Seeing

Naturalist and writer John Burroughs was a passionate observer. He said that "there is nothing in which people differ more than in the powers of observation - some are only half alive to what is going on around them. Others again are keenly alive. . . . They see and hear everything, whether it directly concerns them or not. Their powers of observation suggest the sight and scent of wild animals.

I seem to be closer to the more half-alive type of person, part of the time anyway - some things I see, many things I miss. I recently came across a person who's seeing is more in the keenly alive group. It was a week ago Saturday, A Dad of one of the schoolchildren on the nature walk I was leading, at Barr Lake State Park. I stopped along the trail, and through off my backpack, intending to tell the children a stories about insects or foxes, using my pictures and stuffed animals as props. Just as I did, the Dad said 'sssshhhhh, look over there, under that tree.' No more than thirty feet away, in the shade of a cottonwood, sitting in the tall grass, were five mule deer. The shade and the camoflauge of the grass made them nearly invisible to almost all of us, except the one. I am sure I never would have seen them. Wild animals know that to remain still gives them protection. And these were using that fact to their advantage. Once we all looked at them, and they knew their cover was broken, then stood up and walked to the willows, to the shade of a tall cottonwood grove.

But a keen observer not only pays attention to animals moving through the landscape, but the changes in the landscape itself. And that brings me to the story of the second time my crude observation skills were revealed to me, a week ago Saturday.
The same Dad who spotted the deer, asked me how long this Cottonwood has been down, when we got back to the trailhead. I looked, and a massive tree that had been in soil wetted by the high lake levels had toppled over since my last trip. It still had green leaves along its length - the ones down near the ground on the branches crushed by the fall were just starting to yellow. I had passed by that spot three times that Saturday morning, and did not notice the down tree until this man had mentioned it.

The trick, to being a careful observer, I think, is passion, is love, for your subject. The Dad who pointed out the deer, and then the fallen tree, was obviously one who loved being out in nature, so he pointed out things that the rest of us, on that morning were blind to.

I can think of a couple of more stories of people so passionate about their subject, spending hours and days and lifetimes watchng and learning, that they see things never seen before. One is up in Yellowstone country, and is about the interaction between wolves and Grizzly Bears, and comes from accounts written in Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild, by Dr. James C. Halfpenny.

It is known that wolves can prey on Grizzly Bear cubs. One year a mother with two cubs was seen in the Lamar Valley. She had been entertaining wolf watchers for days with her two cubs, in this wide open valley. On Saturday night, May 22, 2002 she was seen near the den of the Druid Peak Pack of wolves. On Sunday morning, she was seen with one cub, and had probably lost one of her cubs to the wolves. On that Sunday, she approached a day old carcass south of the Lamar River - she either smelled it, or knew it was there. There were three wolves feeding on the carcass though - and when they ntoiced her, all three dashed at the mother grizzly and her cub. The sow bear saw the cubs about 50 yards from her, and immediatley scooped up her cub and placed it under her body. The wolves surrounded her - only about five to 10 feet away from her and the cub. They tuck turns rushing in to nip at the mother bear, trying to get her to chase them. Wolves are always more successfully at bringing down prey if they can get them running - they use the same tactic when trying to take down bison. The mother bear would not take the bait though. She stood over her cub, swatting at the wolves with her powerful forearms, and trying to bite them when they came too close. She frequently looked down to make sure her cub was still under her. The wolves tried a different tactic - two charging at once, from opposite directions. The sow would whirl and slash at the wolves with her claws, then check for her cub. This encounter lasted for 20 minutes. A staredown lasted for another hour. Eventually the wolves and the bear and cub parted.

Now another amazing episode was observed up there, again in the Lamar Valley, by a passionate lover of wildlife - and this one is almost too odd to belive - but shows how the smart animals like grizzly and wolves can be more complex that we give them credit for. Smart animals like to play a lot, and are curious - just like us - and even more so like the younger ones of us - like Paul, right there.

On June 11, 1997, a man named Wayne Kendall watched a sow grizzly and two cubs born that year, wander along Slough Creek in the Lamar Valley. A black yearling wolf, believed to be a female, was following the bears. The bears noticed the wolf and stopped. The wolf approached to within 15 yards of the bear and the cubs, and checked each other out. There was no charge by the grizzly, or the wolf. The mother bear sat down and nursed her cubs. The wolf circled, and came as close as five feet. For the next eight hours, all four animals - the mother grizzly, the two cubs, and the lone female wolf, stayed within a hundred yards of each other. Several times the wolf and the cubs appeared to be playing - The cubs would chase the wolf - it would playfully run ahead of them. After each chase the woulf would return to mom bear with the cubs, and at one point was nose to nose with them.

The mother bear allowed the wolf to aproach the cubs, as long as she was nearby. If the cubs chased the wolf more than 30 yards away, she would run out between the wolves and the cubs, signalling far enough. Then she would return to her resting spot, cubs following behind her.

This game continued throughout the day, only to be broken by nursing and naps. When the sow bear nursed, the would would lie down a few yards away, and watch, head resting on forepaws. When the bears napped, the wolf would nap about 50 yards away.

During this whole day, the wolf had many opportunities to grab a cub, but never did. The wildlife researcher watching this - Wayne Kendall, believed that the whole interaction was one of curiousity.

At the end of the day, when the bears and the wolf woke from a nap, the mother grizzly charged the wolf, and swatted at it, apparently communicating that playtime was over. The wolf trotted off one direction, the wolves went in another.

I heard another incident just this week from that country north of Yellowstone, about a curious wolf. A lady aquatic biolgist was backpacking from lake to lake, taking water samples, with her australian shephard dog. A long wolf followed them the entire time, travelling from lake to lake with them.

I have one more story, about how passion and love for your subject causes you to see things others do not. It was a story I heard from Laura Erickson at a booksigning, and comes from Laura's work as a wildlife rehabiltator. Wildlife Rehabilitors are licensed by the state wildlife agency to take in injured and abandoned animals. Laura received an injured nighthawk, and nursed it back to health. Nighthawks are small hawks that can fly very quickly and manuever into incredibly tight turns. The ones I have seen have always been around dusk - when they fly close to the ground with the mouths open, scooping up insects.

Laura took her recovered nighthawk out to a lake to release it. When she did the nighthawk flew out over the lake, way across the lake, until it was a tiny dot. Then she watched it come all the way back, right to her, and fly three very tight turns around Laura's head, as if it was thanking her. Laura broke into tears when this happened.

John Burroughs wrote another thing about seeing, that I have read again and again over the years:

"Nothing can take the place of love. Love is the measure of life. Only so far as we love do we really live. . . " "Love sharpens the eye, the ear, the touch; it quickens the feet, it steadies the hand, it arms against the wet and the cold. What we love to do, that we do well. To know is not all; it is only half. love is the other half." (from The art of seeing things, John Burroughs).

What living I have done, and I do - the things I experience that are worthwhile, whether it is music and dance on Saturday night, or the quiet and stillness of a wilderness morning, all have to do with love -

of celebration, of wilderness, for freedom and mystery and beauty.

I tend to see more when I go alone, with my dogs. Three weeks ago them and I backpacked 9 miles in - didn't see one person on the trail in, or in the four days we camped in the tall spruce over a valley, not far from the timberline.

What I did experience is the peace as night fell in the wilderness - listening to the songs of the evening birds, the sound of the creek flowing in the valley. It must have rained nearly a dozen times while I was there - short and intense storms, with lightning and thunder, and sun 30 minutes later. Is there anyone who does not love the smell of a spruce forest after a rainfall. We saw moose and elk and deer pass by in the valley. We heard a pup yip, and had a mother coyote howl at us at 11am from an alpine ridge, letting me and the dogs know it was her territory we were crossing.

Love and seeing are not limited to wilderness adventures. I cannot say I have witnessed greater beauty than this morning, in the shade of a cottonwood tree, listening to chickadees and magpies, goldfinch and flicers call, interspersed with the soothing sound of breezes in the summer leaves. It made me sleepy, and I lied down, looking up at the grey brown trunk, the leaves with their south side shining in the sun - the same shining I saw on the top set of a dragonflies wings a half hour earlier. When I lied down Ben and Maggie came and pressed against me, and went to sleep close by my side. They know the peace and affection that reveals itself for those who spend time in such places - love for each other, love for the mountain, for the divine and wild.

















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right here - mention wildlife biolgist, wildlife rehabilitar - love makes us see the unseen - then finish with love of wilderness, love of greenbelt; (today on greenbelt - see journal)


Thank goodness it is not alway like this for me - on nature walks I am listening to the children talk, thinking aboutt where we might stop naxt, or what stories might be good for this day.

The time when I am more attentive, when I see more, is up high, when the and my dogs backpack alone in wilderness.

And maybe because I am playing such close attention, to the beauty up there, is why I feel so alive there, and am so happy up there, just as my dogs are.

I guess there are some people who wouldn't put a lot of stock in high Colorado wilderness, but I can't imagine who would not love the smell of the spruce woods after a mountain thunderstorm come through, or the different, sweeter, smell of the willows down in the valley after they are wetted by a mountain rain.

And I saw and heard a lot of things up there, that I didnt' expect, when I hiked to a valley just below timberline in the Collegiate range three weeks ago. On our second day their, the dogs and I climbed straight up from our camp on the tall spruce woods, way up to where a steep forested slopes breaks out into an alpine plauteu, below rocky peaks. Just as I as dropping down to across a streamcourse, right at timberline, I clearly heard a pup yip - definitely a canine. I thought that was awful strange because I was way off trail, and hadn't seen one person on the nine mile hike in, or in the two days since.

After I crossed the stream, and climbed the ridge on the other side, a coyote howled, from above us somewhere, several times. It was 11am - not a time when coyotes sound. The best I can figure is that we came across a family of coyotes when we came to that streamcourse - and heard one of the pups yip. Then the mother led them to the safety of high ground. She howled to let my border collies know it was her territory they were crossing.

Then on one of my afternoons up there, I came out of the trees to see 2 bull moose about 400 yards down the valley, munching on willows. I tied the dogs up, and for my amusement, decided to take my camera and see if I got get a good picture of the moose. I skirted the trees as close to them as I could, then dropped down and crawled through the willows - when I got to within 100 yards, I crawled on my stomach for the another 20 feet or so.

Do you ever have times that it suddenly becomes painfully apparent that you have not thought out the consequences of your actions. I had one of those moments after I clicked the shutter on my old camera. It is one of those manual camera that has a very loud shutter, which got one of the moose's attention. The moose decided to come over and investigate - and there I was lying on my somtach in the willows - realizing this may not turn out to be one of my better ideas. I raised myself up so the moose could see me - and fortunately, he was not feeling aggressive on that afternoon. The two moved off down the valley. I went back to the dogs and told them I just saw some moose, real close.

The reason I am lucky enough to see things like that, is how much I love the open spaces, the solitude, the freedom of wilderness. What I have seen the last ten years or so is enough to make me a happy person, in memories alone. Going up into wilderness tends to balance out, to correct, whatever is not right in my life - and I come down healed, in some way, from my time up there.

Another quote from John Burroughs explains a lot about my interests, the passions I have for wilderness, and all the great things I have seen up there:

'Love sharpens the eye, the ear, the touch. It quickens the feet; It steadies the hand, it arms againt the wet and the cold. What we love to do, we do well.'

And so those of us blessed enough to love something so well, see things others may not, because of their affections, their devotion to their interests.

I want to close with an example of that - not mine, but from somewhen who also loves nature passionately.

It is from the story of a wildlife rehabilitator, a lady who nursed animals and birds back to health. I heard who tell some of her stories of these work, and how she got a glimpse of the lives of some birds, that made her realize their is much more to birds minds and affections than she realized. One time she brought in an orphaned young flicker - that is those woodpecker like birds who love to pound on trees, even on metal objects in the spring time, just for the sound it makes. The noise from that pounding is how they establish their territory. Well she had a fledgling flicker, that she keep in her house while it grew and was nursed back to health. When she let it go, it stayed near her home, all one summer. Her young boy spent a lot of time with the flicker. It was almost like it was his pet, even though the bird was free to leave. In the fall the bird disappeared, and they weren't sure what happened to it. Well winter came and went, and the next spring her boy was riding his bicycle, when he found his wild flicker again, or more accurately it found him. He was riding down a street when the flicker flew down to him, and hung on to his shirt, right at his chest.

Another time the wildlife rehabilitar nursed a nighthawk back to health.

Well, in that light, I have to see that Love causes you to see thing you might no have seen, or heard of before.





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remaining seeing

of course we have in mind what we are going to see when we go out, an expectation in mind. The trick is to be open to the unexpected, the surprises - what you did not figure on coming across while you are out. That is the beauty of nature and the wilderness - not only the beauty buy the mystery of the unknown.

The richest experiences I have had are


another kind of seeing
seeing that reveals a different side of animals (nighthawk, kathy erickson, wolf playing with grizzly cubs; 40 pound coyote toppling a several hundred pound bear - things hard to believe if we didn't see them).

also - drift seeing cottonwood fluff flying through air

also - seeing new is a way for me to get past my tired old stories - to find something new - to me, even at age 53. (this is good; explore it)

And I have my own stories of seeing - things so amazing I am sometimes reluctant to talk about them - because people thing I am stretching my stories into tall tales - like pecos bill roping the moon or such.

But I will tell you anyway - today

also - quote from Outside magazine
Ian Baker

"The key to finding the world's secret places isnt to look on a map. I'ts to lose all sense of direction and fall in love with the land around you.

- Colorado, or the green belt - fireflies, two fox in a snowstorm, the fox hidden in a tree, seeing it in all the sense - once when the graces were covered with ice, and a breeze made them jingle; mornings late in summer, after a rain, the spider web dew droplets - a coyote walking through shallow water to an island - the look on his face when he ate goose eggs; a mother mallard sacrificing herself to protect her babies - the lone baby mallard with its mother

from thoreau:

We can only live healthily the life the gods assign us. I must receive my life as passively as the willow leaf that flutters over the brook. I must not be for myself, but God's work and that is always good. I will wait the breezes patiently-and grow as nature shall determine - My fate cannot but be grand so. We may live the life of a plant or an animal-without living an animal life. This constant and universal content of the animal-comes of resting quietly in God's palm."

(seven grizzlies).

and then another kind of seeing are things we cannot prove to be true - mysterious, as if there is another dimension to this world. I don't understand these myself, and.... - well let me just tell you.

(camping; getting lost; getting sick).