The Plebe Spews

at the middle school, if you miss the first period announcement about what is being served for lunch, you can figure it out by looking at the cafeteria floor after the kids have finished eating and have gone outside to spit on the sidewalk and overreact to adults. my observational skills sometimes don't do much for me in the field, but in a middle school, i am on top of everything.

it was another slow night for entertaining roving saw-whet owls last night. i fidgeted in my chair, alarmed by the lack of alarm calls from the nocturnal, avian predator crowd. but that shouldn't be surprising since, afterall, the migration is winding down.

i still sit patiently in the enveloping night, hoping to hear a boreal call note but so far, the species i breathe and dream about is showing no signs of paying me a visit. that isn't unusual since the boreal is not migratory and so, annual boreal tallies aren't going to happen, at least in numbers that have me shaking my head. recently, the sighting of a few great grays and hawk owls had led some of the "unfortunates" to believe we are on the threshold of another irruption. but, they know not of what they surmise. both species breed in northern minnesota and 4 owls do not an irruption make. 4,000 owls...now that's an irruption.

with the loss of daylight, i have little time to fart around the house. i will band until i get the "feeling"...that sense of utter strigidaen futility that is sure to come. for now though, i keep on going, hoping that perhaps a boreal will pass through my back yard and i can again dance like a white guy in the endzone of life.

it is now fairly evident that i have a guard-owl. saw-whet #924-28675 has been a persistent presence in my back yard since i banded him over 3 weeks ago he has been retrapped 5 times. his behaviors and vocalizations are like a nocturnal name tag.

his method of operation is this: when a new swet vocalizes near my nets, #924-28575 (i'll call him '75') flies towards the new owl, screaming and often, making contact with the interloper. i am torn between an interpretation that suggests he is being unseasonally territorial (there are many fat deer mice in the woods), or that he is warning the foreigner to "run away…it's a trap!"

both interpretations have their merit.

outside of the breeding season, owl behaviors are locked in a cryptic, nocturnal vault. it is difficult to catalog and correlate sounds and sights without familiarity and so, as was my case, what you can't define by familiarity you define through persistence (i.e., years and years of the stuff).

in the case of '75', two things are apparent: 1) it's him; and, 2) who else could it be? the other night, with fleece-wearing visitors to my back yard, i heard "him". when an owl hit the nets, i boldly announced (warning: owling hubris forthcoming): "i know that's '75' and his number 4 primary on the right wing is broken and he's going to make me bleed."

of course, the open-mouthed amazement upon seeing the band number, the broken feather, and copious blood loss from the owler convinced the guests that the "owlman" is truly the cecil b. demille of the night.

as i get ready for another 4 hours at the nets, i take comfort knowing that a pattern has emerged and i know a bit more about owls, and one owl in particular, than i did in september and that, if nothing else, my backyard is well-protected from any roving gangs of saw-whet owls.

this...from a recent post of mine on sawwhetnet.org

the weather has not cooperated with my owling o/c-disorder. wednesday,
friday and saturday were wash-outs and although i am within spittin'
distance of 500 saw-whets for the fall, we all know it's tough to net
when rain is moving horizontally. before the weather funk, however,
something interesting happened.

on 14 october, i trapped a banded, freshly molt-marked bird that
common sense suggested came from hawk ridge (duluth; approximately 90
miles sw of tofte). after talking to dave evans (fud), it turns out he
banded the bird on 10 october. on 15 october, another fud bird
appeared, this one was banded at "the ridge" on 4 october.

as a complete aside. in 1986, i was a peregrine falcon hack-site
attendant in tofte and one of the peregrines we released on a friday
was trapped by fud on saturday and back at the hack site on sunday
morning. the reason for that aside is my suggestion that we can
expect movements like that from a peregrine, but saw-whets? hmmm....

all my life i assumed that migration meant permutations of north to
south in the fall and south to north in the spring. in my ponderings
of the recent "reverse" saw-whet movements, i thought about several
things, including suggestions of nomadism, resource availability,
weather conditions; among others. but what i really hit on, was the
fact we know so little about saw-whet movements.

some of the returns are amazing. i trapped an owl on 26 september 2005
that was banded in chilicothe, ohio in november of 2004. other recaps.
discussed on this site are head-scratching, open-mouthed, "gee, i'm so
glad i'm a biologist"...kind of discoveries.........

last nights' was a tough decision: do i fire up the generator and charge the batteries...bereft of sunlight for nearly 36 hours...or do i go to sleep shortly after sunset and face the risk of taking a somnambulistic journey in my pajamas to the middle of highway 61?. i guess the decision wasn't that tough. afterall, i am a viking when it comes to sleep.

the rain and mist have played keep-away from sunlight and solar contentment and owl trapping for unwelcome chunks of the week. as the owner of a solar home, i am always in a better mood when the cats lay warm and stupid on the sunlight-baked porcelain floor. rain and mist also mean no trapping, which means no laying in the fetal position on the lawn chair, trying to stave off boredom and owlless nights...which always start that way until the first owl arrives.

optimism. pessimism. sunrise. sunset. is the battery charged or is it drained?

"oh oh…" the reader said, "here comes that circle shit again."

the line of visitors to my humble banding station has slowed to a trickle, as have the frequencies of migrating saw-whet owls. rumor has it "they" are catching boreals in michigan, but how that translates to minnesota is an unknown. i will persevere the next couple of weeks, knowing that once the owls cease their flights, my gaze to the horizon will become a bit unfocused.

last year at this time, i was up to my acetabulum in boreals. they were calling; they were moving; most were on the precipice of starvation. so far, i have yet to hear a boreal call note. that's not to say a few aren't around, but until i have concrete evidence, i'll bide my time.

okay then. it's time to fire up the generator since it's obvious the sun is holding a grudge against the environmentally friendly types on this blue sphere in the middle of nowhere.

if the rain stops, i'll trap. if it continues, i'll be in mattress by 8.

what a life.

shortly after the 13 5th graders arrived, i gathered them in a circle, pointed out the obvious: "isn't it a beautiful night tonight?" and asked "how many of you want to be biologists?" all their hands shot up. next, i led the group down the muddy trail, where our arrival at the nets coincided with that of a hatch year saw-whet.

in my experience, when owls and children arrive at the nets at the same time, it foretells of an evening thick with birds. in fact, sometimes it goes to my head. i might start spinning owl yarns; i might forget about all the nylon outergarments rustling in the leaves behind me; in fact, i might even record the precise moment when my pragmatism morphed into over-confidence, resulting in braggart predictions of when the next owl would arrive. sometimes owling is about education. sometimes it's about entertainment. sometimes, it’s a bit of both.

but then nature, in her omnipotent best, has a way of sending the emboldened biologist back to his or her familiar position of powerlessness. during that escorted return to humility, we realize the question "why?" has yet to be answered and that the pile of unanswerable questions continues to exhibit uncontrolled, exponential growth.

we are reduced to a shivering, subservient mass, oblivious to the stars and planets and trees and mosses that mock our gall and insignificance. i am used to that, the kids aren't.

after 75 minutes sitting on the wet ground and only one owl, the kids gathered and reluctantly, headed towards the vans at the top of my driveway. i tried placation and distraction, but the sighs and groans as the vehicle doors were opened said it all. i told them they could come back anytime, and how proud i was of their field decorum and patience. i gave the "that's biology" spiel and assured them one owl is an exception rather than a rule during the fall migration, knowing intrinsically, that said migration is nearly over and that one owl will soon be the rule, rather than the exception.

i asked them if they had fun, then asked one last time: "now who wants to be a biologist?"

only one kid raised his hand.

he wanted to know if he could use my bathroom.

the inevitability of m.e.a. week-end grabbed me a month ago and sat on my calendar like a food stain on the shirt of life. i didn't think about it, knowing that the anticipation of a 4 day week-end would end as all events do now: too soon and before i get anything done.

finally, however, my list of things to do is resolutely "do-able": sleep, eat, and trap owls.

i am the valedictorian of that class of underachievers.

last night's rains postponed the second half of the 5th grade field trip. we are going to try again tonight and although the ground is wet, the swets should be flying. accordingly, the "jimmy legs" will be going and the gobstoppers will be rolling out of the box and at some point, i'll click my tongue and shake my head in feigned impatience, knowing it's pretty cool that sometimes, owling means educating.

things in the saw-whet world are topsy-turvy this year. places that usually have many owls have none, and places that usually have no owls, have many. two owls i trapped recently are doing everything they can to diffuse the direction of a biologists' migratory logic: they are going the wrong way.

on october 4, a hatch year swet was banded by the highly esteemed "fud" and released from hawk ridge in duluth. i trapped the owl in tofte on the 15th of october. that, however, was not as impressive as the bird captured the night before. it was banded and released from hawk ridge on the 10th of october and made it to the center of the universe (a 90 mile flight…as the owl flies) in 3 nights. we think of migrations by birds thusly: spring: south to north; fall: north to south. i ask then…what up with these guys?

not only are these tiny owls going the wrong way, they are going great distances. on 26 september, i caught a banded owl. three days ago, i found out the owl was trapped on the 11th of november, 2004 in…get this…chillicothe, ohio. that's quite a journey and now, that owl is moving again and i still can't quite comprehend the wonders of nature.

after 1400 owls trapped in tofte since 2003 and very few returns from other dedicated (i.e. obsessive/compulsive) owlers, these three owls are all i need to keep going. oh, that and one other thing. i have never had the luxury of holding a saw-whet i banded during a subsequent year…until wednesday night. the band number looked familiar and…yet, it wasn't until the next day that i realized i had trapped her on the 9th of october, 2004 and she was still hale and still hearty.

that was pretty cool.

in fact, it's all pretty cool when you're an owler.

with this being homecoming week, my loyalty and spirit were again questioned by several staff members because i opted not to wear the school colors and…dare i say? i skipped out of the pep fest.

i'm going to hell, for sure.

i missed the skits and the cacophonous notes from the band, and one of the teachers telling everyone to "just say no", as though saying yes is the root of all evil (i said yes all the time in my youth and look where it got me) i did none of the spirit-related things. instead, i hid in the lounge and daydreamed about owls.

most waking hours of every day for me are spent thinking about owls. it is just the way i am. i think about the boxes i placed and the boxes i will place, and i think about the nights in march and april, and i think about banding and the night when this happened or the night when that happened. it is a whir of flashbacks and whimsy. it is my escape.

i had the night off last night. the drizzle gave way to fog and by sunset, there was no point in an external existence. just when weariness is complete, karma gives you rest.

tonight, i'll be back at the nets, trying to end the migration with a bang instead of a whimper. then i'll try for some boreals, although i have yet to hear their distinctive call notes this fall. then, when november knocks on my door, i'll sleep and i'll bet you dimes to dollars, i'll dream about owls.

they were a brave lot, those 5th graders; willing to lay motionless on the damp ground, snacking on ritz crackers and gobstoppers, while waiting for the owl flight to begin. over the past week, saw-whets have been like stars on a moonless night: everywhere, abundant, numbing. last night, they were elsewhere.

the temperature was 15 degrees warmer than it had been the previous week, and when the procession of vans pulled up my bumpy driveway, i was checking the nets in boxer shorts and flip-flops. no need for fleece.

mrs. russ brought 14 from her class to experience the night through the eyes of a compulsive/obsessive biologist. the day before, i visited her classroom and told the kids what to expect, as if daylight and fluorescent lighting could prepare 11 and 12 year olds for the night and the mandatory patience of owling. i warned them as well: "anyone shining flashlights or headlamps in the owlman's eyes would be forced to clean moose and sam's litter box without a scoop."

this was a good group. the owls were around, but the moonlight and wind kept them away. when finally an owl tickled the twine, the group pushed to see the banding process and then, to lightly touch the plumage.

"it's eyes are so big."

"it's so soft."

"is that it's beak making that sound?"

"why are you wearing flip-flops and boxer shorts."

once i released the bird, the kids went back to their postures of immobility. as time eroded their attention, however, the fidgeting appeared contagious. a few more owls and more excitement, then it was time for all to depart, leaving me in my chair, pondering all that is ponderable.

next week, the second group of 14 will visit. i hope it is colder and the owls will be a bit more active, and that someone (dammit), will offer me a gobstopper. but, this is nature (and human nature) and i can't do much about either one.

two days ago, i visited their classroom. last night, they visited mine.

being sleep deprived is what i do best. really.

on friday, the "good" students of the middle school (i.e., those with passing, midquarter grades), were afforded an opportunity to participate in discovery day, a field trip to various scenic locales along the north shore. thirty-two adults accompanied the 4 students for a three hour tour. a three hour tour.

actually, there were many students and not enough adults. for some reason, i was designated as a group leader, which is a completely foreign concept to me. my task was to not lose any 7th graders, and by golly, i did not.

it was a beautiful day along the devil's track river, and there i was, without a six-pack of microbrews.

i noticed that the silence of winter and the roar of a waterfall, have much in common. with each, you turn inward.

i wondered if any of the students heard the raven, or the nuthatch, or felt the wind as it moved through the red pines, caressing, then freeing the turpines from the prison of the plantation. did anyone notice the eagle, or the sharpshin? or was it just me?

back to those persistent owls...many owls, and i am nearing 400 for the season. tomorrow, a group of 16 fifth graders will visit my banding station. then next week, another group of 16.

for two nights in my life, no f-bombs will be dropped.

i entered the night in fleece and left it in boxer shorts and a pair of flip-flops. it wasn't a pretty sight, but then again, it was an alien october night and what else could I do?

trapping in the tropics of tofte...as sultry as a manila night, or as that old saying goes "it isn't the heat, it's the humidity."

it was warm enough that a couple of tree frogs and the surviving flocks of biting insects came out for their last seasonal waltz.

to the west, lightning and thunder moved up the shoreline of the big puddle and i knew, sitting in my chair, that it was but a matter of time before rain removed the dust from the fir boughs. even with the pending threat though, saw-whets were moving.

saw-whets were moving and i was sweating like a fat fin in a sauna after a barrel of beer. but then, i felt the first drop and thereafter, it was over. i folded, then slept to the sound of rain pouring out of a broken gutter onto the deck.

tonight, the rains continue. i know it may be a few days before the calm returns, but also know that when it does, it will get crazy with owls.

sometimes, you hope for a night off, but then when you get it, you don't know what to do.

tonight is kind of like that.