Hawks, Heavy Metals, and Good People

What a treat to stay with David and Diane Husic, to walk their field in Kunkletown, which is chock-full of goldenrod, with them. To be with people who have the same feelings and care for their land as we do. Who see it not as a potential cash crop of timber or something to level and scrape, but as a living thing. 

This meadow is managed for wildflowers and butterflies and those who appreciate them. There are paths winding in through the clumps of goldenrod so you can get closer to the bugs. 

Diane's looking at the Endless Mountain, the Kittatinny Ridge, as she and David do every day, in its ever- changing moods.

Walking back to the house

where David will soon be incapacitated by Zyzzy's need to nap right on his lap. Cats are good for that. And we could all use a little incapacitating now and then.

Diane and I went to Hawk Mountain to attend a luncheon for special friends of the sanctuary, and pick up a whole mess of original artwork I loaned to illustrate a beautiful new book commemorating Hawk Mountain Sanctuary's 80th anniversary. I'm excited that my paintings and drawings will grace this important book. And it's always fun working with Director Jerry Regan, the Human Tsunami!

photo (off a projection screen) by Diane Husic

photo by Diane Husic

While we were there Hawk Mountain's Sarkis Acopian Director of Conservation Sciences Keith Bildstein watched some hawks with us, and gave me a tour of their gorgeous new library, offices, labs and intern housing, also courtesy of the late, wonderful supporter, Sarkis Acopian. Wow. Hawk Mountain has certainly changed for the better since I'd been there! And the hawks still pour over.

photo by Diane Husic

I was amazed how rusty my soaring raptor ID skills had gotten. A young bald eagle hove into view, and when someone called "Osprey," I looked at it long and hard and thought, "Wow. That has a really big head for an osprey." And assumed they just knew better. Get with the program, Zick. It's every Science Chimp for himself out here on the rocks.  It was an eagle. I then completely failed to ID a broadwing with its wings reefed in until I swallowed my pride and asked Keith what it was. Um, thank you. This is me, trying. You can put binoculars on her, but don't rely on her for raptor ID's...

The fabulous Lee and Courtney Peterson were there for the meeting and Lee's talk that evening. He, being the son and spittin' image of Roger Tory Peterson. She, an amazing artist and jewelry creator.  I was playing it cool, hangin' with them; they're fun, creative and lively folks. And besides, I knew his dad.

Leaning into a distant raptor...she's cool she's cool in her fancy pants

photo by Diane Husic

But inside, I was all geekin' out at being next to some fabulous Peterson DNA once again.

The real Zick. Awful, rambunctious and shameless. Photo by Diane Husic, who knows.

Diane, loving the scenery at the South Lookout, Hawk Mountain, PA.

 I'm proud to know her. She told me the story of a huge section of the Kittatinny Ridge that was ravaged by almost a hundred years of toxic fallout (heavy metals, mostly) from a smelting plant in the Lehigh Gap just a half-hour away. The aerial fallout, tons per year, had killed all the plants and rendered it miles of rocky moonscape. Diane initiated a study of plants, determining that trees were taking up the heavy metals, which stunted and killed them. But warm-season grasses don't take them up and can grow and flourish there. So with her work, she was able to guide revegetation efforts, and the ravaged ridge is coming to vibrant life. It will probably be a savannah, studded with a few hardy trees, which opens up interesting possibilities for breeding birds, as that habitat type is very scarce. Already there are prairie warblers, and it is being colonized by blue grosbeaks, a southern species that needs this rare savannah habitat. 168 species have been counted so far!  She told me of lifelong residents of the Gap in tears, seeing that poisoned ridge greening up again, or possibly for the first time ever. Just after I left, Diane was to join the reclamation crew at Lehigh Gap Nature Center to accept an award from the EPA for their stellar work on reclaiming the largest Superfund site in the nation. Their work is only beginning, but it's hugely promising.

What an honor to stay with people who are leaving the planet a better place for their being here. One of my favorite moments was falling asleep on their couch, belly full of grilled salmon, while David, awesome musician,  Salmon Griller, Head of Chemistry and Professor at Lafayette College in Easton PA, played old-time fiddle tunes. I'd wake up at the end of each one, murmur, "What's that one called?" and then drop back off. Mmm. 

Another thrill of speaking at Lehigh Gap Nature Center and Moravian College was meeting people who had watched Corey Husic grow up, who are his mentors. It was hallowed ground for me. I think a lot of this couple and their boys (Corey's younger brother Joren is a dryly funny, brilliant jewel!)

photo by David Husic. Only a daddy could take a photo like this.

Corey at two. His favorite book? A Peterson field guide. Nooooo. The cute is killing me. Put that boy on a bun with some yaller mustard. Somehow it doesn't seem fair. I didn't get a Golden Guide to Eastern Birds until I begged for it at eight. No wonder he's so much sharper than me.

That little boy grew up, met Phoebe on Hog Island, Maine in the summer of 2012

and then a lot of other stuff happened.

Thankful.

The Zen of Otters

I went to Pennsylvania last week, all the way across what feels like the longest state in the Union. It took me about nine hours to get to Bethlehem PA from southeast Ohio. I know that sounds crazy, because Ohio borders Pennsylvania, but it's true. Read it and weep.

When I passed Shartlesville I happened to be lustily eating almond butter off the end of a ballpoint pen, which was the only utensil that presented itself. On this I will not comment further.

I passed a billboard that reassured me greatly, since I am after all verging on being a senior. I look forward to the tender ministrations of Phoebe Ministries. This is why we have daughters. I will make such a fantastic mother-in-law, too. I hope they make me a nice little apartment with good light where I can grow my orchids and fruit trees.

That's enough ridiculousness. On to the sublime. I got up the next morning at the glorious country home where I was staying. It was cold and misty, especially down in the creek bottom. The ridge you see up ahead is the Kittatinny, what the Indians called The Endless Mountain. It's the famous one all the hawks use as a thermal highway. I found it a tremendous thrill to be looking at The Endless Mountain every day.

Sun filtered through woods studded with hemlocks.

Shy horses peeked out of their barn. A radio played inside.

A fall garden lapsed into lushness, abundance, decay. I loved the little fence, the folk art touches. It was a garden, but also an artistic statement.

There are barns everywhere. This one was so magnificent, but no longer in use.

Inside it was all Wyethy.

And outside too. This decaying horse collar hung in a small alcove. I wondered if it had been moved since it was last taken off a sweaty plowhorse. And how many years ago that would have been. 

A Milk of Magnesia bottle and an old Coke bottle graced another alcove. Judged too good to throw away, I guess.

 In the shivery dawn light, tall yellow sunflowers glowed. I noticed that many old houses in Pennsylvania are smack on the roadside. And I wondered why that might be, and how it would be to live with a double yellow line down the middle of your front yard. It'd be kind of hard on dogs and cats, I'd imagine. Kids, too. Yikes.

I ran on and looked up a quiet creek. The scene was so peaceful that I became very still, and stood listening.

I heard the water moving downstream. It sounded like something was swimming. I became even more still and waited. Whatever it was had a good bow wave in front of it, and it was making a sinuous course against the current. Swimming upstream.

It surfaced briefly and dove. The head was large and squarish. The tail, long and thick at the base. You can see it, shiny and brown, midway down the right margin of the photo above. That's no muskrat. That's an OTTER. Not one otter. THREE OTTERS. And they were swimming upstream, right under the bridge where my amazed self was standing.

I can't even tell you how I got these photos with my phone. I was so excited I was bursting, my hands trembling. I couldn't see jack in the bright morning light. I just pointed and shot, pointed and shot, hopeless of getting anything worthwhile, but compelled to shoot, to try to record so I could share. Practically every photo on this blog is taken with my iPhone 4S, and usually it does an amazing job. But fast-moving otters in reflective water are not what it's made for. Oh, how I longed for my Canon telephoto, a "real" camera. But the iPhone is what I had, so it is what I used. 

The moment when all three lined out and arrowed under the bridge in the crystal clear two-foot-deep creek with me standing right over them, staring open-mouthed, was The Moment. It was like looking down from the bow of a ship and seeing dolphins riding its wave. Only this was Aquashicola Creek, and these were river otters. 

They passed under the bridge and I ran to the other railing to see them. They popped up and chuffed at me. Pfffhhht! Fwup! Their little round heads broke the water, their ears like a stuffed teddy bear's.

They wanted me to know they had seen me.

If you stare at this sad, bad blown up photo below long enough you will see otters. The one on the left jumps out at me--eyes, nose, mouth, head just breaking the surface. The one on the far right is a little harder to discern. He's standing up, head, neck and shoulders well out of the water. There might even be a third animal in the middle--maybe. Can't say. I've made a little tracing paper overlay to show where I think the otters are in this photo. The leftmost animal is showing clearly. The shadow under his boxy head gives him away. Middle one is a stretch. Now you see him, now you don't. As is the rightmost one. But maybe. It has the same sort of shadow under its chin that the left-hand animal does.

As they swam away upstream, they kept popping up to stare at me, like seals. They'd chuff and dive. They didn't seem frightened, just as amazed to see me as I was to see them. I got the distinct feeling that they were on the move in some sort of autumnal migration; that this was perhaps an irreproducible moment, a passing through that might involve hundreds of miles. That didn't stop me from going out to the same place at the same time the next morning. Naturally I didn't find them again.  I didn't expect to.

I never expected them in the first place. 

Which, I suppose, is why they came.

The Zen of Otters.

 Three quiet otters

Glide smoothly up the bright creek

I love how they chuff

To say good morning

Aquashicola Creek, Kunkletown, Pennsylvania