the other side of daylight

 the smell of discovery

 here’s what people are saying about this post:

“owlman has captured the essence of the human organism.”  c.darwin, galapagos islands.

“it’s all true.  finally, someone is brave enough to come forward with this information.”  b. lane, tofte, mn.

“you are correct sir!”  e. mcmahon, hollywood, ca.

“owlman has nothing on me.”  a. bancroft,antarctica.

“he did not ask permission to use the term lock-box.”  a. gore, ex-govt. worker.

“just what did this terms biology meant? dick?”  g.w. bush, wal-mart greeter.

“owlman stands alone on the island of truth.  e.o. wilson, harvard, ma.

“i could pile-drive that smell from him forever.”  j.ventura, wal-mart greeter.

“this story was better than viagra.”  e. dole,kansas.

“i could have written that.”  b. gates,seattle, wa.

“you could have written this with two less paragraphs.” b. selig,milwaukee, wi.

“you want stink? come join my tribe.” o. bin-laden,afghanistan.

“i was moved by your story.”  c. manson, chino state prison.

“your story exploded with reality.” t. kawcyzinski,marion federal prison.

“owlman is in complete charge of malfactorous digressions.” a. haig, washington, d.c.

“hey, who left the seat up?”  s. helms, space station alpha.

“owlman has raised everyone’s interest in this topic.”  a. greenspan, wal-mart greeter.

“stink is not now, and never has been a part of biology.”  g. ford, ex wal-mart greeter.

“there is a reason for the chaos you are experiencing.”  s. hawking, oxford, u.k.

“i am removing my link to your site!!!!”  m. theresa,calcutta and beyond. 

and now……true confessions:

 it’s not like my social calendar is teeming with appointments these days. i go to work at sunset and sleep at daybreak. that in itself puts me out of kilter with the rest of the world. just once though, i would like a dinner invitation to dispel the  notion that “it must be me”. 

the other day, i saw an old friend and was about to give her a hug but had to preface it with a warning: “reene,  i’m a little bit stinky”. she shrugged it off with a wave of the hand, gave me a hug, and dropped to the floor. when she came to, i cupped her head in my hand and asked, “are you okay?” her eyes rolled back and when they returned, she drew me near and said quietly, “bill willy, you need to wash your fleece”.  i breathed a sigh of relief: it isn’t me. it’s my fleece….then again, maybe it is me. 

any biologist who spends time in the field that says they don’t personally revel in their own stink is either not a biologist or is lying. well, let me speak for male biologists. i don’t know about female biologists since i am not brave enough to open that topic of conversation. guys love it. we breathe it and relish it. the smellier the better. feet, pits, butt. our musk is what biology is all about. it’s a personal thing. everyone else reeks, but i am the proverbial spring flower. 

the shower where i stay provides steaming hot water and the towels are fluffy. yet, they remain largely unused. my hair sports a sheen that is pure, 100%, dirt and grease. no need to brush because i am sporting the latest fashion rage: nature’s perm. the peaks and waves just never go away. don’t like today’s style? just put on a hat for a couple of minutes and viola! you are a fashion maven. my finger- and toe-nails have become down-sized petri dishes. bacteria are my friends. 

and the fleece. oh the fleece. when i awake mid-afternoon, the first thing i do is make sure that the fleece has not moved on its own since i took it off. i believe we have come to terms with each other. i don’t wash it and it doesn’t abandon me. fleece is an amazing fabric. it insulates, wicks, layers; does everything but slices and dices. it also retains odor like a lock-box (i had to use that term). 

when i am in the woods, i can imagine every mammal within 10 miles downwind has its lips curled, its nose to the air, wondering “what the hell is that?” it is an acknowledgement of sorts; they know i am here and i know that wherever i go, i am a mobile scent post. for 7 weeks each spring, i am the “potpourri of funk”. 

eventually, i will break down and send a stream of coffee-brown water from the washing machine into the drain, and will bask in the flow of cascading, hot water. i will be clean, but then the clock will begin ticking to a new and improved batch of stink. will it top the last? one can only hope. 

for now though, call the hazardous materials specialists. my fleece (and me) may require a government warning. and if you happen to see me on my rounds and want to give me a hug, that would be nice, but you may want to think twice about it.

this is what used to happen at the end of an owl spring…from april of 2001:

a third person good-bye 

the sun rose like a pair of cheap, pumpkin colored boxer shorts over the placid waters of lake superior as the cherubic biologist made his journey down the long and winding gravel road.  his field season would end with these cathartic miles of dust, and he grew melancholy, knowing that months would pass before his feet again strode atop the acidic soils of the boreal forest.  

life had taken many turns over the years for this wildlife fabio, yet through it all, he remained dedicated to his cause, like misguided conservative republicans are to theirs.  he had exhibited compassion and altruism during his brief stint on the planet; always willing to help, always ready to pitch in.  when the call came from hollywood, he was there, serving as a body double for brad pitt in the movie thelma and louise.  when he sensed that his cerebral presence in academia was detrimental to fellow students, he lowered the curve in all of his classes.  when the call came from across the “big pond”, he resolutely boarded the private jet to help steven hawking set up his star trek screen saver.  for the good of man, was his motto.  he lived it.  he breathed it.  

but then in 1987, he entered another world.  it was dark, like his days at the boy scout camp, where the term “portage” took on a completely different meaning.  and it was quiet, like the sunday mornings of his youth, parked in front of the church knowing that he could go in, but why do what everyone else is doing?  instead, he sought his own path.  another world to him became the night.  another world became the silence of late winter.  another world had as its aria the haunting song of the boreal owl. 

he was like a fish out of water at first, afraid of the dark, unwilling to venture beyond the safety zone of his truck.  but gradually he sprouted fins (actually snowshoes) that took him to the furthest reaches of the forest.  he walked and skied, rode a bicycle, and drove the back roads like a pavlovian dog looking for its reward.  he listened for sounds in the night, like during high school when he had a girl in his room and his parents were gone-but due back soon.  

by the end of his 2001 field season, he had surveyed nearly 5,000 miles of those sometimes snow covered, sometimes arid roads, often barefoot.  he drank coffee like a sot, and passed gas like a ’68’ corvair running on three cylinders.  he entered the night with his belly full and his belly empty.  he had endured sickness and health, and the shady area between the two.  he walked stridently with clothing worthy of a level 3 haz-mat disposal unit.  he was a vagabond, a lithesome mover in the night. 

he had seen much during his north woods adventures.  there were the nights when the mother ship appeared and his heart rate soared, like during high school when he had a girl in his room and his parents were home.  there was the day he rescued a dog from the perils of abandonment in the wilderness, and the tears shed when its owners drove immediately from chicago to reunite with their “captain”.  there was serendipitous discovery and perpetual consternation.  he had brushed, but not flossed his teeth regularly.  he had aged, but in so doing, felt his heartbeat slow to the pace of the winter’s night. 

and now, with dusty plumes rising behind his vehicle he slowed, then stopped.  he got out and looked to the north, illuminated in the pale glow of a new day, with only the brightest stars and planets lingering in the retiring night sky.  he raised his arms in a ritualistic good-bye to the land, the water, and the heavens, and paused with a deep breath, knowing that his soul was leaving its home behind.

i remember the first night like it was the back of my hand.  it was an exercise in fear and impatience and irrational thoughts…completely bereft of warm fuzziness.  on thursday, my first night will be relived as i again venture into the night and begin my fourth-to-last round of spring owl surveys. 

apathy has yet to push dogged determination aside. 

come on apathy…push harder…  

i am sure if you were to time travel back to the moment each spring when i become blog happy, the first few posts  would sound remarkably similar.  they will waft through the reconnection and the passion, the anecdotes and yes, the drudgery and sleep deprivation.  then in early may, they will all stop as i apply the hand brake to biologic acuity. 

i mean, jeez…it’s been 26 years folks. 

of course, everything has changed.  i have changed, the landscape has changed, the owl community has changed but…and i don’t need to belabor this point…i still get a tingle of excitement when i arrive on the front porch of nocturnal indulgence. 

reconnection means different things to different people but to me, an owl spring means i am again put into my place. 

humility is never a bad thing.

the anamolous winter is nearly over and for the first time in a while, i will have free run of a forest absent of waist-deep snow. skiing has been served its eviction notice and gardening has taken position in the portion of my brain still accepting synaptical stimulation. 

i have resigned myself to the empirical data and now accept that long evenings without the song of the boreal owl are the new “nocturnal norm”.  but for the next 6 weeks, i will spend my evenings in 3-minute increments and at .5 mile intervals, hoping for new discovery and affirmation that i am where i am because “this” is where is am supposed to be.    

as excited as i can get is as excited as i will be on thursday night.  it will be warm and the roads soft.  i will listen and then voice chagrin and dismay before setting up a homestead on the isle of nostalgia.  but, if an owler is in the woods and he’s sharing anecdotes and there is no one there to hear them, are they really anecdotes?

after 25 years yes, i believe they are.

i have been doing this for long enough that one fall migration starts to resemble all the others…kind of like white people.  yet, something is going on now in my back yard.  the flood of saw-whet owls hasn’t relented; it isn’t showing the typical ebb and flo of movements and pauses in the strigidaen rush to get the hell out of this god-forsaken landscape.  winter is coming; owls are telling me that every night.

to hell with the wooly caterpillar.

as spectacular as the nocturnal migration has been, the diurnal migration has been ho-hum; kind of like another single by joe mauer…with the bases empty.  i haven’t been able to revel in the dizzying flights of sharpshins as they cull the blue jay population.  i haven’t seen the kettles of soaring raptors as they strive to keep their toes away from the chilled waters of the big lake they call gitchee gumee. 

yawn.

maybe it’s just me.

when the sun goes down, however, the saw-whets are moving in torrents.  over the past 6 trapping nights, i have banded nearly 300 owls.  my fingers are pock-marked with the blotches of unforgiving talons whose movements, even after thousands of owls, can never be predicted.  i have bled prideful drops of blood on my data sheets because, dammit, i recognize that it’s still pretty cool to be able to do this in my back yard, knowing that if the wasabi peas kick in, i am merely seconds from my house.  all those springs and winters in the field, isolated and cold, confirm that for an owler, this is bliss.

in 2006, i banded 939 saw-whets and thought “this will never happen again.”  now, i am wondering if in fact, it is.

to the south lies the concrete and halogen, amid endless ribbons of traffic.  the fuss and commotion creates a constant buzzing in the ears, like a black fly hatch that never ends.  seldom is a solo venture truly solo.  often, there is an interminable wait for someone to move or the light to turn green.  when movement comes, it is fleeting.  the light turns red and the wait is renewed.

it is a place where goodness and badness intermingle and a million agendas co-exist and clash and confuse.  

me?  i live here, where the wilderness begins out my front door and only one stop light can impede your movements between silver bay and the canadian border.  there is a sense of comfort; there is no sense of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   

granted, the city has culture.  me?  i have new picture windows.

the other day i was out on my bike, trying to fend off old age and morbid obesity when a part of the city came to tofte.  it was a tightly wrapped blue bag, positioned in the grass, right off the onion river road.  my initial hunch should have sufficed, but the biologist in me needed empirical proof, so i inspected it.  it was a tightly wrapped blue bag of dog poop.  here, on the cusp of the boreal forest where the earth reclaims all that pass through or stumble.   

dog poop in a plastic bag. 

of course, i immediately sought the logic of that move.  the pooch has to go and as is the canids wont, does so and then scratches his feet with joyful pride.  somewhere in his recesses, he thinks he should get a treat.  his owners, out of habit or a poor sense of reality, bag the bundle, look around, don’t see a waste basket, so leave it there. 

“someone will pick this up, won’t they honey?”

“i’m pretty sure they will.”

“good, let’s go get some scones.”

for some reason, that just kind of grinds my lower colon.  the owners (the square pegs) have thrust their sense of civility onto the boreal forest (the round hole).  it is a bad fit…just like the smell of perfume or cologne on the cross-country ski trail (you might smell good, but you still suck as a skier), or being passed on a gravel road by someone who absolutely has to get into the wilderness so they can relax for 3 days, prior to returning to the concrete and halogen.

the fools.

of course, maybe my story isn’t based on reality and instead, is a misdirected interpretative retelling. the real story is that the owners picked up the bag and tucked it into a pocket, but the pocket was full of scones and so, the bag fell out.  they didn’t realize they didn’t have the bag until they got back to their condo and by then, they had eaten so many scones they had to take a nap and once the ambien kicked in, they forget they left the bag, or that they even had a dog, and so when they woke up, the dog had shit on the carpet and they were back at square one.

except this time, they took the tightly wrapped blue bag with them when they returned to the concrete and halogen and endless ribbons of traffic.

i was there when the mountain blew. i felt it rattle the core of the planet and then send a plume of ash skyward that within an hour, turned day into night; turned a robin’s egg blue sky into a roiling mash of powdered earth.  all i could think of was:  so long harry truman.

when mount st. helens blew in 1980, i was on the unhappy side of a wedding reception that i will never remember.  i was awake, but an unwilling participant in what life had to offer.  that sunday was my third day back in washington and third day in a row with a hangover that i could not seem to shake. 

the only cure?  another hangover.

i had taken the empire builder from st. paul to wenatchee washington a couple of days earlier, to attend the wedding of friends and to renengage a chapter of my life that was salacious at best, and ill-advised at worst.  the train trip was spent primarily in the bar car and all with an ilk for partying were there, even after floyd the porter said “you guys are on your own.”  

two days later, my equilibrium had yet to return and even on concrete, my body swayed to the back-and-forth of rail travel.  

several years before that, i had worked for the gifford pinchot national forest, on the st. helen’s ranger district.  within that district was the mountain and spirit lake.  adjacent to both, was harry truman.  harry served as a field trip destination for new district employees.  he was always welcoming and always willing to engage in a story.  i shook his hand. i petted his cats. somewhere, i have a picture of him. 

in the end, he defied authority and said, “i ain’t leaving”.  this after repeated warnings from geologists that the mountain was about to feel its oats.  

my work buddies and i climbed st. helens one august day in 1976.   from the summit, spirtit lake glowed an azure blue.  harry was down there somewhere, probably bitching about something, we said.  we stood at the apex of the mountain and watched as glaciers sloughed-off giant shelves of ice. 

on the morning of may 18, 1980, my buddy pat and i were uncertain what the commotion was, deep inside the earth.  paddy laughed it off, as he was (and still is) wont to do.  when we found out the mountain was gone, we were disbelievers.  i could only think of harry and his cats. 

it had to be quick.  no time to move or see what had occurred.  the 50 feet of ash and mud that entombed him changed the lake and the landscape in an instant.  i could only imagine him sitting there, a cat purring in his lap, saying, “i’m okay with this.”   

now, every may 18, i take a few moments to remember harry and a period of my life that made me what i am today, for better or worse.  i have reacquainted with paddy and stayed with him in 2008, when nikky and i took the empire builder to washington…without the hangovers or floyd the porter. 

my son was with me the first time i viewed the mountain since it had experienced its tectonic reconfiguration. he could tell the mountain meant something to me.  i also think he understood why i said “so long harry truman,” when we returned to our car.

i don’t know what the group of flickers were up to this morning, but considering the overt solicitation and squawking,  it bordered on pornographic.   i had to avert my eyes.

nature once again is mocking me.

with owl surveys completed, the arduous task of checking nest boxes has begun.  as a change of pace, this morning i rode my bike to check my favorite box trail which will soon be denuded of much of its vegetation, given that it lays within what the forest service calls an “opportunity area”.  thankfully, the paradigm of health, sunshine, and fitness i attained during my 1000 + km of skiing this winter served me well, and riding the 30 miles was a pleasant diversion.

and we all know how important diversion is to me, the owlman.

the trail consists of 12 boxes, spaced about 1/4 mile apart on a portion of the old sawbill trail.  it is rife with diversity…old jack pine, old white pine, rich bottomland spruce, babbling brooks.  it will soon be homogenized in the name of opportunity.  two of the box trees were painted, meaning they will not be cut, but i have already decided i will remove the boxes because leaving a box on a tree surrounded by stumps is not what i am about. 

watching flickers copulate is what i’m about. 

going back to 1987, some of my most profound owling moments have occurred on the old sawbill trail.  several years ago (warning: anecdote alert) i broke down on a box check, realizing i was grieving for a species that defined everything i have ever accomplished as a biologist and even, as a person.  i have been to the boreal owl mountaintop and no one in minnesota will ever go there again.  

despite the pedaling and the sense i would be afforded some owl karma, none of the boxes were occupied. 

it’s like that sometimes.

 on the days when i am not skiing or biking or owling or gardening, i spend many of my idle hours in a well-worn chair whose olfactory signature is remarkably similar to that of my ass.

 yet, it is a comfortable chair and its odiferous patina is nothing that a big jar of febreeze can’t temper.  

i love that chair at the apex of the picture windows.  

the nice thing is that watching what occurs in my back yard is now a compelling activity.  when i put the new windows in 2 summers ago, i had no idea that i could spend so much time watching nothing occur.  then again, i am an owler and a hermitic bachelor male and so, i am a seasoned pro in the fine art of nothingness.

my house sits on the edge of aspen and a small open water wetland whose water component is gone by june.  there are blue flag in it and if my green thumb is viable, there will soon be cardinal flowers.  beyond the wetland is the aspen, my prized landscape feature.  below the aspen, the vigor of fir and spruce.

the interface where conifer meets wetlands is giving itself up as a line of transit for many land-based travelers that move through my land.  i have seen deer bedding beneath the boughs and wolf skulking like ball players in the corn of an imagined iowa baseball field

“is this heaven?”

” no, it’s tofte.”

“shit.  i thought it was heaven. how do i get to heaven?”

“take 61 north into canada…it’s somewhere in canada.  it’s gotta be.”

two of the animals that use the line of conifers are both named stumpy.  stumpy the squirrel and stumpy the pine marten.  both move without tails.  both have been familiar to me for more than a year.  i feel good when i see them.  in fact, stumpy the squirrel has been granted immunity from the sting of slingshot wrath.  he is my sciurid friend.

of course, stumpy the marten has no endearing traits other than its nose-searing streams of musk.  he is a predator and the fact that stumpy the marten has yet to dine on stumpy the squirrel is nothing but good fortune and timing for stumpy the squirrel.

i have no idea what happened to eithers’ tail, but the lack thereof, makes them uniquely identifiable.  stumpy marten has tan, calico colored throat patches and a sleek pelage.  i would love to rub his belly and see if he purrs, but he would shred my flesh.

stumpy squirrel is a rodent that daily, eats his weight in seeds beneath my feeders.  when i appear on the deck with my slingshot of horror, all squirrels run away.  stumpy continues eating.  he has grown fearless.  conditioned. 

i am pretty sure all those seeds will make stumpy marten happy when he finally dines on stumpy squirrel.

i just hope i get to see that.

from my chair.

with the febreeze.