBJs, for “little brown jobs.” Who are what they sound like, little dust-colored guys, weavers and finches and sparrows, oh my. There was also a big bird – by which I mean robin-sized – that hopped around aggressively. From its size and its long, sharply curved beak, and the fact that my NatGeo bird guide says they live here, I’m surmising it was a curve-billed thrasher:

Not pictured: thrashing

Via Cryptomundo, we learn that a DNA survey by the Chicago Field Museum reveals that “falcons are more closely related to parrots than to other hunters such as hawks and eagles.” Allegedly.

Say what?

I can accept it as a cosmic joke that the closest living relative of the great and terrible Tyrannosaurus rex is the tasty chicken on my plate (get your revenge on Rex with this delicious-looking recipe for marinated red chile chicken.) But to think that the fierce and independent (and, face it, cute) little kestrels I see around here so often, who so perfectly exemplify Gary Larson’s dictum that “Birds of prey know they’re cool,” are … parrots?

One way or another, that’s what they say here: “Field Museum’s genetic study rewrites family tree on birds.”

Read + weep.

Aren’t hummingbird shadows on the ground a hoot? At first you think they come from something just floating in the air, like the cottonwood cotton that’s starting to drift like snow in the Valley now and give my allergic friends the fits. Then you realize they don’t just drift with the wind, but pause and dart.

I saw that happening as Emma and I were walking on the ditch east of the RGNC this afternoon. I never did see that particular hummingbird. Saw plenty more.

So, how did that story get started that hummingbirds never, and possibly can’t, stop and perch? Somebody mentioned that to me in the last month or so, and I thought about it right off the bat today, as we walked through the leafy tree corridor to the ditch entrance. A hummingbird lit on a branch right over the trail, although it didn’t linger long.

On the surface the belief makes sense: clearly the little bastards have to move around a lot in order to eat vast amounts to keep their furious little metabolisms blazing. And if you spend any time actually watching them, you see fairly quickly that, regardless, it ain’t true. You see them take time outs all the time: on feeders, on tree limbs, on bushes, on wires.

I guess this once again shows we tend not to see what we don’t expect to.

Also, driving the short block from Candy to Veranda to park, I saw a big white bird flying over the RGNC fields. It looked too big and not quite right to be a white pigeon - rock dove - such as you see flying around here a fair amount. I thought maybe it might be a cattle egret, which I have seen in that area, albeit it seems a bit late in the season. It went away to the north.

As we walked north along the ditch it (I’m presuming it was the same big, white bird, since we don’t get them here all that often) flew back over heading south. This time I thought fairly sure it was a gull. It was almost entirely white, with maybe a bit of black at tail and wing tips. This was surprising: we get gulls here, which most people don’t know, so that it startles hell out of ‘em when they do happen to spot the birds. Or make people think they’re crazy, as several have remarked to me.

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I just got back from taking Emma on a walk on the ditch that leads along the eastern side of the RGNC wildfowl preserve. It was a beautiful Spring midday, mostly clear; the sun was hot and the breeze cool, a combination I really enjoy. Too bad we don’t get it too often.

As we were heading back to the car along the southern fence of the RGNC fields I saw a couple of ring-necked pheasant cocks (okay, get the giggles out of the way. It’s what they’re called. Deal.) Albuquerque’s North Valley down by the Río Grande is infested with pheasants. The males strut around, looking absurdly gorgeous with their shiny green heads, red-circled eyes, golden breasts, and long-feathered tails. And of course what they’re doing is trying to attract babes.

So these two cock pheasants came running toward the fence through green ground cover that was maybe chest-high on them, four or five inches on average. It looked as though they were racing. Their courses converged until they came within about eight feet of the fence, when they stopped ten feet apart. Then they turned around and walked back out into the field, again angling toward each other, until they were walking side by side.

Then they stopped and turned toward each other. They started doing this bobbing routine, one ducking low while the other rose up, like pistons in a two-stroke engine. It looked suspiciously like a courtship dance; I was wondering if we were going to see some serious gay pheasant action here. Right out in front of God and everybody. Think about the children! (Imagine that as said by Bill Clinton in his customary Berkshire hog-as-televangelist squealing grunt.)

More likely it was some kind of rivalry dance. As I watched this Emma and I started walking again. Before we’d gone more than a few steps this hen pheasant comes booming out of the low brush right by the fence. She flew off at an angle past the fancy-dancing males and out into the field. The nearer male turned right round and went running off in her direction, chuckling to himself in triumph. The other emitted a loud clack of dismay. “Dammit!”

When Emma and I went on our walk today, on the bike path and trails down along the clear ditch by the RGNC, it was a lovely afternoon. The breeze was cold, but it’s mostly a sheltered walk. Only walking west down the path from Candelaria did the wind-tunnel effect make it really bitter.

As we crossed the wooden footbridge across the ditch from the Nature Center gate a young mother with two kids by the far landing stepped aside to let us pass. A wise idea, as it turned out.

Her older kid, a little boy of maybe five or six, came tottering forward as we reached that end, blithely ignoring his mom’s repeated commands to stop. And then he did stop, and his eyes got real wide.

“There’s a big dog!” he announced breathlessly.

Yeah, kid. No diddly. Listen to your mama next time, won’t you?

Actually I don’t think Emma would ever remotely hurt a child. She got along well with the kids at the home she lived at for a year. It was the other dogs she had a problem with. Still, I prefer to avoid putting such things to the test unnecessarily.

There’s no question that, at almost 100 pounds, burly and black with a shoebox head, Emma looks formidable. Okay, she is formidable. Most people just assume she’s a he. A lot of people admire her, some with visible trepidation.

They should hear me coo at her as my baby girl…

It seems the cranes have finally flown away. I didn’t see any in the field along Veranda, east of the RGNC. It’s sad, of course, in a way. But if they don’t go away, where’s the poignancy when they return?

That’s not altogether true. The Canada geese don’t all leave. A goodly population sticks around and produces broods of deceptively cute babies. (Deceptive, in that their parents are huge and scary.) But when I hear the wild geese flying back as the autumn air turns crisp, it always stirs me at a very deep level.

Well, our New Mexico weather is following its usual pattern. As seems to be the case most places, the seasons change quite definitely on or about the first of the month - not three weeks later, as per the bureaucratic (or fascist) calendar. And you can start sensing the onslaught of the seasonal change - not just by temperature and length of days, but the color and quality of light, the feel of the air, the smells - a week or two before.

Sure enough it’s begun to feel springlike here of late. The temperature’s trended up. Unfortunately that’s also meant we’ve started with the winds that makes Spring my second-favorite season as opposed to first. Yesterday, despite the fact it got above 60, the winds were savage, making it unpleasant to venture outside during the day. (Also, despite the warmth down here in the valley, the mountains were dusted with snow clear to the bases; a good deal remains today.)

Today I went to meet with a friend to walk by the Rio Grande Nature Center. When I woke up it was cloudy. When I left the house it looked as if it was clearing up and definitely wouldn’t rain. When I met my friend at the RGNC parking lot ten minutes it was solidly clouded over and seemed to threaten imminent rain. Ten minutes later when we left the pond it was clear overhead and getting bright.

So it remained for most of what would turn into a 9.31 mile walk. I’ve intended for a time to work up to 10,000 steps a day, as measured by my trusty Omron HJ-112 pedometer. While it appears the Japanese originally picked that as an auspicious number for steps in a day because of a cultural battiness for the number 10,000, it turns out actually to be a pretty near-optimal number of steps to take. Go figure.

So today I took 16,457. No, seriously. And that’s just counting between the time I parked my car and the time I climbed (gratefully, I’ll add) back in.

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Yes, as I was walking today on the path along the east side of the clear ditch north of the Río Grande Nature Center about half a mile south of Montaño, at 4:53 PM I saw a bald eagle fly in front of me, maybe 50-100 feet up and perhaps 100 yards off. Big dark bird, white tail, white head - only one bird of I know in North America looks like that. And I just confirmed the identification with the suave Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America which Santa brought me for Christmas (which is to say, I foresightfully bought myself and put under the tree late Christmas Eve.)

Now, this may be No Big Deal for those in some parts of the country -

moar funny pictures

- but that’s just the second time in my life I’ve knowingly seen a bald eagle in the wild. The first was several years ago, in roughly the same area.

A bald eagle. Now that is condensed awesomeness!

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Again.

I’m sitting here at the dining room table doing email and trying not to get sucked in for a long and joyless session of Net-surfing. The back door’s open to allow very pleasant (and much-needed) fresh air in. It’s not a warm day but neither is it particularly cool.

Anyway, a little while ago, about 1:45 PM, I heard the cranes again and went out to check. This time about 20 were milling in the sky southwest of the house, obviously looking to touch down, probably to forage for food before heading down to the river for the night.

It’s beautiful out: sky clear and very blue, calm.

Got to do a bunch on Annja and also get together bio info on myself and certain of my Wild Cards characters to send in for a new website in the making. When break time comes I’ll probably put up some Christmas lights in the front window. I also need to figure out how to fix the rain gutter over the front porch so’s I can string me some icicle lights…

No, it’s not some kind of industrial art photograph. Although it’d make a cool one.

A little while back - around 4:20 PM - I took a break from Annja’s latest exploits and went out to bring the Christmas boxes in from the shed. A couple weeks ago I strung some colored lights on the mantel to brighten the shortening days and do some light therapy, as it were (worked, by the way.) Today I decided the time had come to begin serious holiday preparation.

I’d hardly stepped off the porch when I heard the unmistakable burbling of cranes. And there they were, about halfway up the sky and not terribly far away: a vee of maybe thirty individuals, including an extra bar parallel to the lower arm, southbound.

I love it.

Years ago when I first moved to Jupiter - twenty years ago this past April, in fact - I was entranced to discover the wild geese flew over my house in Spring and Fall. Many times I was awakened by their poignant cries as formations passed overhead.

Maybe ten years or so ago their flight path changed. They didn’t fly my way any more. But soon enough the Sandhills start coming over. So that’s not so bad a trade.

I don’t know if these were fixing to light here or heading on south to the Bosque el Apache, which is a huge crane hangout in the winter. Given the lateness of the day I’m presuming they were at least getting ready to settle for the night along the river. It seems late in the season for them to still be coming (although it’s true the Crane Festival down at Bosque del Apache was just a week or two ago.) Nowadays the cranes winter here in substantial numbers, all the way through to Spring. A few years ago this was basically a stopover for a few weeks or a month before they went on south - or headed to Cali to have sex (granted, a common enough reason for going to California.)

Always good to see them, though. And to hear them…

Today, after much too long an absence, Emma Dog and I went for a walk along the clear ditch by the Rio Grande Nature Center. It was one of those golden-velvet afternoons that make Fall my favorite season of the year.

Coming out of the Center proper, or up the bike path from the south, you cross a bridge to the levee bike path on the west side of the ditch. Perhaps a quarter mile north another footbridge crosses back to the east side, where a tree-shaded dirt trail runs. As you come off that bridge you’re looking off across the wide fields the Nature Center maintains as a wildfowl preserve.

Stopping to look out at them I saw, far off across them, suspicious looking pale-grey shapes. Looking through my indispensable Simmons monocular I confirmed they were, in fact, Sandhill cranes - first of the season that I’ve seen.

Always a treat to see them. I’m looking forward to hearing them, and looking up and seeing them fly south in their vees. If I’m lucky, I might be wakened some morning soon by their distinctive, piercing, bubbling cries. When I first moved into my house on Jupiter the wild geese would announce autumn by flying over, which always thrilled me. Then their flight paths shifted and I was bereft. But a couple years ago the cranes started going over. Which is at least as cool.

As we walked back the Canada geese, who are arriving back in big numbers (unlike cranes they never all leave ABQ), raised a colossal fuss off out of sight in the fields. I’m guessing coyotes were working the field. They do that.

On the way home I stopped off to buy dinner at Lowe’s across Fourth Street. In the produce section I heard a middle-aged guy cheerfully explaining to a lady who works there that he was just buying a pumpkin as a treat for his chickens - and only because they were out of watermelons.

Indeed do many things come to pass.

Next: When Great Sky Demons Attack and its terrifying sequel, Bring Me the Head of Mickey Mouse.