birding

“What’s that bird?” “Heck if I know.”

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‘Confessions of an Experiential Birder’

I’ve often said that birding is like jury duty with feathers. (See “Jury Duty, Only with Feathers.”) Or that bridge is indoor golf. (See “Bridge? It’s Basically Indoor Golf”.) I also used to say that Hell is other people’s children. But I must be getting soft in my old age — or maybe I’m just craving grandkids — because other people’s children don’t bother me as much as they used to. Unless they are seated behind me on a plane. (See “The Four Seatmates of the Apocalypse.”)

One thing I haven’t said much is the name of a bird if someone asks me.

This is what one of our guides would call a “fancy bird.” Some kind of woodpecker; just don’t ask me which one

That’s basically because, unless it’s some bird that the asker probably already knows the name of — think “robin” or “blue jay” or “wren,” if you’re not too picky about the type of wren — I won’t know. I’m a birder, but I’m not the kind of birder who keeps track of names, much less genus and species and other technical whatnot.

I do keep track of funny signs. (See “Oh no, Danger Man!”) Like this one somewhere in Brazil indicating parking for those over 60

Why, I don’t keep track of anything about the birds. Unless it’s some really interesting experience associated with that bird. Like, on our Northeast Brazil trip, there was this macaw — the Lear’s, or Indigo Macaw — that lives only in a very specific type of canyon. You can read more about this macaw here, but basically, there are only a few hundred of them, they weren’t recognized as a species until 1978 — and, if you want to see them, you have to go to this one sandstone canyon via four-wheel-drive at daybreak to watch them come out of their nests and swoop around. Now that’s an experience — and that I remember.

Waiting around the sandstone canyon for the Lear’s Macaw to show up. They did. And so did some listers

I’m most definitely not a “lister.” Listers are birders who keep a list of all the birds they’ve seen. And, trust me, they care about that list. I’ve had encounters with listers a few times on our trips. Mostly, they’re okay. Though it can get a bit old to have someone constantly piping up “6499!” (the number of birds in their Life List just achieved) or “Lifer!” (meaning the bird just spotted is the first time the person has seen it in his/her life). Variations on this rack-’em-up theme include “day bird,” which is the first time that bird has been seen that day, and “trip bird,” same thing, only for the trip. “Day bird” can also mean a bird that’s been seen every day of the trip. On our most recent excursion, it was the black vulture. Which should tell you something about that trip.

Iguazu (or, in Brazil, Iguacu) Falls. Another terrific experience, especially with these swifts that go dive-bombing through the falls every evening

At the end of every birding day, the group gets together with their checklists and the guide/leader goes through all the birds seen that day. Fortunately for me, this happens at cocktail hour. I dutifully check birds off as I sip, say, a cold local beer or a  caipirinha.Three guesses what happens to the lists.

Paddling on a hot river where there were many caiman — and lots of cool birds too

So. If you see me after one of our birding trips, feel free to ask me about my experiences. (I have lots of good stories — like the one where we had to go to a water park on a Sunday to find a certain rare mannikin. The beautiful Brazilians in their bikinis didn’t quite know what to make of us.)

Just don’t ask me the names of any of the birds.

Amagansett, New York. April 2024

The night we drank all the beer in the restaurant

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‘And there were only six of us.’

Birding is thirsty work. You can rack up a lot of miles during the course of the day, mostly on rough, steep trails. And when you get out of the vehicle to hike, you get even thirstier.

A stretch of hot empty road somewhere in the hot empty Brazilian countryside

Sometimes you hike for four or five hours — before lunch. Then, because Brazil is so goldarned hot — so hot even the birds don’t move midday — you take a break. Then you’re out for more hiking, binoculars and cameras in tow, until it’s dark. Sometimes you’re not done even then — you clamp on a headlamp, and hike around looking for nightjars and owls.

Birder Dude at the beginning of a particularly hot hike

You can drink water like crazy all day long, but when push comes to shove — and there can be quite a bit of both at those Brazilian buffets — nothing hits the thirsty spot like a nice cold beer. Oh, sometimes a caipirinha is nice, but you can polish off a Heineken (or maybe two) while they’re still mashing up all those limes or making garnishes to hang on the rims of the glasses. (Yes, one of the places did that; made little animals and flowers out of strawberries and orange slices and such. Delightful to the eye; a dreadful delay for your thirst.)

A particularly lovely pousada. They would probably put fruit animals on your caipirinha if you asked nicely

So, on a bird trip? I say bring on the beer.

Now, you must understand that I am really a Wine Girl. But on these birding trips, forget the grape. It’s hops I crave. It’s really the only time I have beer, except once in a while in the summer with a hot dog. The other drink I have on these trips is Coca Cola. Real coke, not diet. For that caffeine/sugar high. It’s the only time I drink it, and boy, is it fantastic. I swear: drinking real Coke is like unprotected sex.

Also a rush: hiking practically straight up a cliff to get to the Hooded Visorbearer, a particularly lovely — and very rare — hummingbird

But I digress.

What about drinking all the beer in the restaurant? you might reasonably be asking right about now. Well. we were in this itty bitty town called Canudos, staying at the kind of pousada that has a chain on the toilet and on the bare lightbulb fixtures too. (But delightful, mind you.) We were there because it’s literally the only place in Brazil — and the entire world — you can see the Indigo Macaw.

Another bare-bones accommodation. This one had a view of a blank wall out the one and only window. But it did have a nice shower

There are only three colonies of these bright blue birds and one of them — the only accessible one — is in a canyon a few miles from town. And yes. We found them. Got up at 4:00 in the morning to four-wheel-drive our way up into the mountains to be there at dawn when they left their nests in the holes in the sandstone cliffs.

Dawn at the sandstone cliffs to see the Indigo Macaws. Yes, there were plenty. Dude Man got photos! Stay tuned

The rest of the day passed in a heated blur of dusty birdy pursuit. The pousada didn’t serve dinner, so our guide, Marcelo, got a friend to open his restaurant just for us. It was a couple of tables on the second floor of a building in town, and we were literally the only patrons. They cooked us a special selection of fish and chicken and rice and beans, which was very good indeed. And the beer was delicious and very very cold. It went down so well that we drank every bottle they had — which was seven. (There were six of us; I can’t remember who got to have seconds, but I know it wasn’t me.)

In closing — and in further defense of beer — let me point out that Paul Newman drank a case a day. And lived to be a still-pretty-darned-gorgeous 83. Cheers!

Dude Man striding toward an empty hot gazebo. Gazebos are always empty, tho not always hot. Maybe this one has a cooler full of beer

Back in New York City. February 2024

Hippopotami

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‘As in Hippo pot — oh my!’

Hey there, Madeleine and Becca and Ruth. I’m baaa-aack! Yes, after three weeks and two countries’ worth of African adventures, I’m back at the keyboard again.

What with the animals and the birds and the dunes and the waterholes and the sunrises and the sunsets and suchlike, I’m not sure where to begin.

One of the animals we met made a great breakfast buddy

So I’ll just jump right in with the story about the hippos in the middle of the night.

See, we covered a heck of a lot of ground on this trip, going from habitat to habitat to get different kinds of birds. Which meant that we mostly stayed just one night in each of, gosh, a dozen different lodges. These places were not fancy, but very cool all the same, and I must admit I hated leaving most of them. But once I got the hang of never really unpacking, I got into a rhythm and started to enjoy the feeling of anticipation that came with knowing I’d get to discover a new place at the end of each day.

Here’s a sunset and a waterhole

We were about two-thirds through the trip when we stopped at Xaro Camp. (Interesting linguistic note: in Bostwana, an “x” is pronounced like a “k,” so you say “Karo Kamp,” ’cause, well, the “c” is also pronounced like a “k.” Hahaha.)

We covered a heck of a lot of territory. This story takes place at Xaro up there at the Okavango Delta

The only way to get to this camp is by water, it being situated at the head of the Okavango Delta. 

When we were shown to our room — which was a canvas tent on a wooden platform — we were told (rather firmly) not to leave the premises after dark — not even to go out on the balcony — since large nocturnal animals would be roaming about looking for food. And, if we didn’t want to be on the menu, we’d need to stay inside. The one time we’d be out after dark would be dinnertime, and then we’d be escorted. Safety in numbers, I guess.

Approaching camp by water. Yes, that’s a crocodile. A huge crocodile

We were used to this, having been to Africa before. In fact, once in the Serengeti, we were having breakfast when a whole herd of elephants came marching through the lodge grounds, ripping up trees and causing havoc. A whole herd of German tourists rushed out to take their pictures (!) and had to be wrangled back inside. So, yes, we were into the escort idea.

These ginormous dunes were in Sossusviel in the Namib Desert. No hippos there!

Another fun fact: when shown our cabin (room? tent?), we were also told that ours was called the “hippo cabin,” since it was just a few yards from a dip in the riverback where hippos liked to come ashore. Oh wow. Terrific.

Dude on our balcony. You can see the “hippo ramp” right behind him

This was a stay-two-nights place, and the first night was uneventful. Some screeching, a few hoots. Plenty of elephant tracks out there in the morning, but otherwise nada. Oh! We did see Pel’s Fishing Owl (or PFO), which is very hard to find. We found two.

But the next night I woke around 3ish and was lying there deciding whether to grab a flashlight to make my way to the bathroom, when I heard this snuffling sound. A really loud snuffling sound, punctuated with these grunts. By now, I really needed to pee, but decided against using the light. I kind of felt my way toward the toilet, and lowered away — trying to be extremely quiet, which I have had lots of practice doing. (See “The Daydream Believer and the Homecoming Queen” for a tale of quiet peeing gone awry in an awfully embarrassing way.)

Sorry, I do not have a shot of myself quietly peeing. But here I am, quietly stalking the elusive Dune Lark. (Yes, we found it)

The whole time I’m aiming for the side of the bowl to avoid noisy splashing I’m hearing snuffling and grunting just inches away from my scared little snack-sized body. Mind you, there’s just a piece of tent canvas between me and whatever it is making the snuffling and grunting.

I also don’t have a photo of the hippos. Mainly because I didn’t see the hippos — just heard them. But here’s a closer look at that croc 

Next morning, I see large footprints around our tent and am told at breakfast that, yes, it was hippos I was hearing — and that everyone in camp heard them too. Though not everyone heard them inches away from their peeing selves.

Well, I think that’s enough adventure for today. But don’t worry; there’s plenty more for next week.

At the end of another adventurous African day

New York City. September 2023

 

“Watch the birdie!”

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‘And watch out for water balloons!’

Not only did I promise to pry some bird photos out of Dude Man’s camera and share them with you this week, I forgot to tell you about a pretty important part of our trip.

Here’s a Green-Backed Trogon. Nice, huh?

And that’s the fact that our birding expedition to the wilds of SE Ecuador happened to coincide with Carnival. Now, we do celebrate Mardi Gras, sort of, in some parts of the good ole U S of A. Once, in fact, I almost had a heart attack when The Child traveled to New Orleans with a group of college buds to participate in the revelry there.

Her Childness and Friend meet a shark on the streets of New Orleans

But trust me when I tell you that no one celebrates the days leading up to Lent (AKA “Carnival”) like our neighbors to the South.

But first — even before Carnival — there was The Wedding. We arrived on a Thursday and went to our very nice hotel near the airport to rest up for our trip further south the next morning. (This is the place featuring Sylvester, the Hotel Cat. Last week’s story has a photo.) Little did we know that the hotel was hosting a wedding. (We did see the white tents, and had our suspicions.) Soon enough, we were assaulted by the sound of happy wedding guests dancing the night away. And it wasn’t even the wedding yet. This was just pre-party stuff. Thank heaven for ear plugs.

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“People people people!”

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‘Meet the Energizer Birder’

I just flew back from Ecuador, and boy are my arms tired.

Well, maybe not my arms, but the rest of me is pretty darned tuckered out. Because, speaking of flying, we’ve just returned from another of our wacky birding trips.

Wayne enjoying every second of our latest wacky birding trip. That’s the Energizer Birder on the right

I have written about these trips many times before, of course. About how you get up really early, tramp around jungles in sweltering wet weather, eat strange foods (durian, anyone?) and feel darned lucky at the end of the day if you can manage to stay awake long enough for your hair to dry before your pillow can mold it into strange overnight shapes.

Or sometimes you freeze yourself at 14,500 feet. Doesn’t matter about your hair getting molded into strange shapes — it’s always crammed under a hat

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Jury duty, only with feathers

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‘What those crazy birding trips are like’

I just flew back from a birding trip to Brazil, and boy are my arms tired.

The jury is in: Birthdays are Birddays on trips like this one. Here we celebrate my latest at Itatiaia National Park

People often ask me what these trips are like. Well, here’s how I often describe them. Picture yourself thrown together with eleven random strangers from all walks of life. For several days you spend nearly every waking moment with these people.

Our team of twelve doing a bit of problem-solving together

You eat every meal together, you take breaks together, you even spend the night together. (Well, sort of.) You consult, you deliberate, you draw conclusions.

Which owl was this? Group conclusion: Tawny-browed owl — a baby one

You form bonds and promise to stay in touch. Then, when it’s all over, you go home — and never see each other again. Jury duty, right?

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Doomsday Dude

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‘”While we still can” and other Dude-isms’

Gee, last week I wrote about “Doubleknit Dad.” And this week it’s “Doomsday Dude.” What’s next? “Downer Debbie?” (I actually have a lot of material for that one.)

Anyway. Alliteration aside, I see nothing wrong about writing about the two most important men in my life — though I suppose I could have spaced them out a bit. But Tuesday’s getting long in the tooth and I don’t really want to write about Wordle, so here goes.

The Dude, as lovely as he is — and he truly is a lovely man — has, you see, a rather negative view of Life. You know the saying about seeing the glass half full or half empty? Well, for his Dudeness, the glass is broken. And he’s clutching the shards in an underground bunker filled with gold bars.

Proof that the world isn’t all that horrible: this plant bloomed recently for the first time in 30 years

See, for Mr. Dude, we’re well on our way to The End of The World. But, before that, the population will explode and there will be crazy shortages of resources that will spark class warfare. When you point out that he’s being a bit grim, he begs to differ. “I’m just realistic,” he’ll say. Why, he probably thinks Station Eleven is a reality show.

Of course, he’s not always negative. He teamed up with me to bring a baby into this soon-to-be-ending world

On a more, say, granular level, he insists that we do things “while we still can.” This gives us a rationale for doing things like going on rigorous birding trips to remote places, sometimes with dicey accommodations and/or no hot water.

And often with dangerous and/or scary stuff that must be joined in on or you’ll look like a total loser. (Yes, I did this; I’m the one toward the back looking up, not down

There will come a time — not too far into the future because, after all, “we’re not getting any younger” — when we will no longer be able to do these things. So we need to do them now. “While we still can.” Continue reading

Tough act to follow

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‘What could possibly beat this?’

One of my best Bridge Buddies (hi, Laurie!) says she always reads my blog (thanks, Laurie!) but that she can tell when I’m, well, at a loss for words. I won’t mention specific posts, but if you, like Laurie, follow me regularly, you probably have your “favorites.”

Who wouldn’t be at a loss for words? (Well, except the Bridegroom, I trust)

Last week this happened because The Child had just wed The Beau in a quickie ceremony to satisfy the immigration authorities. (See “Runaway Bride” for cinematic photos and storybook details.) I sat there at my laptop wracking my brain, then gave in and wrote about the wedding. I could literally think of nothing else.

How could I possibly think of anything else? This is my brain on “wedding”

This week it’s because that story got kajillions of views and likes and comments. I’m thinking, “What can I write about now that could possibly capture your interest, O Faithful Readers?”

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“Straight up from the warthog”

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‘Oh, how I miss those wacky birding trips.’

I know I’m really late with this week’s post. But just today New York lowered the age requirement for getting the Covid-19 vaccine, and I wanted to make sure I got a shot (haha, very funny) at it.

Among other reasons to get poked, like not getting sick or dying and being able to see my friends and family in 3D, we have a birding trip coming up.

Our last birding trip–last weekend, at Sagg Main Beach–was a wild goose chase. Literally. We went looking for the White-Fronted Goose and didn’t find it

See, last year’s all-bought-and-paid-for exotic birding adventure (to the Galapagos) was, of course–like everything else fun in 2020–cancelled. But the good news is it’s rescheduled for this summer. Except you can’t go if you’re not vaccinated. Being a physician, Dr. Dude got his shot a couple of weeks ago so he’s all set. But, unless I wanted him gallivanting off without me, I had to score mine too.

I was on that website for about an hour and a half. The slots kept disappearing while I was applying for them; I guess I wasn’t the only newly-qualified 65-and-up banging away on her computer.

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Social distancing, the Borneo Way

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‘Forget masks and Purell; just crack open a Durian’

A couple of weeks and a lifetime ago, we were birding our way along a highway (and I do mean “high”) up in the mountains of Borneo when a ramshackle car sputtered to a halt on a steep stretch of roadway right alongside us.

Another roadside attraction. Nope, The Dude isn’t looking at that gorgeous mountain. There’s a bird over yonder somewhere

Our guide sauntered over to see what was what and reported back that the driver was on his way to the City (in this case, Kota Kinabalu) with a load of fruit to sell. He and his load couldn’t make it up the incline, so he pulled over for a smoke.

That’s Mt. Kinabalu, at sunset of the day we survived the durian episode

Now, we’re in Borneo, remember, so by “load of fruit” I don’t mean a whole batch of apples or pears. Not even pineapples or bananas. Nope, these “fruits” were completely unrecognizable. Our guide Hamit (a name I committed to memory by using the mnemonic “hah! meat!”, because what passed for meat in Borneo was pretty darned amusing) — well, Hamit thought it was pretty darned amusing to offer us tastes of some of these fruits and then watch our faces.

That’s Hamit on the right. I not only forgot the guy on the left’s name, but also his mnemonic. He was our driver, and he didn’t make us eat any fruit

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