In an ordinary January long ago, way back in the year 2020 BC (Before COVID), I took a short trip to Seattle to visit my friend, professional wildlife photographer Aaron Baggenstos. Our original plan was to spend a couple days on the coast north of the city, but the weather forecast was abysmal and we decided to head east instead. The Cascades are often a barrier to wet weather of the coast, and the prospects for eastern Washington looked quite a bit better. Our new plan was to search for owls, and I considered it a good omen when, barely out of the parking lot of my hotel near SEATAC airport, a bird flashed through the beam of our headlights in the pre-dawn drizzle and darkness - almost certainly a northern saw-whet owl. We were unable to locate it, but left the city feeling good about having encountered wildlife so early in our adventure.
We steadily ascended the west side of the Cascade range, and as is often the case in the mountains, I suddenly found myself in a completely different environment while never having noticed exactly when everything changed. We were now amid conifers, wet, black rock, and several feet of snow. The scene that unfolded before me as we entered the Snoqualmie Pass is clear in my memory because it was breathtaking: a raging river, blue-black water punctuated with white where it surged over boulders, evergreens heavy with snow lining the banks, the roar of the rapids dominating the soundscape. It was “this-can’t-be-real” and “places-like-this-don’t-really-exist” level beauty. It brought tears to my eyes.
I had several such experiences on that brief trip. Standing in silent isolation on the Waterville plateau as the sun finally pierced the dense fog. Searching for long-eared owls for hours, nearly giving up, only to find myself in habitat so perfect the hair on my neck stood up in anticipation, knowing that they were present and invisible, and then holding my breath when I realized they were all around us and that we had stumbled into a rare communal roost.
Then I returned to the reality of home, and I confess, I began to feel a little sorry for myself. Louisville, Kentucky is not the Pacific Northwest. We are far from the icy rush of mountain rivers. We do not have orcas patrolling the coast. We do not have communal roosts of long-eared owls. For a wildlife photographer, and for someone who loves nature and wildlife in general, I must admit that I sometimes wonder why I live here. I wonder why I settle for walks through Caperton Swamp, the park nearest my home, which is bordered not by a mountain range and a fast-running stream, but rather by the slow, muddy Ohio River and the traffic noise of I-71. These questions were in my mind as I stood there recently, just a hundred yards or so down the trail. There was no birdsong, no movement. Not a single creature of any kind as far as I could tell. It was still and damp, overcast with some light rain moving through. It was dead. Lifeless. Then it began to drizzle, and that seemed half-hearted too. Even the rain is better in the Pacific Northwest. What am I doing here?
What I was theoretically doing there, in that specific spot, was searching for a red-breasted nuthatch - a somewhat uncommon visitor, and a more colorful cousin to our local white-breasted variety. A tiny bird with a big personality, nuthatches scurry around tree trunks, almost always head down, finding morsels and caching them for later, making their little rubber ducky calls all the while. They were being spotted with unusual frequency, but thus far I had been unsuccessful. My prospects on this dismal day did not look good. But I needed a break from my desk and so I gathered myself and thought, not yet. Stay here, just a little longer. So I stood there in the drizzle, still as a statue, watching and listening.
After a few minutes, the feeble effort at real rain gave up, and the sky brightened, but barely. I began to hear the soft contact calls of a few nearby birds. They seemed to be working out a consensus regarding whether to come out or stay hunkered down. And then on a low branch of a nearby box elder, I saw movement. I saw a bold black cap and contrasting white line above the eye. I saw a rusty red breast. Sure enough, it was my little red-breasted nuthatch, Sitta canadensis, just fifteen feet away. Nuthatches of all sorts seem to be unusually tolerant of humans, and this one was no exception. It completely ignored me for several minutes as I fired away with my camera, struggling to keep it in the frame and in focus as it went about its business. Then it decided to forage elsewhere, or perhaps stash a seed in a nearby tree, and just like that it was gone. The trip had been worthwhile after all, and I considered calling it a day. But a little voice said, not yet. Stay here, just stay a little longer. Step a little deeper into the stillness.
Red-Breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) | Caperton Swamp Park | Louisville, Kentucky
500mm | 1/400th second | f/5.6 | ISO 1800
Minutes later and just a few yards away, I saw several birds in the understory - migrating warblers, for sure. As I moved closer, I realized they were everywhere, all around me. A mixed flock scouring the trees for insects, taking in as many calories as possible to refuel for their long nocturnal flight south, often doubling their body weight in a matter of days. There were yellow and gray Nashville warblers with their distinctive white eye rings, bay-breasted warblers, American redstarts, Tennessee warblers, and a blue-headed vireo. I spotted my first-of-the-season golden-crowned kinglet, a tiny bird who, unlike the warblers who were merely making a pit stop, was just arriving home for the winter. They were rolling through the forest like a wave, sweeping through the trees like a military unit taking new territory. I was overwhelmed by their sudden abundance and had to force myself to focus on one bird at a time. I was able to stay with them, moving along the trail, struggling to identify tiny birds in the dense foliage for perhaps ten minutes, and then they just evaporated into the trees. I caught my breath and I reconsidered my negativity, feeling my spirit lifting. Perhaps I should go now. But again I said to myself, not yet. Stay here, just a little bit longer. I continued around the pond.
A stirring on the bank of the pond revealed yet another migrating warbler, a little northern waterthrush with its trademark tail-bobbing. As I watched it forage I heard the scratchy squawk of a great blue heron. I looked up to see it wheeling in over the pond, and then a second and a third joined the group, circling over the water, scanning for a roost like shoppers maneuvering for the perfect parking spot. A scarlet tanager peered down at me from the treetop. A yellow-bellied sapsucker, another of the winter birds beginning to arrive in the area, was the fifth woodpecker species for the day. A rose-breasted grosbeak sang its sweet, quiet song as it plucked seeds from a vine. How much more could there be? It was as if nature was trying to make a point, and I was finally beginning to get it. How could I feel sorry for myself in this place? How could I be anywhere but right here?
Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) | Caperton Swamp Park | Louisville, Kentucky
500mm | 1/400th second | f/7.1 | ISO 1400
Just as everything seemed to change all at once as I ascended into the Cascades, after two and a half hours just walking in the woods, I finally arrived in the forest. At last I was fully there, in that place, at that time, and nowhere else, certainly not lamenting the lack of natural beauty just two miles from my home in this humble city park. I felt myself stop grasping for what isn’t to accept the embrace of what is. The resistance finally loosened its grip and fell away, and the emotions welled up. I could finally see the overwhelming beauty, the depth and richness of life that is all around us, all the time. Of course it was not dull and dead. After nearly turning back I managed to identify thirty-seven different species of birds, and I almost certainly missed a few more. I saw squirrels and a white-tailed deer. I could hear the slow croak of tree frogs, and I watched turtles slide off their sunning spots. All that before I could even consider the insects, spiders, and countless other invertebrates nor even contemplate the diversity of trees, flowers, vines, grasses, and other flora. Of course it looks different from the Pacific Northwest, but for me to call this place lifeless, to call any place or any moment uninteresting, is simply a symptom of not paying sufficient attention. I know this, and that is why I go to nature. I am grateful for this knowledge, because it is a lesson that took a long time to learn. When what is so seems insufficient, I have learned that I just need to go a little deeper, to stay, just a little longer.
As I walked the trail back toward my car I passed through a clearing in the trees. On either side of the path an impossibly thick snarl of bushes and brambles, all covered over with leafy green vines, formed a sort of small-scale landscape of rolling hills and swales. It looked like the Palouse of eastern Washington in miniature. Then from my left, a drab, yellowish bird emerged from the undergrowth and perched on a vine at about hip level. I could not identify it on sight. It looked up directly at me from just a few feet away. It was actually too close to photograph, but I can still see it in my mind’s eye, and what I see looks tantalizingly like a stealthy and uncommon Connecticut warbler, a bird I have only seen on one other occasion. Before I could collect myself, it disappeared into the forest as quickly as it had arrived, forever a mystery. Despite all I saw that quiet afternoon, surely it was but a small sample of all I did not see, and as my little mystery bird flitted away I could almost hear it whisper, stay here, just a little longer; there is more here still.
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Greg
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”