Preface
Note: Tawny is a magpie who we became very close with last summer, when her
parents began bringing her and her siblings to our house for babysitting, while
they went flying throughout the neighborhood to catch enough food. Her parents
trusted us, because they had come to know us through observing our associations
with Derrick, our pet magpie. Tawny, however, being just new out of the nest
and deposited with us throughout the day, became somewhat imprinted. She would
sit on us, and felt comfortable coming and going from inside of the house as
well. We half-thought she would end up mated to Derrick. But while she made
some efforts at gaining his friendship, he always denied her coming too close.
Eventually, she found a different mate, and began bringing him over to the
house, so that he could get to know us too. This summer, the couple chose their
first nest site less than a block away, beside a small pond at our neighborhood
park. Up until this moon, Mahoney and I had been going to the park every
morning to meet with them, and bring them some beetle grubs. We were very much
looking forward to learning what would happen in terms of our relationship with
Tawny’s children
II Near-Fledgling (18Jun12)
0749 Was a
little concerned this morning when Tawny and her husband were more interested
in kibble than grubs, and caching everything instead of bringing it over to the
nest. So on my way out of the park, I crawled into the brush to find out what
was going on. I suspect it might be a little bit of tough love. From what I
could see, which wasn't a lot because the nest is so incredibly protected,
there's at least one very large baby, mature enough to stand and look out over
the rim of the bowl at me. This one should probably be starting to explore at least
on the branches around outside of the nest, and maybe that's his parents are
trying to prompt him toward. Kind of like what we've been doing with our big
kid
IIII ) llll Death Of Tawny’s Babies (23Jun12)
0810
Terrible discovery this morning. I've been expecting to meet Tawny's babies.
When she stopped bringing food to the nest a few days ago, I even crawled into
the brush and looked up at it from below to see one alert face peering down at
me. But when this little one failed to appear outside the nest with Tawny and
her husband the last couple mornings, I started to suspect something bad had
happened. This morning the pair were acting aloof, sticking to a small tree on
the opposite side of the park from their nest, not coming to get grubs from me
until I had been there with the gulls for about an hour, and then only taking a
few before returning to the tree. So I decided it was time to break protocol,
climb the bulberry bush housing their nest, and really investigate what was
going on. It was a very sad sight, four baby magpies dead, damp from the recent
rains, and flecked with dirt. One of them, no doubt the one I'd seen a few days
ago, passed while sitting upright at the edge of the nest bowl. Were they
victims of eating food that was recently sprayed with Round-Up? (I noticed the
city workers spraying weeds the last few days) Did the weekend fishing folk
crowd the nest too much, so that Tawny and her husband were afraid to bring
food? Or was it just the hardship of our recent storms, bringing them hypothermia?
No way to know. But this is the conclusion of one chapter in Tawny's story, the
unfortunate end of her first nesting attempt in the second summer of her life
IIII ) lllll Continued Absence Of Waterfowl (24Jun12)
1248
Sspopiikimi - It's a nice overcast day in the first quarter of Misamssootaa,
the long rains, and indeed we have been receiving a lot of moisture, the most
recent downpour having occurred last night
Mahoney
and I have just arrived, and are feeling very out of touch. It's been at least
a couple weeks since our last visit, far too long to have much context (other
than prior years' experience) to understanding what's going on
The first
thing I note, on our walk from the parking area to north-pond, is the absence
of flowers on the brome and crested wheat grass. I am used to seeing their
yellows and purples, respectively, during this moon. It doesn't seem we're too
late for this bloom either, otherwise we would see at least the remains of
their tiny flowers dangling here and there. But at present, nothing
North-pond
itself is very quiet, the waters anyway. Not a duck, or coot, or goose in
sight. There's the odd redwing blackbird across the way, on the reeds of the
wet meadows. Their wives are no doubt incubating eggs right now. We can also
hear magpies, flickers, robins, and chickadees in the forest somewhere
The yellow
salsify are in flower, as they were beginning to do during my last walk here.
Perhaps because I was already aware of this event being underway, I don't
direct much of my attention to these flowers. Mahoney, on the other hand, does
and is rewarded for it. There are mid-sized (by local standards) black and
white striped ants herding and harvesting from aphids at the base of at least
one leaf per salsify plant. The only plants excluded from aphid pasturing are
those with curious little white egg sacks on the leaves. I suspect these eggs
belong to spiders. They are wrapped in silk, flat and disc-like, similar to
those of several wolf spiders, but much, much smaller
1230
Speaking of spiders, it seems we've entirely missed the brief event when the
'absinthe spiders' (my name for them) set up cottony-looking webs at the tips
of all the previous year's dry absinthe seed-heads. They do this in conjunction
with the cottonwood seeding, which is just about over now, and in this manner
trick lots of little insects into their fluffy white webwork. I can see the
remains of this year's webs on all the old absinthe, as well as on a few other
plants, including the big asparagus of north-pond
The
asparagus, for its part, is maturing, though a bit more slowly than I'd
anticipated. The north-pond plant is still in flower, where normally it would
have green berries by now. Conversely, the okonoki (saskatoon) is maturing at
an accelerated rate, probably owing to this year's early bloom. Their berries
are red already, and I imagine it won't be too long now until they're tolerably
ripened to harvest
In terms
of animal life at this extreme end of north-pond, we've been seeing a few
birds... a flicker, a handful of cedar waxwings, a juvenile robin attempting to
bathe in an all-too-shallow puddle. There are also turtles out on the drift
logs
1242 At
the end of north-pond, we climb the levee and move to the river bench for a
break. Along the way, I notice that the clematis are starting to vine-out
fairly well, and the sunflowers are reaching now about a foot in height. There
is peppergrass and hounds tongue in seed, flixweed and prickly rose in flower
Above the
bench, in the cottonwoods overlooking the rain-swollen river, we can hear
yellow warblers and house wrens. Mahoney manages to prompt a catbird to us from
a ways further upstream by using its 'ow-wee' call. The bird flies over,
perches in some brush below, gives a few agitated 'waah' calls, then returns to
where it came from
1258 From
the river bench, we cut southwest, down to the duck blind. We were expecting to
find all the resident waterfowl here at the wide south pool. But very
surprisingly, all we see is a single redhead female. No geese, no mallards, no
coots, no teals. Very odd, this almost total absence
Of course,
it could very well be that we're just overlooking them. After about three weeks
of on-and-off rains, everything is extremely lush here. There's a lot of places
to hide. It's humid too. We hadn't noticed so much on our arrival, but now
after walking we are definitely feeling a bit uncomfortable. As Mahoney put it,
"I feel like a limp piece of sweaty toast... you know, like toast that was
put in a bag while it was still hot." I do know. I feel the same way. Curiously,
given these conditions, there are very few mosquitoes to be reckoned with. I
would have thought we'd be completely swarmed by now. I hope the city hasn't,
in all their ecological wisdom, undertaken to spray insecticides here at the
pond
If so, it
doesn't seem the honeybees have been much affected. They are all abuzz around
the leafy spurge plants at the moment. But in the hour or so we've been here,
Mahoney and I have seen only one damselfly, no dragonflies, very few airborne
insects at all, to be honest. Perhaps it's the moisture. All the plants are
still beaded with last night's rain. Let's hope
1316 Next
we hike back north through the middle corridor of the forest main. Our walk
could hardly be less eventful, given the season. I mean... yes, we are able to
stop and watch a pair of tree swallows and a pair of house wrens feed their hatchlings
at the one snag they share for nesting year-after-year. But otherwise, we
merely hear, but do not see, the birds of the forest. There are eastern and western
kingbirds, robins, house wrens, chickadees, flickers, least flycatchers, cedar waxwings,
downy woodpeckers, grey catbirds, tree swallows, yellow and yellow-rumped
warblers, and probably northern orioles here. Many of them alert us of their
presence, vocally. But beyond that, they are keeping incredibly hidden. It is,
after all, nesting season for these small passerines. I've no doubt that were
we to poke around seriously, we'd find them and their nests. But the humidity
is now really getting to us, and all we want to do is climb back up on the
levee into a bit more open air
1348 We
hike south again, now up near the level of the forest canopy, and stop to rest
for a few minutes at the river bench by the owl wood and old garter snake hibernaculum.
Here, we are visited by yellow warblers, catbirds, and cedar waxwings, all
apparently curious what we were about. I busy myself collecting large mullien
leaves which, though it seems counter-intuitive, are reportedly very useful,
when smoked, for clearing phlegm from the pipes and lungs. I'm personally on my
way to rescinding my participation in the commercial tobacco trade... cutting
way down on the frequency of my smoking, and growing my own nicotine plants
from ancient Blackfoot seeds. Before the summer's end, if not much sooner, I'm
aiming to have my smoking completely under control, rather than having it
remain the daily, nay hourly, habit that I had built of it. Real tobacco, that
which I grow, never has the brown, chemically-drenched appearance or taste of
the commercial varieties, even those that advertise as 'all natural'. I figure,
mullien will make a good addition to the small stash of pipe-smoking mixture
which I intend to keep, both for ceremonial and secular purposes
1432 From
the bench, we travel around the perimeter of the wide south pool, again
spotting no waterfowl, to walk the shale trail of the west length back to our
vehicle
When we
get to the brush above the peninsula, we check on the state of the currants, which
we fully intend to harvest when ripe. There are berries here, but very young
and green still. It would not be surprise me if, this year, the saskatoons came
ready a hair ahead of the currants
We have
also encountered, here above the peninsula, two brilliant butterflies. The one
is a viceroy, looking every bit the part of a monarch, and like the birds we
too are fooled at first (the showy milkweed are in bloom). The other is a
brilliant little pearl crescent, landing amidst the early-blooming alfalfa, who
poses calmly for my camera
Up ahead,
we can hear the unmistakable cries of hungry fledgling magpies. Believe it or
not, this is an event we really want to witness. Magpies, for Mahoney and I,
are extremely precious allies. At the little conifer of the golf greens closest
to the shale trail, we get our wish. There are two fledglings perched and
begging in a cottonwood above, and two more quiet and humble near the nest.
Like our own Derrick magpie in his infancy, these birds are working on stretching
and strengthening, standing tall every few minutes and reaching as high as they
can with their wings. It won't be long until they can join their siblings in
the cottonwood. Derrick was born not a hundred meters from this site, and is
very likely their consanguineal kin
1440 Having
made our initial greetings to these new magpies, Mahoney and I are satisfied
with today's round. We hike the remainder of the west length to our car without
further event to note. All we are concerned with now are the absences. Where,
for instance, are the young mallard families? Or the now two-month old
aapsspini goslings? We have never had a summer where these fowl abandoned the
relatively safety and rich resources of this pond for other places. If they
have done so this year, it can only be for very good reason, and that being a
threat I would imagine to be chemical, rather than blatantly predatorial. Our
next visit may better inform us
IIII ) lllllllllllllllllllll Fitness And
Displacement (10Jul12)
1356
Sspopiikimi – It’s a relatively hot day, and I’ve
come to scout out what’s new here, in preparation for guiding a cohort
of M.Ed. students from the University of Lethbridge tomorrow, introducing them
to my form of what their instructors are billing as “alternative literacies.” It’s been a couple weeks since my last visit, and
at that time I noted that neither the brome nor crested wheatgrass had
flowered. Now, walking in, I can see that in just the short period since my
last visit, I’ve missed these events entirely. The blooms on
these grasses are already shriveled and falling. That’s the pace, when it comes to phenology. Nature
is in constant flux and, especially in the summer season, significant changes
can unfold daily
1401 I
begin my survey by hiking the west length. Right away, at north and mid-pond, I
note that the water milfoil is high. Many plants along the shoreline along this
stretch are in bloom, including alfalfa, prairie coneflower, field bindweed,
yellow and white sweetclover, and showy milkweed. Canada thistle is getting
ready to bloom. There seem to be lots of bluet damselfies around. There are
also pink-edged sulfurs and viceroy butterflies, as well as a few mallard
drakes in the reeds by the wet-meadows
1406
Reaching the ksisskstakioyis, there’s a few more blooming plants to mention. I’ve
seen some scarlet globemallow, western clematis, yarrow, and yellow evening
primrose, as well as lots of flowers on the dogbane and buckbrush. Hairy golden
asters are just starting to blossom. There are a few robins on the golf greens,
and the ever-present red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds in the reeds. I’ve
been listening for the magpies. During my last visit, the new arrivals were
just fledging, and I’d like to follow some of these young families,
but I haven’t heard any of their calls as yet
1414
Further along, toward the wide south pool, I begin encountering lots of viceroy
butterflies, far more than I’ve ever seen in any previous year. I don’t
know if it is the milkweed or hoary cress that’s attracting them at this area, but one thing I
do wonder is whether their abundance could be another signal of climate change.
This is pretty much the northernmost range for both the viceroys and the
similar-looking monarchs, so I always spot a few during the summer season. But
what I’m seeing today is unusual, a breeding population
On the
water of the south pool, there’s a mallard couple. The golden currants along
the cutbank here are absolutely drooping over with berries. This is good news.
Last year we didn’t get many berries. I stop to pick some right
away, and find they are actually just coming into their full ripeness, that
there will be several weeks more to take advantage of them. All the same, the
experience gives me an idea for one lesson I can share with the M.Ed. cohort
tomorrow… that in my ‘alternate literacy’ of reading this place, we have to be willing to
respond as human beings. When there are berries in season, we pick them, we eat
them. That’s part of our relational role here, our fit into
the local ecology and phonological cycles
1426 As I continue
to pick currants, the cedar waxwings come to investigate, probably wondering
how much of their claim I’m going to make off with. I can hear one of the
magpie families high up on the coulee slope, out of the way of my intended
round today. I have to focus on the areas where I might take the students. The
brush around me is thick, lush, difficult to penetrate with the eyes. This
calls to mind another lesson I might share, regarding some of the potential
dangers that a person should be aware of. A lot of times, thick brush like this
can conceal large hornet nests, so you should always have your ears alert. This
helps also for the odd rattlesnake who might be encountered here. But none of
your senses will help you avoid the wood ticks who proliferate in this same
brush during certain periods of the year. Luckily, now is not one of those
times
Down below
my picking spot, I can see apaksskioomi (wide-face), the northern pike,
lingering just off-shore of the peninsula. Though I observe them in this behavior
every year about this part of the season, I have yet to figure out what meal
they’re waiting for. Usually, I’m
too busy snatching them up myself. They don’t seem at all interested in the mating swarms of
water beetles nearby. Nor are any of the mating damselflies pitching down onto
the pond’s surface
1452
Moving on, I round the wide south pool and drop into the forest main, where
there are today lots of sisttsiiksi, or small passerines, including among them
the northern orioles, iinohpinsoyii. They are leading their new fledgling
around, keeping a safe distance from me. I also see yellow warblers, what looks
like orange-crowned warblers, catbirds, tree swallows, least flycatchers, and downy
woodpeckers. All the usual summer breeding crew are here. From a bit of
silverberry, beside the trail, shoots a cedar waxwing who let me come too
close. Inspecting this bush I find, as expected, her little nest, a cup of
grass beautifully decorated with cotton from the trees. It contains four
grey-blue, black-speckled eggs
1512 A
conspicuous absence here this year, in addition to most of our waterfowl, are
the swainson hawks. They have nested in the same tree for as long as Mahoney
and I have been visiting the pond, and I saw them bringing in sticks earlier in
the season to make repairs, but in the end they decided to go elsewhere. I’m
not sure why this is. The cause is probably related to what has kept the waterfowl
away. My suspicion, at this point, is that it has something to do with the
construction that went on in the absinthe field near north-pond over the
winter. There was a lot of waste-water from pipe-drilling spilling into the
pond, and I don’t know whether this may have been contaminated.
Equally likely, just the barren field alone could have been enough to scare
them off. Certainly there are less rodents to hunt as prey now, though this
wouldn’t have affected the ducks. I think it may just
be plain old disturbance of an environment that had come to know very
intimately. Something’s different now, something’s wrong… can’t trust that things will be stable here all season while we’re nesting… best to relocate
1524 At
the north end of the forest, just before I climb the levee back out, the tall
goldenrod are getting ready to bloom, and a pair of house wrens scolds me
bitterly. I think they must be feeding a hatchling in some hidden cavity nest
nearby
Up on the
levee itself, the first rhombic-leaved sunflowers are opening. The river’s
still pretty high, from the combination of late snowmelt and a few weeks’
good dousing. But this is the first time in three years it hasn’t
risen so high as to drown-out the bank swallow nests. Which is good, they need
a break
1532 Just
a couple of endnotes, as I head back to my car. There are bull thistle blooming
at north-pond. Very few turtles out, though it is really too hot to expect to
find them basking. What’s strange though is the lack of mosquitoes. I
got a few bites, moving through the forest today, but nothing like during
previous summers. We just have not had many mosquitoes at all yet this summer.
This too causes me to wonder, what kind of toxins might have spilled into the
pond during all the winter construction
1635
Tomorrow I'm teaching a cohort of M.Ed. students, most of whom work in literacy
with non-English-speaking students, about what is being framed as alternate
forms of literacy and text... namely, in my case, learning from a place and its
inhabitants, becoming fluent in their languages, social relations, phenological
cycles, etc. I don't know how much I agree with casting anything like this as
literacy. To me, literacy is here to parasitically replace these natural
awarenesses and relations. And I will surely share that opinion, because there
are some rectangles where we are going, Sspopiikimi
Today, I
took a walk around, just to kind of prep for this session. Something that was
on my mind, part of a discussion my friend Darin and I were having the other
day, was the notion that ensuring the persistence of a species is not enough,
that the living are more than this, that they embody webs of relations. Looking
around today, I'm not so sure I agree that preserving a species is not enough,
at least if that species is allowed to live out amongst the rest of reality,
rather than in one of the dead places we construct. At Sspopiikimi, I see
starlings, house finches, alfalfa, absinthe, asparagus, honey bees, the list
can go on fairly extensively. All of them are recent arrivals here in
kitawahsinnoon, yet they are extremely integrated into complex relational webs
with the others who have been here far longer. This occurs simply as a result
of them being themselves in the context of the broader eco-social matrix. And
in this respect, they are greater than we who have fairly forgotten ourselves,
strongly resisting just being alive here. Even the leafy spurge have us beat in
this respect
As for our
present condition, it is not as though we are disconnected from the web. The
magpies remember who we are, and continue to stay wholeheartedly allied, even
though many of us, in our confusion, now hate them, our best friends. The
mosquitoes, the ticks, the rock doves, jewel spiders, hobo spiders, and a whole
host of plants all believe in and engage us regularly, and we pretty much
express hatred toward them for it. The point is, there are many close relations
who have kept with us, or adopted us, despite our insanity. And I suspect that
if we want to enhance these relationships, develop many others, and become a
better fit, we have only to behave more like human beings. It's really that
simple. To the degree that we refuse to do so, we will continue to feel like
there is something wrong with us, we will feel ecologically unhealthy and in
danger. And we will be correct in that diagnosis
1130 A little further up the
trail, along the steep coulee slopes, we become surrounded by a small foraging
flock of common redpolls. I figure at least seventeen of them, but they are so
small and swift it's difficult to know. They're stopping off at several seed
plants, including prairie sunflower and wavy-leaved thistle. Most of the
efforts, however, are focused on Canada goldenrod. Their bills are caked with
the fluff from goldenrod seeds
1238 Eventually, I make my way
to the Oldman River and begin slowly walking the ice downstream, back toward
the pond. Along the way, I attempt to photograph the kihtsipimiisa'aiksi.
They're behaving surprisingly calm today, perhaps owing to either their
numbers, the presence of so many geese, or the amount of open water. In any
case, I'll allowed to approach as close as feels safe on the ice. The
goldeneyes are using some of the same fishing strategies employed by the
pelicans in summer. A few of them will fly a short distance upstream, then
allow the currant to drift them over what I assume are the best fishing holes,
where they dive vigorously in pursuit of their prey. When they reach a certain
point, they repeat the process. Though they aren't working as closely together
as the pelicans do, it seems at least that same-gendered birds are somewhat
cooperative. At one point, I witness a female come too close to a male, which
prompts a violent chasing. When the female ultimately escapes, the male cranes
his head back onto his wings in display
