After two or three minutes it flew off. As far as I know, the kingbird did not reclaim its perch, although it was a convenient spot to hunt insects.
Later, leaving the area, I was at my car and look who appeared on a slender tree just off of the parking lot. The above photo was the only one worth keeping.
This is Lower Huron Metropark where there is a deck that people fish from, some picnic tables and where bike riders park their cars to unload their bikes and begin their ride, and it seems that at least one, but occasionally two, Red-headed Woodpeckers always show up here.
A couple of months ago I finished reading The End of the End of the Earth, essays by Jonathan Franzen (Picador. Farrar, Straus and Girous, New York, 2018). And just last week I read a David Sedaris essay Notes on a last-minute safari (The New Yorker, June 17th, 2024, pages 12-14 print edition). Two very different writers, but each has at least one shared viewpoint in common. Franzen is a well-known birder and has written many essays that include his interest in and concern for birds. Sedaris, as his essay title might imply, is more of a big game guy, although he writes about anything and everything. What does their viewpoint have to do with a Red-headed Woodpecker imitating a flycatcher? Well, mostly nothing. The next part of this is more to do with photography.
In early April 2005, I was scouting at Tawas Point State Park preparing for having three Baltimore friends visit me in mid-May for a birding trip in Michigan. To be precise, the date was April 3rd. I had never been to Tawas Point State Park and did not want to be unprepared for their visit. Their list was long and their expectations high: Kirtland's Warbler, Upland Sandpiper, Clay-colored Sparrow, Spruce Grouse, were just some of the birds on the list. After Tawas Point we would be traveling to the upper peninsula and Whitefish Point. Northeast lower peninsula Michigan is most often still cold in early April and I may have been the only person in the park. There were lots of Dark-eyed Juncos, some American Tree Sparrows and possibly others, White-throated Sparrows too maybe, scattered around the grounds near the campground buildings. I looked through them all with half interest. Then I saw something different. Even though I had never seen one before, I knew what it was; a female Smith's Longspur (Calcarius pictus). I was so excited. In those days I carried only binoculars. These were the early days of digital cameras and, at best, if not excessively expensive, they were still rudimentary. Anyway, it didn't matter because I didn't have a camera of any sort. I stayed with the bird and watched it closely for over an hour. Although I had a little flip phone, there was no cell phone service in the park. I remember my reluctance to leave the bird while I went into town to make a pay phone call to a friend. I asked him to post the Smith's Longspur on a statewide list serve hoping that others would come and verify it with me. I hustled back to the park campground and easily re-found the longspur. At times the little bird was no more than five feet from my toes. It was getting later and colder. No one came. Then it was nearly dark and I had to leave. Early the next morning I returned to the spot from the evening before. No Smith's Longspur. I walked along the road that leads to the beach searching. No Smith's Longspur. I scanned the beach. No Smith's Longspur. At that time it was the first Smith's Longspur reported from Michigan's lower peninsula. Previously, I think there had been one record from the upper peninsula.
I wrote up my experience and findings of the Smith's Longspur and sent it to the Michigan Bird Records Committee (MBRC). I am a native Michigander, but I cut my teeth as a birder in Maryland learning from some of the best. I was not aware of the good ole' boy reputation of the MBRC. My findings and report were rejected with a vote of 7 to 1. Even today I still recall one of the funnier comments in the rejection: "What would a Smith's Longspur be doing in a tree?" Apparently, the reviewer was referencing its tundra breeding habitat where there are no trees. However, there are trees where the bird winters, as well as all along its migration path. Tawas Point State Park has trees! Never mind. It's funny now but at the time I felt put out. Perhaps the reviewer was lost. I learned more about the Michigan birding scene and soon came to take it in stride. However, I also knew I needed a camera and needed to learn how to use it!
From then on, I have lugged some model of point-and-shoot with zoom lens capability around with me on every outing, near or far. I never did go for the big DSLR cameras and lenses because they are heavy and awkward for me to carry. I have a friend who gave himself tennis elbow from carrying around his big camera. My goal was to be able to carry the thing and take identifiable photos of birds and other wild creatures.
I started this blog and then I needed photos. On every outing, every trip, getting the photo became the goal. I was aiming for the photo before even looking at the bird. It should come as no surprise that my birding skills declined. In the years since, I have taken thousands and thousands and thousands of photos. Most are deleted, the gift of digital photography. I have found a couple of other good birds, but none like a Smith's Longspur. Being alone and cold, I will always remember that bird and the experience of spending so much time with it.
In Jonathan Franzen's essay of the same title as his book, The End of the End of the Earth (page 195), he writes a wonderfully tangled and complex connection of memories and events. It's a beautiful piece. One of the events is of his expedition to Antarctica, a three week trip with the Lindblad National Geographic. With money left to him by his uncle Walt, first he was to go with his girlfriend, but when that fell through he travels with his brother. He meets Chris and Ada, a couple of other birders on the ship. Of all the birds one hopes to see on such a trip, the Emperor Penguin is the bird to see. "Four feet tall, these are the stars of the March of the Penguins" (page 208), "every one of them as heroic as Shackleton" (page 209). Turns out, a sighting is not easy and is not guaranteed. Traveling in Lallemand Fjord near the southernmost latitude, Franzen knew this location was the last hope for seeing an Emperor Penguin (page 208). He is scanning the ice field and sees a bird that appears unfamiliar. "It seemed to have a patch of color behind its ear and a blush of yellow on its breast. Emperor Penguin?" (page 208). He tells the ship's crew member who is in charge of operations, because seeing an Emperor Penguin would change the operation. He's not certain he is taken seriously. He's also aware of his "distressing history of incorrect bird identifications" (page 209) and the bird is about a half mile away. He runs to Chris and Ada's (his birding friends) cabin to alert them to what he has seen. They join him on deck and Chris puts his spotting scope on the bird and confirms that it is an Emperor Penguin. They all high-five and tell the ship's captain who suspends the operation the other crew member was working on and instructs him to redirect to the Emperor Penguin. They pile into Zodiacs. The news traveled quickly. By the time Franzen "arrives on the scene, thirty orange-jacketed photographers were standing or kneeling and training their lenses on a very tall and very handsome penguin, very close to them" (page 210).
Here's the punchline. Franzen writes, "I'd already made a quiet, alienated resolution not to take a single picture on the trip. And here was an image so indelible that no camera was needed to capture it: the Emperor Penguin appeared to be holding a press conference. While a cluster of Adelies came up from behind it, observing like support staff, the Emperor faced the press corps in a posture of calm dignity. After a while, it gave its neck a leisurely stretch. Demonstrating its masterly balance and flexibility, and yet without seeming to show off, it scratched behind its ear with one foot while standing fully erect on the other. And then, as if to underline how comfortable it felt with us, it fell asleep" (page 211).
Franzen, whether before or during the trip, makes his "alienated resolution" not to take a single picture. He doesn't say why he made this resolution. I'm not sure I agree, but he has a reputation of being somewhat curmudgeonly. In forgoing taking photographs, he sees and remembers forever his experience of the Emperor Penguin. Of course, Franzen has a way with words and imagery that few do, but in this passage we are all able to visualize this scene and see the Emperor Penguin. It's unlikely we would have this description had he been busy taking photographs. Birder or not, it doesn't matter, I highly recommend this essay for the beauty of it.
David Sedaris takes a different path to the same decision for a different reason. In his June 17th New Yorker Personal History essay Trophy Room: Going on safari (link above; New Yorker essays on-line frequently have different titles than the printed essay), he takes the reader on a David Sedaris-style safari. He's at a Christmas Party that a number of authors he admires are also attending. He is introduced to a curator from the Metropolitan Museum who is soon "leaving on an African safari, the sort where you carry a camera rather than a gun." After the party on the subway ride home he whines to his boyfriend Hugh, "Why can't we go on a safari" (page 12)? A month later they are in Kenya "in an open-sided four-by-four vehicle surrounded by seven lions, none of which seemed to care about us" (page 12).
As essays go, safari ... is short. As in many David Sedaris stories, he carries on with side stories and makes amusing observations about the most ordinary things. Early on he describes ... - "couples with camera lenses the size of the Hubble telescope" (page 13, 1st column). A couple of columns over, they are again in the four-by-four when they come across at least thirty baboons, many with babies on their backs. "Get out your camera," their guide, Dalton, instructs as he turned off the four-by-four's engine. "I'd told him from the get-go that photography was not my thing. I will not be taking a single picture," Sedaris promised. "Not even if we come upon a rhino?" Dalton asks. "Not even if we see one fighting a mother grizzly," Sedaris responds (page 13). Then, a couple of paragraphs down, he is asked by Evan, one of the camp guards, "Everyone else is photographing all the time [...] ." "So why not you?" David responds, "I jot things down instead." Pulling his notebook from his pocket he describes his illegible writing (page 13). Of course he jots things down. This is his bread and butter.
Over a year ago I went on a birding trip to South India. We were all burdened with our binocular and camera gear. We had just seen a special owl and a pair of frogmouths and everyone dutifully took their photographs. (Actually both birds were spectacular; I don't wish to diminish the joy of seeing the birds). Another guide leading a British birder spoke with our guides to inquire where they could find the owl. The British birder, with binoculars slung around his neck, stood by listening. He didn't have a camera. I asked Robin, one of our guides, "Robin, do you notice anything about the British birder?" He looked over at the man and then back at me and said, "No camera. Pure birder."
Digital cameras are ubiquitous on every nature oriented outing or trip. People use their smart phone cameras with abandon. I think this would be the case even without the pull of social media. I wonder what it would be like to not carry a camera on a trip? To not take a single picture? What if I just observed and wrote things down or tried to draw a picture? If I don't have a photo, does this mean I never saw the bird or the landscape or the thing? After all, I'd have nothing to show for it. Silly thought. Do I have the discipline to do this? Or will I become envious when everyone else is pressing their camera shutter like a machine gun? Would my envy ruin my trip? What if I see another Smith's Longspur and, again, am left without a photograph and with another rejection?
I love taking photographs. I'm not a great photographer, mostly not even a good one. I'm a poor archivist of my photos storing them by year in Google albums. When I think of a photo that I want to use again, often I can't even find it and end up going on a time-consuming search. From time-to-time, I'll take a good photograph, but I know that I will never be a truly skillful wildlife photographer. I have too much regard for those who are professional wildlife photographers.
Recently, for a few important discussions and decisions, I've noticed that I'm a bit curmudgeonly myself. Maybe I should have just watched the Red-headed Woodpecker on its upright perch in the river instead of taking poor photos which, practically speaking, have no purpose. For me not taking photos will take some kind of resolution, but I'm going to work on it. Taking fewer photos might be a good starting point. My goal would be to rekindle my skills of observation.
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