Birding The Park Road in Denali National Park

Three-toed woodpeckers were regulars outside of my cabin.

I paused my bike ride for some grizzly poop on the Park Road.

Denali National Park and Preserve is about the size of New Hampshire and has one road known as the Park Road that’s about 92 miles long. Most of it is accessible only by transit or tour bus, foot, or bike. I biked some of it while I worked there last summer. One day while I was biking I found some grizzly bear poop. Whenever I posted a picture of bears or bear poop I would inevitably get texts or comments warning me to be careful of grizzly bears so I began including, “Yes, I have bear spray” in every dispatch to family and friends.

This particular patch of poop was right before Sable Pass. About a week after getting this photo while biking there, I was driving through that spot to a meeting. I was recalling my bike ride when I noticed to buses stopped in the road with a large lump lumbering in front of them:

Grizzly walking towards my vehicle.

A transit bus and a tour bus where coming from the opposite direction and had a grizzly bear in front of them. I pulled over and let the situation play out. I had never seen a grizzly bear until I came to Alaska and couldn’t believe I was having a quintessential national park experience of a bear walking past my vehicle. I kept my eyes on the bear but whipped out my phone for a souvenir video.

Not digiscoped. Just right outside my vehicle window.

I love how the bear does not make eye contact with me. Bears are like people, they like the established trails and roads, like us they appreciate the path of least resistance. Also the road is chock full of Arctic ground squirrels which are a tasty morsel for a grizzly. This bear was clearly communicating, I’m just passing through, not making eye contact, just goin’ about my bear business, please leave me alone and things won’t need to get very real.

Not unlike me when I’m in downtown St. Paul in uniform. Just trying to grab some tacos, not ready to answer questions about fishing permits or parking (not that I can answer those anyway, but people always assume I know when in uniform).

Currently, part of the road is being rebuilt because a section is on a rock glacier (it’s more rock than ice) and it’s melting because Climate Change. There’s some amazing time lapse footage of what’s been happening on the Denali website. I actually got to drive that section of road before the latest landslide and it was terrifying to me. I drove out on the side against the mountain. I wondered how I was going to drive back to my cabin and be on the cliff side that has no railing. I can’t believe busses would pass each other on that section of mountain pass, but they did on a daily basis.

When I arrived for my meeting, I told the first ranger I saw, “Polychrome Pass is terrifying. I don’t know how I’m going to drive through Pretty Rocks to get back.”

He laughed, “Oh yeah, I remember my first time.”

I said, “I’m serious. I don’t think I can drive back on my own. I live here now.”

”Ohhh,” he said. “I’ll take you out and give you some cliff driving tips.”

Transit and tour busses passing each other along Pretty Rocks. Photo from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.

I have now been over Polychrome Pass many times. One day I was with a coworker and while she drove, I took a video of what it looks like to drive that section. Alas there was no gyrfalcon perched here that day, but you could see where one had perched based on the white wash.

Eurasian wigeon mixed in with American wigeon at Wonder Lake. It was fun to self find this bird that I have seen so many times in Europe.

Birding the park reminded me quite a bit of northern Minnesota: boreal chickadees, black-backed woodpeckers, three-toed woodpeckers, goshawks blasting through, Canada jays, redpolls, crossbills, spruce grouse and oodles of ravens. There are other exciting birds there like willow ptarmigan, Arctic warbler, and northern wheatear. It’s crazy to me that Alaska is situated to not only get migrants from Central and South America, but also southeast Asia.

If you are a birder hellbent on getting ALL the lifers in a weekend, that’s not going to happen. Birds are spread out and some are only accessible by trekking off trail into wilderness. I was there for three months and didn’t get all the lifers I could have. I had quality time with quality birds, but there is A LOT of hiking (not necessarily on trails) to get to some of these birds. But you get stunning views and very interesting mammals.

Dall sheep out my window as I was on my way to a meeting.

They say if you see Denali mountain at all that you are a “thirty percenter” because it’s usually covered in clouds. If you see it without any clouds covering the mountain at all then you are a “fifteen percenter.”

Denali is definitely worth a visit, just for the sheer grandeur. But birding itself is better on Denali Highway which isn’t in the park. But that’s another blog entry for another day.

Incidentally, I’ll be working permanently for Denali in the near future. So I suspect that more Alaska bird blogs entries will be forthcoming.

Below are some of the birds I saw while out and about in Denali.

A Toast To Curt Rawn

Curt always ready with a camera and occasionally a beer.

My friends, let us toast Curt Rawn and his desire for human connection, his love of birds, and his love of getting other people to enjoy birds.

I started Birds and Beers in Minneapolis on July 17, 2007. The intent was to have it once a month, but my travel schedule didn’t always allow for that. The following spring I was working a bird festival in another state and I noticed pictures showing up on social media for a Birds and Beers…that I didn’t organize. “What the hell,” I thought, “is someone trying to steal my event?”

When I came home and asked around to friends who attended, they said a guy named Curt Rawn organized it. I vaguely remembered meeting him at the previous Birds and Beers. I contacted him to ask why he organized one.

“I asked you when you would have a Birds and Beers in May and you said you were too busy,” Curt said, “so I put one on. Those things are fun!” 

I laughed at how my little idea to connect birders in bars had gotten beyond my control in less than a year. I suggested we work together, I could definitely use the help to keep them going with my travel schedule. He happily agreed and we experimented with Birds and Beers the Woodcock Tailgate Party and Birds and Beers at the Crow Roost Edition. We tried having it at various locations and when we finally got too big, we landed at the Black Forest Inn.

Curt was always happy to help someone start a new Birds and Beers and was on hand to help get the St. Paul version off the ground, constantly nudging me to come along. “Hey Shaz, St Paul BnB was a blast, you have got to get to one of these!”

Birds and Beers would not be what it is had it not been for Curt. I never wanted to have it on a specific day of the month because some people couldn’t make certain days. Curt did a great job of pinging me every couple of weeks, “Hey Shaz, it’s time for another BnB.” He also did a great job of helping to spread the word.

This was an outdoor gathering I had after friends were vaccinated this past spring. I joked no one knew how to take pictures anymore because we all got out of the socialization habit during the pandemic. I printed this picture and had it framed while I lived in Alaska over the summer. I met the lovely Kare Snow in this picture at Birds and Beers.

Some of my closest friends are because of Curt. Once, I had been cornered into a conversation at a BnB and when I could finally get away, I made a beeline for the bathroom. Curt grabbed me and I snapped, “Dammit, Curt, I have to f*cking pee!”

The woman next to him laughed as he said, “I wanted to introduce you to this person new to Birds and Beers that I met at the varied thrush last week. Her name is Gayle.”

Gayle laughed and told Curt to let me pee. Gayle and I are very close friends to this day.

One of my favorite things at a Birds and Beers is to stand back and watch the crowd, see people connecting and having a good time or interesting conversation. Curt would often catch me doing this and we’d make eye contact, knowingly smile and toast each other. It was one of my favorite parts of our friendship.  

Running into Curt Rawn at Biggest Week with Sherrie Duris and Asher Gorbet.

Before long Curt started coming to some of the bird festivals in the US and I remember a friend in the Rio Grande Valley asking, “What’s the deal with Curt Rawn? He’s everywhere.” I said, “He loves birding and he really loves people.”  

And he did. If you were alone at a party or didn’t know anyone, he’d seek you out, get to know you, and hook you up with other people to talk to. He was a super connector. He was at home in any group. When I’d invite him to parties with our theater/comic friends he blended in easily.

When I’d get to a bird festival and he was there, as soon as he saw me he’d come in for a greeting and say, “Hey Shaz…this is wonderful, I love it! I’ve met so many people!” I see him saying that at the boardwalk at Magee Marsh or the trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park in my head, vividly as I type this.

Hanging out with Curt outside pre vaccination during the pandemic.

The pandemic was hard. Curt was a social creature and derived so much pleasure from the company of others, it was challenging for him. I had him over in the yard when I could or we’d go birding when time would allow. When I told him my plan for working in the Rio Grande Valley for several weeks last winter he said, “That’s sounds like a great idea, I wonder if I could rent a place down there too?”

Sure enough he found a place a couple of miles away from my rental. He arrived earlier and stayed later than I did, but true to form when I arrived he said to me, “Hey Shaz, you know Katinka?”

“I met her briefly at the RGV Fest a few years ago,” I said.

“Well she’s here too and needs company, we should all go birding,” Curt said.

And I got to know Katinka much better as a result.

If I entered in a good eBird sighting Curt would be under my balcony in 15 minutes.

Little things like finding him under my apartment balcony after I eBirded parakeets that morning meant the world to me. In the above photo we chatted for a few minutes and then got a yellow-throated warbler and western tanager in that brief time. We had a really great month. While birding one morning he marveled at how he dropped five pounds out of nowhere. He thought it must have been all the walking and birding in Texas unlike staying cooped up indoors in frozen Minnesota in winter. Little did any of us know what was really going on.

He got vaccinated while he was in Texas and immediately started asking me how soon we’d have Birds and Beers. I was nowhere near getting vaccinated and not ready. He managaed to get a few in without me.

When I came back from working in Alaska this summer he had a cough but thought it was due to the heavy smoke haze in the Twin Cities from the wildfires in surrounding states and Canada. When it didn’t go away after the smoke subsided he got the cancer diagnosis. He was quiet about it at first. But as things progressed I had him over and said, “You have to let people help you. We want to help you. Think of all the times you drove someone to chemo, you brought them food, you made them smile, you simply visited. It’s time to let us return the favor.”

There are thousand stories I could tell you about the man. Like back when I was married and my husband at the time was in Hong Kong and I had a back spasm and was immobile. He was out birding with his friend Tony and the stopped and grabbed some food and made sure I had things to eat the next few days. I’ll never forget that kindness.

The horrifying results when we tried one of those face swapping apps.

He could drive me nuts if we travelled together. We’d be scheduled to meet at certain time for breakfast and birding and he’d call when we were supposed to hit the road and say, “Hey Shaz, I met five new people at a party last night and they want to bird with us too and I’ll need another 45 minutes to figure out carpooling.”  

He was so freaking goofy! I’ll miss his goofiness like the time he called and asked me for dating app advice and we realized he’d accidentally given himself the username “Curt69.” Sometimes I still call him that in my head.

Take in some classic goofy Curt.

When I was married I joked that Non Birding Bill  was my first husband and my buddy Clay who I travelled with for Swarovski was my second husband. Curt asked, “Hey Shaz, can I be a husband?” And so I knighted him my third husband. But he really was more like a brother who drove me bananas and made me laugh.

One of my all time favorite photos of Curt was taken by Craig Mullenbach. Curt and I were working the MOU booth at the State Fair. The booth has a giant sign that reads, “Ask Us About Birds!” Craig and other friends arrived at the booth and gifted Curt and I Big Fat Bacon on a stick. Craig was about to take a photo of us at the booth. As he was, a member of the public noted the sign and asked, “Hey is it true that when you see a cardinal in your yard that it’s one of your dead relatives stopping by to say hello?”

Our reactions when asked a ridiculous question.

Our faces in that photo are PRICELESS. Curt and I laughed about that moment for years. And will I see Curt in a cardinal in my backyard? No. I’m about to move to Alaska where there are no cardinals so I guess that means I’m SOL?

No.

I’ll see Curt when I am with a gathering of birders and people are engaged in good conversation, sharing an amazing lifer story, eating lifer pie, and welcoming in a new birder to the group.

A reflection of Curt in the objective lens on my spotting scope.

I’m grateful for the friendship we had. I’m grateful that two weeks ago I went for a visit with my best soup and he taught me to play cribbage. He was happy that day, tired but happy. He was optimistic about his treatment and plans for 2022.

We texted the next day when his nausea was bad. And then he got very confused and ended up back in the hospital where things changed very fast.

I have a hole in my heart now. It’s much bigger than I expected it would be. But that is the heartbreakingly beautiful thing about good relationships. They have a shelf life.

So long, Curt, and thank you for the years of friendship and the many friends you introduced me to along the way.

Driving From Minnesota to Alaska

In February, I was down round the Texas/Mexico border. By May I was in Alaska.

This year was so weird and filled with so many delightful surprises. I never imagined I’d find myself driving from the lower 48 states up into Canada to get to Alaska, but that’s what happened. I know many birders do big years and drive all over the country, but that’s not my style. While I was working from Alamo, TX this winter, I found out I was going to work for Denali National Park for the summer. I calculated the long drive I was going to have in front me. I had a co-pilot for the Texas to Minnesota bit, but Minnesota to Alaska was going me and only me.

I had the option of flying into Alaska for work, but I wouldn’t have had a car if I did that. And working in a park that is the size of New Hampshire and being two hours away from a city required me to have a car. I loaded up my birding gear, biking gear, and clothes and headed north. Canada still had hefty restrictions for crossing the border. I was fully vaccinated by the time I left, but Canada didn’t accept that and sent me back to Montana for a rapid test. I saw a testing station at the Canada border and asked, “Can’t I just take a test there?”

The border patrol agent chuckled and said, “If we let you in, you’ll have to take that one before you drive on.”

He was nice enough to give me the name of a clinic that was open for one more hour and I was able to get an appointment for a rapid test. They told me I was lucky I was doing this on a week day. Many people tried crossing on Saturday and all the clinics were closed until Monday and they were stranded. Mondays the clinic was full of cranky travelers.

I went back tot he border with my rapid test negative and had to sit and wait two hours for processing. During Canada’s lockdown, they gave me a very limited window for driving through and if I didn’t leave within my five day window, I’d be risking fines and further entry into the Country. I had to prove that I had hotels already booked or they would make me make the reservations while they watched…no sneaking into campsites at National Parks. I did ask for an extra day in case I encountered any snow storms and they did grant me that.

The AlCan Highway, beautiful but lonely.

The drive up was beautiful but lonesome. I wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere, parks had police at the gate watching for US citizens to keep them out. I was only allowed to use drive throughs or pay at the pump. At hotels, I was only allowed to be in my room and not wander out until it was time to leave.

But OMFG the wildlife! I had a chance to really use my treasured Bovids of the World field guide!

Wood bison!

I shared my location with a few people so if I disappeared, someone would have an idea of where I was. This backfired slightly when one of my sisters texted, “WHY ARE YOU IN AN EMERGENCY CLINIC IN MONTANA????” (Rapid Covid Test).

However, one person said, “You are leaving Muncho Lake this morning, FYI watch out for wood bison in the road about two hours out of town.” Yep. There were wood bison in and next to the road. Which I had no idea existed. Turns out they are shaped differently than the bison I have seen in the United States aka plains bison and they are considered endangered in Canada.

But there were some lifer mammals on the trip. The first was when I passed a small deer-looking thing with a big nose. “Did I just pass a caribou,” I wondered to myself.

Caribou on the highway!

I soon encountered many caribou and confirming that I was in fact now among caribou aka reindeer really hit home for me how my life was going to be different the next few months. Moose, black bear, coyote—I get all of that in Minnesota. But caribou? Wow. I kind of chuckled to myself that I was becoming a Lifetime movie cliche. Woman gets divorced and lives through a pandemic,. then decides to work in a strange and foreign to her wilderness. Cue the swelling John Barry music!

Many signs warned of sheep. Signs on curvy mountain roads had flashing lights to warn you about sheep.

Stone sheep.

The signs were no lie. If you passed a sign warning of sheep, there would be sheep. I knew I was going to get Dall sheep when I got to Denali, so getting stone sheep on the way was a nice bonus. I think they’re considered a subspecies of Dall sheep, but regardless, they were my first thin horned sheep.

I also passed countless moose, black bears, elk, foxes, and coyotes all on top of the gorgeous mountain scenery.

Common Raven near Munch Lake.

The fascinating thing was how strict everything was on my drive up and how much citizen didn’t care on my drive home. When I drove back to Minnesota I got the same spiel from border patrol about only paying for gas at the pump, only eat at drive throughs, and only stay in my hotel room. Every gas station I stopped at on the drive back had the pay at pump feature turned off. They wanted you inside buying snacks and beverages. When I checked in to one of my hotels the front desk clerk told me about a fancy curry dinner they were going to serve that night and I should join them. “I’m from the US, I’m not allowed to eat in your dining room,” I said.

The clerk said, “We don’t care where you are from, we really want you to spend money in our dining room. Wear a mask if you’re not vaccinated.”

“Does this mean you’ll let me walk around outside,” I asked.
They allowed it and it was a treat to be outdoors and get a good long hike in and enjoy the sounds of remote Canada.

Getting back into the United States from Canada was a real treat. I had to go and park my car and then follow the signs to walk into Canada, turn in all my paperwork proving I left the country in the allotted time, then get shoved out the door, walk outside and around the building, step in front of the line of cars waiting to drive into the US and walk up to the dive through window to get back into the United States.

The oh so fancy and official government signs directing you how to go from Canada into the United States.

Not as dramatic as walking along the Equator but interesting nonetheless.

I handed all my paperwork and passport the US border patrol. He said, “You can take your mask off, we don’t wear those here.”

Considering where I was entering the US, I was not surprised by this statement.

But I made it back to Minnesota. It was a grand adventure and I felt a bit badass doing that drive alone. It’s not something I want do alone ever again, but it’s nice to know that I can if I have to.

Getting My Nemesis Bird

My former nemesis.

If you’ve spent time with me in person then you know that spruce grouse is a big nemesis bird for me. Big. Huge. GINORMOUS. 

For those new to birding, a “nemesis bird” is a bird that you try to see and never get. You’re always arriving as someone says, “It just flew off, like, five minutes ago…”

Spruce grouse is particularly galling since they breed in Minnesota and yet I still manage to miss them. Now, they are a good four to five hours from where I live so it’s not like I’m missing a bird one to two hours away. I had kind of given up ever searching for them since I wasn’t seeing them and figured like many birds, one would just happen in front of me. 

It was such a running gag at Birds and Beers that almost didn’t want to see one since people seemed to enjoy the joke so much. People loved to announcing their grouse find at Birds and Beers and looking pointedly at me. Or tagging me in photos on social media. Heck, even my boss came back from a weekend in northern Minnesota and told me that his brother served him freshly hunted spruce grouse.  

I half-heartedly joked that I’d offer sexual favors to the first person to get me a spruce grouse. 

And then I started dating a birder, someone with a cabin in northern Minnesota that was about halfway between where I lived in the Twin Cities and where spruce grouse hang out. When the pandemic hit, we kind of made it a pandemic project. Spruce grouse would be a lifer for them. I think we thought that maybe some “pandemic magic” would happen and all the time up north would get us the bird. But there was no pandemic magic. We went to areas where bird guides would say, “I had a group there today” and we’d go the following day and not get spruce grouse. We would see cool things like goshawks or pine martens hanging out, but no grouse. 

So when the Alaska gig presented itself, spruce grouse were firmly on the table. As I got to know staff at Denali National Park via Teams meetings before heading to live in Alaska for the summer, word spread of my desire to see one. People would tell when and where they saw them. I’d receive text messages from a staffer of spruce grouse right out their vehicle window on the Park Road. One day, someone tried to arrange their laptop camera to face out their windows so I could watch the spruce grouse in their yard. I have to say that the staff at Denali National Park and Preserver definitely know how to make a girl feel at home. Many staff truly took my nemesis bird more seriously than I did.

My bike, a Surly Straggler, loaded for birding.

My first morning waking up in Denali National Park, I loaded my bike and my birding equipment in my Prius and hit the Park Road. One of the first birds I got was the willow ptarmigans I already blogged about. But when I was there in early May, the buses hadn’t started running yet and a private vehicle could drive all the way to Teklanika Rest Area and then hike/bike more of the Park Road. 

I unloaded my bike from my car at Tek, got my trunk bag on, strapped in my scope and my binoculars and headed out. Yes. I also packed bear spray. I marveling at the beauty of the river and mountains around me, taking in the redpolls and crossbills, thinking how badass it is to be able to say, “Oh yeah, I biked in Alaska.”

And then the road curved into some spruce and WHAM! I knew the shape as soon as my eyes laid on it. The dark strutting blob was unmistakable. There he was, a displaying male spruce grouse! 

That dark lump up the road is my lifer spruce grouse. And yes, please note the bear spray next to my binoculars.

I pedaled as close as I dared and took the displaying male in. I was so grateful for my NL Pures, they truly are a spectacular piece of birding equipment and the clarity of this life bird was overwhelming. I pedaled a little closer, then got off and set up my spotting scope low to the ground to get video of the displaying male. Meanwhile a second male came in…and then a third appeared in the trees just to my right. It took off to chase the displaying male. It was quite a site. I took video and drank in the scene and until all three males chased each other off and headed into the woods. 

Warning: swearing. Also, the strut on this bird rivals Prince.

Portrait of a woman who has defeated. a decades long bird curse.

I was riding so high. The willow ptarmigan were one thing, but to just get spruce grouse while doing one of my favorite things (biking) was just too much. I rode the high as I continued to pedal the road. And then I noticed that I was going super slow. I made it all the way to Igloo Campground and was exhausted. My riding was not pretty, slow and quite a few stops. I figured I’d be a little off after driving nonstop for seven days and not being used the elevation, but I wasn’t prepared to be THAT sucky at bike riding. When I turned around to head back, I didn’t pedal for three miles. I’d been on a such a gradual incline and on a spruce grouse high that I didn’t even notice the incline. 

The next few days were settling into the job and establishing a routine. About a week into it, I was walking to my office in the Headquarters Building when BLAMMO there was a a female spruce grouse right outside my window. I got a couple of quick and dirty iPhone shots, but I also accepted a universal truth: after you have finally seen and experienced a life long nemesis bird, you will see then everywhere and all the time. 

Only I didn’t. 

I would’t see another spruce grouse again until almost two months later when the person I’ve been dating came to visit. Spruce grouse was still their nemesis but I wasn’t foolish enough to guarantee finding the bird. But one night we were out walking one of the sled dogs I was assigned to walk (her name is Party and she’s amazing). Party went on point and there was a spruce grouse next to the road! My friend went after it, got a terrible iPhone photo but got great looks. Party was very upset with how the whole situation was handled. She clearly wanted off leash and to follow my friend to get at the spruce grouse, but I think she thought our interest was in eating it, not just looking at it. I could tell from her tugs on the harness that she was thinking, “No, you’re doing it wrong, let me help you, I’ll totally kill it and we’ll all eat it!”

Afterwards as the two of us celebrated a much sought after lifer with whoops and maybe even a slap on the back, I got this photo of Party. She’s so proud that she found the grouse.

And then it was several weeks until I had my fourth and final spruce grouse encounter. I made a reputation for myself among staff that if you needed to leave town and you had indoor plumbing (especially a bath tub) I was happy to watch your place and feed your pets. 

One of my regulars had a cabin in the woods with a jacuzzi. One day, I noticed birds about the size of a thrush running in the grassy driveway. I was ready to dismiss them at Swainson’s thrushes, but the run was wrong and the shape…wait…that’s kind of a young pheasant shape…no pheasants in Alaska…wrong habitat for ptarmigan…what else…holy crap…SPRUCE GROUSE BABIES!

And there we were. All of us frozen. The grouse realizing something was moving in the driveway that hadn’t been moving before. Me, frozen hoping not to disturb them. Eventually the attention span of youth won and the chicks continued to forage while mom kept a watchful eye on me. I tried to play it cool and grab my scope from inside the cabin to get pictures and video. 

And there we have it, I had a perfect nemesis/life bird experience of the summer:

1. I found a displaying male bird on my own while doing something I love like bike riding.

2. I got a female outside my office.

3. I got to show someone else who needed spruce grouse (with the magic of a sled dog).

4. I got to see a female with chicks.

Who knows if I’ll ever see one in Minnesota. And goodness knows that I have received plenty of good natured ribbing that I can’t really count spruce grouse until I’ve seen them in Minnesota.

But the big takeaway that I have is that some birds just need to happen. You can chase them all you want, but at the end of the day, the only way to get them is to let go and just let them happen. And when the time is right, they eventually will happen for you. 

Sounds of Willow Ptarmigan

What does a willow ptarmigan sound like? Utterly bonkers!

When you work for the federal government, you occasionally have opportunities to apply for “details.” If you are permanently stationed at a park and another park has a temporary staffing need, you can apply for it and work there for a few months. This is meant to help out a park as it rehires a new position. It also gives the person who gets the temporary job some career development—you can use it as a chance to work for a different type of park or to try out a different type of job.

Given all of the change in my life in the last few years, I saw an opportunity to work in Denali National Park and Preserve for the summer and thought, “YES! I want that please!” Part of it is a desire for change but also two birds I’ve always wanted to see are practically guarantees if you go at the right time of year: willow ptarmigan and my long-time nemesis, the spruce grouse. So I applied and then bada bing, bada boom I found myself in central Alaska in early May, living in a cabin in the park.

The morning after I arrived in Denali, I hit the Park Road in search of ptarmigan and places to ride my bike. I only went a few miles to where I hit subarctic tundra and there in the road was a male in all his ridiculous glory.

Life bird with a view!!!

My first ever willow ptarmigan strutting like a boss in front of my Prius. And yes, I drove a Prius to Alaska from Minnesota.

I pulled over and the ptarmigan immediately began singing me the love songs of his people. I was thrilled, elated, swearing with all the lifer joy a birder can feel. There was another male further away perched in a tree—I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR PTARMIGANS IN TREES! I made myself comfortable to listen and bask in this bird’s “song.” I ended up encountering willow ptarmigan on a regular basis in May and June along the Denali Park Road. One day I biked up to Sable Pass and was surrounded by males chasing each other. I wasn’t prepared for their even sillier chase call. I made a compilation video of their sounds. It’s so strange to be in land that is crazy majestic only to be serenaded by the likes of Looney Tunes.

My first day in Denali and my true love gave to me, a ptarmigan in a spruce tree.

This is the face of a woman who has finally heard willow ptarmigan live and in person and it was as glorious as she always imagined it would be.

My Lifer Texas Blue Bunting

There are life birds and then there are LIFE BIRDS. 

Taking a trip to a new state or country can yield you dozens of new birds in a day. But then there are those birds that catch your eye in a field guide or bird magazine article and you think, “My gods, I want that so much, I need to see it so badly, shut up and take all my money. Show me that damn bird.”

Generally, I prefer to get birds where they are supposed to be. And I’m content seeing birds over and over. The day I’m bored with green jays is the day I hang up my Swarovskis. I’m not one to chase a new state record on the other side of my state, especially if I have seen that bird where it normally lives. I’ll make an exception if it is within ten miles and I know I’ll see friends, but I’m not into chasing that much. 

The blue bunting in the National Geographic Field Guide.

When I was working from the Rio Grande Valley, Texas this past winter there were many rarities being reported and of particular interest to me was a blue bunting. I have been intrigued by blue buntings ever since I was a kid and given a National Geographic Field Guide. Whenever I got a new bird book as a kid, I would immediately go to the pages of my favorite birds: scarlet tanager, indigo bunting, pileated woodpecker to see the photo or illustration. When I got to the page for buntings in the National Geographic, I was struck by a bird I hadn’t heard of before called a blue bunting that was even darker blue than an indigo bunting, it looked like it had patches of lighter blue, did the bird shimmer? As a kid I thought that must be something to see.

As I started traveling, I figured it was a matter of time until I would cross paths with one, but alas, my life list was blue bunting free. Sure, there are birds that pop up across the Texas/Mexico border, but they were usually females. I know, I know, female birds are cool too and we shouldn’t just look at the pretty boys, but I really wanted to see how that blue works on that bird. I couldn’t understand from photos what that blue was all about. Was this bunting super shiny?

This winter, one was reported at Resaca de la Palma, about 45 minutes from where I was working. People were posting pictures on social media, eBird was giving me alerts, it was too tempting not to chase. And Resaca is a good park, lots to see there so it’s not like I was going just for the bunting. I headed out and brought my bike along. Masks were still required if you were grouped around the blinds to watch the feeder birds. We waited, and even ran into a few friends who were happy to tell me that they had already seen the bunting. But no bunting ever showed up. Many other great birds did like the usual green jays and Altimira orioles. I decided to hit the trails with my bike and maybe try again the next day—the bike ride was good birding, and yielded a ruddy ground dove on one of the trails.

The dulcet tones of plain chachalaca song serenaded me as I waited hours for a blue bunting to show up to Resaca de la Palma.

I’d arrived a bit late in the day for the blue bunting and word on the birding street was that the bird shows up in the morning. The next day I arrived mid-morning and was told the bunting had just been seen. But it wasn’t seen again while I was there. I had only a couple of hours because I had an online training to do and the reception wasn’t good enough at the park for me to participate from the bird feeders. At this point I was thinking, “I’ve tried twice, let’s not waste any more time and gas…” But I kept seeing pictures of this glorious male posted by people who made the drive down from Dallas or Austin. I was only 45 minutes away. This male was practically a guarantee if I was there at the right time and when would I see one again? Also, we were in a freaking pandemic…what else do I have to do but go birding or ride my bike? The last time I’d gotten a lifer was 2019? Maybe even 2018? 

I decided I would give the bird a third try, this time taking some annual leave work. I had a meeting at 12pm so I gave myself from dawn until 11am to get it. When I arrived before the visitor center was open the ranger saw me and said, “It was just here but usually will come back in 45 minutes.”

I actually got this crimson-collared grosbeak at Estero Llano Grande but it’s better than the picture I got at Resaca de la Palma. This species was all over the Valley this winter.

I had a good four hours to play with so I waited and 45 minutes came and went. I saw so many great birds that other people were trying for like the crimson-collared grosbeak, tropical parula, and golden-crowned warbler. Heck, I even saw the orange crown of the orange-crowned warblers as they bathed in the water feature in front of me. It was a weekday and pretty quiet, I mostly had the place to myself, apart from the occasional person looking for a different bird.

“You here for the crimson-collared?”

“No, but it was just here ten minutes ago, I’m here for the blue bunting.”

“Ohhhh man, I had the bunting last week, it’s amazing! Darn, I wonder if the crimson-collared will come back. I need that bird.”

Anther couple arrived and like me, they were going for the bunting. They staked themselves out at a blind to my left and we waited. 10am arrived and I began to wonder if I was going to dip on this bird again. I wanted to see it so badly. I’d already invested about 11 hours of watching and driving trying to get the bird that everyone else seemed to get. And I was seeing GREAT birds too so it wasn’t a total loss but I really wanted this bird. Time was growing short, it was already past 10:30am. I had to be in my car and driving back at 11am to make my next meeting. 

Then miraculously…it flew in for some water at 10:45am. I managed to get some video because I wanted to see how all that dark and light blue worked together. Of course the danger of when I get life birds and take video is that it comes with a lot of swearing. But here is the video.

Who doesn’t swear when they get a lifer?

And the blue was insane. The bird looked like it shimmered, even though the feathers weren’t really shiny, so much as the bird has lighter patches of sky blue on its head, cheeks, and wings. It was a combination of blue that no photo can do justice and to watch it move and fly was like watching a piece of electricity flit around trees and dirt. 

I drove home, triumphant. I felt giddy. I felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders. I felt like…I’d say I felt like I got a massage, but no, I felt like I’d just had really great sex. It’s not a feeling I get with just any lifer, this was a bird I dreamed about seeing as a kid—it’s colorful bird, it’s not like getting a flycatcher or Old World warbler. This was a highly desired bird. Also, I had gone for it multiple times. And while I waited for this magical creature to show up, I got to enjoy all my Texas favorites. I enjoy winter, but the silence gets to me. Working in south Texas this past winter really hit home how much I need bird song in my life as much as possible. 

I lived on the high of finally seeing that damn bunting the rest of the day and well into the next. I could feel the endorphin rush with every breath. I made it back to my computer in time for my meeting. Oddly enough, the meeting I had to attend after getting that bird led me to more lifers, including a nemesis bird. 

All in all, it was a great day and writing about the blue bunting still gives me a bit of an endorphin rush. 

Cicadas

Parents (or heck, adults who want a fun project on their desk while working from home) this is something fun and safe you can do with your iPhone.

Dog day cicada freshly emerged from its exoskeleton. The wings and body will get darker as it dries out.

I got a bit obsessed with insects this past summer. Not traveling and moving to a home with a backyard gave me the opportunity to really study and observe things I’ve always wondered about, like cicadas. The older I get, the more I groove on cicadas, they are a sense memory of childhood as summer was marked by their sounds. Where I grew up in Indiana and where I lived we primarily had scissor-grinder cicadas, Linnea’s cicada and some of the periodic species like 13 year cicada. But in Minnesota we mostly we have the dog day cicada—although last summer for the first time ever I did hear a scissor-grinder cicada singing in my front yard. My new neighbors already think I’m a little eccentric but thought it over the top when I leapt up with my phone to record the sound of a new Minnesota cicada. They asked, “Wait what? You can ID bug calls too?”

Cicada nymph found on a neighborhood bike rid

This summer I found a number of dog day cicadas emerging around my new place. Some were found gardening, others in the grass. Goodspeed was working in our garden, digging out some rocks and brought one over, “Look at these crazy insects I keep finding!” I knew immediately they were cicada nymphs and told him to put them back, that they were after tree roots, not any of the perennials.” I later read that dog day cicadas have a preference for pine trees. The neighbor has a large white pine and I’m sure its shallow root system makes it way to the backyard and that’s what the nymphs were after.

True to their name, when the hottest part of summer hit, the cicadas began to sing and I found their shells on hostas, the front yard maple tree, in the grass or the driveway. I’ve had an aversion to the nymphs ever since I was a kid. I think it’s because as kids we loved stepping on empty cicada shells for the satisfying crunch sound. One day I watched a girl crunch one shell with her bare foot and then squish a freshly emerged cicada with her other bare foot. I still can hear her wails of disgust and rage ringing in my ears 40 years later. Also, they look gross and like they can bite you. But at this stage of their life, they are finished eating and don’t really bite. If you pick them up and let them crawl on you, you will feel the grip of their feet—which makes sense. They are looking for something to grip while they go through the vulnerable process of emerging from their shell.

I picked up a few and used the time lapse feature on my iPhone to get this video.

You can make one of these too!

1. Find a cicada freshly emerged from the ground, this can happen at any time of day. When you find one, you have 15 to 30 minutes before the process gets going.

2. Find a good rough stick for the nymph to crawl on and get comfortable. Place the stick in a vase or glass that will keep the stick steady.

3. Find a way to aim your smartphone at it for awhile. Thanks to the pandemic and working from home all the time, I have a selfie stick that also works as a tripod and has a ring light. This is perfect for holding the phone steady and giving enough light to really see the process well. Pro tip, if you tap and hold your finger on your iPhone screen it will not only lock the focus, but the exposure as well. And then I hit start on the time lapse button and an hour later I have a green cicada and a really cool video.

4. Now, if you are worried about the cicada flying all over your house when it comes out—no need. As long as it’s light green, it’s not going to fly. It can crawl. Once the cicada is out for about five minutes, I either set the stick with the cicada on it outside the front door, or let it crawl onto the trunk of the maple tree to let it finish and then be on its way.

I love how time lapse on smart phones gives the opportunity to observe nature and share it with the world. If you choose to share this on Instagram, people will think you’re the next Attenborough!

Here’s my selfie stick/ring light set up. I got this because it makes you look awake at video meetings and is perfect for making time lapse videos of insects. I think I got this on Amazon for about $18, it even has a grip that will hold most models of smartphones.

Cicada I found on my car tire in the summer of 2019. Their wings are quite beautiful when they first emerge.

Cicadas are incredible creatures: a tremendous source of food for other insects, birds and mammals (even humans), you can ID them by song and there’s a rich variety in their song. The adults lay eggs on tree branches and the young hatch and fall to the ground, burrowing in to feed on the sap of tree roots. Different species stay underground for different periods. I’ve read the dog day cicadas take three years to develop into a winged adult—and then live about a week in that form. Some species can be underground for over a decade, think the 13 year cicada or the 17 year cicada.

It also works for me as a metaphor. The above cicada on my car tire was found the morning after I’d made a giant life altering decision. I had things to do and was irritated this was on my back tire, but at the same time I was struck by the vibrant hue of the green wings, the beauty sucked me in. I sat watching it and contemplating the life of a cicada. Here was something that was burrowed under the soil for many years, in the dark, perfectly content to suck the sap of a root of a tree, living in their self construct burrow. Over time, they get coated in anal fluid. Then one day, that’s not the life they need and they have to come up through the soil, to open air, the unknown and then go through what looks like a very uncomfortable process and live what life they have left to live. And they do it in a completely new way. There’s can be a lot to learn from a cicada.

April 2020 Transforming A Yard For Birding

Let me tell you, moving during a pandemic…don’t really recommend it. But in April I moved right in between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to a town called Falcon Heights. Some would call it a suburb, I call it convenient. And before any wiseacre asks are there any falcons in Falcon Heights, it is robust with merlins. So much so that in April not only did I show merlins to friends who visited the yard, one night a male and female came screaming in, locked talons and crash landed on my next door neighbor’s roof. After that they copulated loudly with abandon.

So yeah, there are falcons in Falcon Heights.

There were bird feeders in the yard but they were tucked back in a corner, surrounded by bushy native plants and not as easily viewable as I’d like unless you were standing in one particular spot in the kitchen. That was something that always baffled me when I ran a bird store. Why bother with the expense of a bird feeder and seed if you don’t have it placed somewhere that you can easily view it? The birds really don’t need your seed. You’re essentially providing fast food for the birds, they can’t survive on it alone, it can help but they have their eyes on lots of food out there.

So poles were moved, feeders were added, squirrel baffles adjusted and appropriate seed purchased. Before long the birds took note. After adjust the feeders it took about a week for the birds to be on board. It took even longer for the woodpeckers to get the idea. But I knew from experience that chickadees will check out a new feeder first. Once they start, the others followed. And so it began.

Fly thru feeder is fifteen feet away from a tree trunk or branches. Coupled with a baffle, the squirrels stay out of it. Small suet cage was attractive to small woodpeckers.

Northern flicker tries braving the suet cage. After this comedy show, I decided it was time for a bigger suet feeder.

I love an old woodpile—so much bird potential (and native bees). Some of these were turned into feeders.

The yard came with a good base layer of native plants for Minnesota: chokecherry, pin cherry, wild American plum just to name a few. When spring really began to pop there was also brown-eyed Susan, rose hips, Joe Pye weed, butterfly weed and a host of others. I even tried my hand at planting a few natives and discover that I can actually grow cardinal flower without killing it and that it’s true, hummingbirds really like it.

But I really fell in love with the woodpile. So much bird feeding potential and it makes a great backdrop for taking pictures of birds. Quite a few species lurk around woodpiles looking for insects living in them. But native sparrows love them too. And since I wasn’t traveling or meeting friends for drinks after working in the home office all day, I began timing the end of my work day to coincide with golden hour—that great evening light and set up my digiscoping equipment and an adult beverage and just enjoyed my backyard birds. I even purchased a bag of extra fine sunflower chips and would scatter them far and wide for the native sparrows to pick out in the woodpile.

When I ran a bird store, I sold logs with holes for suet anywhere from $15.99 to $69.99. Not kidding, I sold a $70 holey log. This was a branch from the wood pile with holes drilled by an obliging young man…for free.

White-throated sparrow foraging around the woodpile.

This hollow log gets everything from catbirds to cardinals to shrews to rabbits.

I love a chonky fox sparrow. They are my favorite MInnesota sparrow.

Dark-eyed juncos love some fine chips.

It was gratifying to know that I still “have it” when it comes to bird feeding. There was a planter tray that had been used as a birdbath. I took some pieces of limestone from the crumbling limestone patio and added to that to bird bath, the birds were in like a shot. I don’t know why, but birds seem to find baths faster with rocks. They love shallow water and I’m not sure if wet rocks are easier for them to see, but it makes a difference.

It’s not all drinking and birds. I do wander the neighborhoods quite a bit. I can’t stay idle and generally try to hit my 10,000 steps a day. If I ever get to lead bird walks again, I want to be ready. One day taking one of my many pandemic walks in the neighborhood a van swerved next to me and the driver asked, “Do you want to see a baby owl?”

I didn’t have binoculars on and the woman didn’t look like anyone I’d met in the neighborhood yet. “How did you know I was a birder,” I asked.

She looked confused and said, “I didn’t. I just assumed everyone wants to see a baby owl.”

Well, she’s not wrong in my case.

Turns out her friend lived in the neighborhood and had been posting the owls on her Facebook page. She was so excited that she wanted to share it with the world.

A brancher great horned owl.

I saw the owls and marveled at how I’d missed the poop on the street. I cut myself some slack since I was relatively new to the hood. I went home to get my scope and came back for photos. I enjoyed watching the rest of their development over the months. This has turned out to be an owly neighborhood. They are hooting like crazy this November which I can only assume is early flirting and they are setting up territory nearby again.

There are worse places to land during a pandemic when a travel writer can’t fly. And it’s been a pleasure getting to know my yard birds again. I have always loved me some brown birds and the sparrow action in April did not disappoint. I did eventually get some colorful birds…but that’s a May story.

Lincoln’s sparrow pass through in April and October.

Song sparrow.

I Guess I Am A Diamond Painting Artist Now?

Seriously. It’s official. I’m an artist. I’m part of an exhibit with MIA (aka Minneapolis Institute of Arts). I entered a Diamond Painting of one of my turkey vulture photos into their Foot In The Door Exhibit and made it in. The Foot in the Door Exhibit is basically a once every ten years event where anyone can enter art in it and MIA will put it on their walls. Normally it would be on their actual museum walls, but because of a the pandemic…it’s online.

I took a few screenshots of the exhibition with my pieces and pieces made by friends.

Yet, It’s one of the few goals I actually got to keep this year and it was good for me to have something long term to work on. It makes it extra special to be in mixed media along with my friend Gayle Deutsch and artist Rob McBroom—the surrealist who always enters the Duck Stamp contest and never wins because…judges are too attached to art ducko: art that looks the same, almost like a photo (I’m not saying it isn’t a difficult or challenging technique, I’m just saying that it’s too wrapped up in only one style of art).

What is Diamond Painting? Well, if you follow me on the various social medias, you would have seen a few time lapses I made. It’s kind of a mix of cross stitch and paint by number with a little bit of a cryptogram thrown in. You get a canvas covered in sticky material. There are tiny little boxes with symbols in them. You have to match the corresponding color to its symbol by using a pen to set down little plastic diamonds. After many hours and tens of thousands of diamonds, you have your image. This image is a favorite of a turkey vulture photo that I took at Everglades National Park in Florida in 2016. It makes me chuckle that this pieces incorporates birds, digiscoping and a weird pop art. I am a little sad that people can’t see it in person, there’s so much texture to it and it’s shiny and sparkly as you move around it. However, I’ll take any win I can get this year and this is definitely a win for me.

Here’s a brief compilation of the time lapses I made this summer while working on the piece:

What the hell did I order? The title was “Jeff Goldblum Sunset.”

How does one get in to Diamond Painting…completely by folly and drunk ordering. When I got the package I had no idea what it was and I was so confused on what it could be. I put it on Facebook, “What the hell did I drunk order?”

My friend Gayle was quick to come out of the woodwork, “Um I linked to this two months ago. Did you click and buy it?

Clearly the answer was yes.

I tucked it away and thought maybe I’d find someone who wanted it since I had knitting and a supply of paint by numbers to work on. And then my mom got ill. Full disclosure: she is well today and just as sassy as ever. But at the time she was not and many things were very uncertain. And it’s very hard when your parents make decisions about their health that you do not agree with. My mom lives in Indiana and I live in Minnesota. I went down for visits, but most of my time was back up north. There was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation.

This is the chart that guides you on who to put down your various colored beads also called “drills.” The beads have a number on their bag. So the light green would be 3047 and it should be placed where you see an “X” on the sticky canvas.

In a fit of cleaning and organizing I came across the mysterious Amazon package and took out the contents. None of it made sense to me so I did what any practical thinking adult would do—watch YouTube how to videos. I thought it looked insane and would take forever. Who has the time to do this? To get a fully informed opinion, I decided to try it. This was slow and painstaking, but oh…it sent me into a mediative state.

When Non Birding Bill came home that night and saw what I was doing, he said, “I’m not sure this is a good sign. This looks really insane.”

I agreed, yet persisted. Over several weeks.

An up close look at the stick canvas with the codes for the colors.

Any free time I had, I worked on this over the next six weeks. I had ten minutes over coffee in the morning before going to work? I did it. NBB watching some weird move, I placed plastic beads on sticky canvas. Phone calls with relatives to catch up on Mom’s health? I put on more beads.

It soon became a challenge to keep the beads/drills corralled, spillage is inevitable. The bags weren’t really resealable. The beads are tiny and managed to find their way everywhere. One night, I took my bra off before bed and my chest was covered in them. I started using an old ice cube tray to keep colors separated. But even that had risks, like the day the tray accidentally flipped from the table on to the carpeting. I spent two hours painstakingly using a flashlight and tweezers to get as many as I could out of the carpet. When that spot was eventually vacuumed you could hear hundreds more get sucked up.

Fail.

Fortunately, these companies give you far more beads than you will ever need. And with many you can reorder them if you have an absolute disaster. I have also seen things online where there are much better bead organizers and even specialized vacuums to help you with just such a tragedy. I haven’t ordered the special vacuum but I have ordered the bead organizer. It comes with its own suitcase…that matches my luggage.

I’m fine, really.

Jeff Goldblum gradually comes to life.

It took six weeks and 19,040 little plastic diamonds to put together Jeff Goldblum Sunset—that doesn’t include the many beads that were lost on my person, the carpet or eaten by my pet rabbit Dougal. But I stuck with it and the sense of accomplishment was well worth it. If I’ve learned anything with this craft it’s that yes, control is an illusion and I certainly can’t control many aspects of my life, but damn it, I can control over 19,000 beads to create an image. I can make them go where they are supposed to and even rearrange a few if the colors don’t look quite right.

The completed Diamond Painting of Jeff Goldblum Sunset

I had no idea the amount of legend this first diamond painting had. When I moved this spring, I framed it and it was the first thing to go up in my home office along with a spotted owl painting that my mother did. Sometimes Jeff even shows up in the background of my live streams. When friends come over for a patio hangout they ask, “Can I see “Jeff?” It truly is a weird and wonderful thing and the texture and shininess always surprises people.

When MIA advertised their Foot in the Door exhibition I knew I wanted to do another one…because a pandemic will certainly fuck with your sense of control. But this time I wanted to do a custom piece of one of my own photos…enter in my favorite vulture photo. I love vultures, I also love the color of this piece and working these colors really help with my meditation. I sent my photo and desired dimensions to a company called Heartful Diamonds and their customer service was great. It takes a few weeks to get the actual kit but they do follow up in case your image doesn’t work in the dimensions you chose and they readily send out extra beads. If you want to attempt this, I’d highly recommend one of their pre made kits or attempting a custom one of your own.

Now…if you’re looking for weird, then check out the diamond painting kits on Etsy…be prepared, not all of them are safe for work and highly erotic.

And as I look down the barrel of a “Covid Winter” in Minnesota where patio hang outs aren’t going to be as readily of an option and the sun will be out for 7 hours a day, I have more on the way.

Skunks and Skulls March 2020

“I’d really love some quality time with a skunk,” I said to a person I’d been dating casually. (And they didn’t flee in horror.)

“Let’s go to my cabin,” he said.

I’m not sure if it was because Julie Zickefoose had shared a skunk on social media about the same time or if it simply dawned on me I hadn’t really watched a skunk the same way I watch other mammals, but I was really in the mood to see and maybe photograph a skunk.

I had just cancelled a flight to see friends who are more like family in Chicago, which was an uncharacteristically rash decision for me. I was worried I was being alarmist, but after reading tweets from an Italian doctor detailing how overwhelmed the hospitals were in Italy and that they were making decisions on who seemed the most likely to survive as opposed to treating everyone, it seemed irresponsible to travel on a plane. It looked like lockdown was a possibility for Minnesota as other cities were suddenly getting Covid cases in the United States.

“Let’s go to my cabin,” he said. “It’s remote, we can avoid people. There should be good birds at the feeders.”

This is what we found when we arrived at the cabin:

Arriving at the cabin, the deer didn’t even leave as we unloaded luggage.

Hey, y’all got any more of that millet?

When you see this it is time to move your bird feeders. A recipe for CWD.

Yep. Those are some amazing “birds” at the feeder. But the cabin isn’t far from Sax Zim Bog and the surrounding county has lots of bog habitat to explore, something I’ve never really had time to visit because I was always traveling. The surrounding fields were chock full of rough-legged hawks and purple finches were well in abundance. I did take a road trip up to the far northern reaches to look for my nemesis bird: the spruce grouse. I was assured by more than one bird guide that this was the spot they took clients to for practically guaranteed grouse.

Alas, my nemesis curse still stands as a northern goshawk was perched at the grouse spot. Don’t get me wrong, I love goshawks, but I’ve seen them, banded them, had one perched on my arm, had a female try to kneecap me…I just want to look at a spruce grouse. Just once.

That was not to be. So I threw out to the universe that I’d like to see a skunk, in daylight and maybe get some photos or videos of one. When we arrived at the cabin, a deer that had been hit by a car was in a ditch on the property. Some canids had already gorged on the carcass. I’m not sure if it had been coyotes or wolves, both are in the area in abundance. As we headed out for some birding one morning, I looked to my left at the carcass and saw a small, black ball on it. “Skunk,” I said, a little surprised that I had sort of willed one out of this air. It trundled away to some melted snow and lapped up water and then headed back to the feast to be found among deer skin and bones.

The skunk has a bit of a rosy glow to the patches on the fur, no doubt from working on the deer carcass.

When I think of a picture that I’ve taken to represent 2020, this one immediately pops up in my mind.

I stayed with the skunk for a long time as the snow gently fell around us. Snow mobiles cruised in the distance, but it was just us. I made sure to give the skunk all the space it needed so it could chow down in peace. And I thought about what was happening. I was supposed to toasting friends in fancy restaurants and instead I was on the side of a county road watching a skunk devour roadkill. And I was enjoying the moment.

I wondered how a lockdown would impair my life going forward. I was actively looking for a new place to live and all the things I’d loved about apartments in the Twin Cities: gyms, saunas, pools, community outdoor space was all being closed off. I was still dealing with divorce forms. Birding events that booked me for my storytelling and workshops were cancelling and that’s a chunk of my income…which I’m now a sole income earner. I was reassessing what I really wanted for my future. When would I be able to travel again? And dating? How the hell do you do that in a pandemic? How do you tell someone nicely, “You’re really a lot of fun, but I can’t see you anymore. It’s not you, it’s the pandemic.”

As I watched the skunk deal with the unanticipated feast of roadkill, I thought about how a pandemic could be a way to do have a sort of “do over.” In some ways, a divorce is a do over, but if a pandemic is going to make life stop, what could I do with that? I love all the travel that I do, but there’s so much in Minnesota that I don’t get to see. Maybe stopping and taking the time to enjoy the skunk and roadkill was what I needed to reassess?

One person I had dated always made plans last minute. 99% of the texts asking, “Want to grab a drink tonight” were answered with, “I’d love to, but I have plans.” They said that I needed to work on my spontaneity. I countered with, “I make plans so I can be spontaneous.” Maybe not knowing what’s going to happen more than two weeks out was a change I need?

Anyway, if you love of a skunk chewing on roadkill being a metaphor for 2020, here’s a video to meditate on.