Edges

By Sarah Hatfield

Edges. I learned during the last week of Day Camp that I am instinctively, predictably attracted to edges; elemental ones, where two forces meet or flirt or clash. I should probably elaborate on why I figured that out during Day Camp.

The last camp was Nature Totems, and the idea was to do a lot of exercises with the kids so that they can see how different plants and animals and elements and so on click with certain personalities. It was a way to investigate why their favorite animal is a tiger, or they love the water, or they shriek at the sight of a spider. I think it worked. At least, I know I discovered some things about myself, and other things about the kids were made clear when I learned about their chosen totems.

A totem is a being – animal, plant, element, spirit, etc. – whose energy or presence you have a strong connection to in your life. It may be for a very short time, or it may be for a lifetime. On the surface, we can say “My favorite animal is a cat” and leave it there. The idea behind this camp, though, was to look at why it was the favorite and learn about it a little bit more, and what it can bring to your life.

Nature is powerful, in all its aspects. It can destroy and it can heal, it can traumatize and it can relax. Nature may terrify one person, and be another’s sanctuary. The idea that we are connected to certain plants and animals is an ancient one. Most cultures across time have placed a huge significance on the presence of nature in lives, dreams, and relationships. We’re more connected when we remember that and discover it.

Back to the edges, now. Willows have always been a significant tree for me. I love the shape, the narrow leaves, the wispiness of them. They are flexible enough to be used as bows and dance with storms. And even when the wind is too much a breaks them, they sprout from roots and racemes and keep growing. And they thrive where water meets land. That edge is home to them, and because it takes the elements of water and earth, it seems particularly powerful.

Turtles are another totem, an animal that moves freely and ably between water and earth. An ancient symbol for many people, turtles have a long history of association with creation, heaven, earth, adaptability, connection to home, and adopting the right pace for the moment.

Spotted Salamanders live tucked in the safety of the earth, but depend on water, vernal pools, to reproduce. I chose yet another animal that depends on edges. Timing is everything for the salamander, the perfect temperature, a fine rainy night, and hope that the other salamanders feel the urge to move too.

If I have to choose some favorite places, they are all edges: beaches, ponds, swamps, rivers, and cliffs, overlooks, and sitting in a tall tree. The places between those elements seem powerful to me, like I can find strength from both forces to help me move through life. They are filled with energy.

You might be reading this thinking I’m totally off my rocker this time, with all this totem babble. And that’s fine. However, Day Camp taught me quite a bit this year, and if that can teach others, I’m going to share.

The kids in this camp surprised me. They thought about it, and many of their totems reflected them as accurately as anything can when you’re a child. I learned much from the kids, as well as my totems. This wasn’t the only camp that opened my eyes a little bit more, either.

Through a number of special topic camps, we all got a chance to connect more with the kids. In that connection, our teachings were stronger, the lessons greater. Just as a connection with a totem plant or animal can bring huge revelation to one’s life, so too it seems that forming a strong connection with the kids you teach is more rewarding for both student and teacher.

We’re always looking for better ways to teach. Judging from the amount of repeat kids in the camps, our teaching is good. And with these specialty camps, I noticed even in the instructors that there was more energy, enthusiasm and laughter. When people come together for a common interest, whether it is art, music, trees, woodworking, survival skills, things that fly, becoming a better naturalist, or discovering our connections to the earth, the bond is stronger.

Day Camp is over for the year. I am definitely breathing a sigh of relief. But camp is our most effective program, and there is a little bit of sadness in the sigh. I know I will be teaching over the winter, but nothing, absolutely nothing, matches the lessons of stalking, watching, building, sketching, or discovering that come with camp. Good summer, everyone.

Originally published in local papers 29 August 2009.

 

Oh Water, How You Teach

By Sarah Hatfield

On Saturday I taught some wonderful children about nature. On Sunday I built a dam in my garden. On Monday I picked dead fish out of my yard.

Sunday afternoon. We (my parents, brother and I) were playing a dice game by candlelight because the power was out. This was nothing out of the ordinary, it usually happened during thunderstorms or windy days. We were in the dining room. Then my mother looked out the window at a car slowing down, and said “Oh my god, there’s a river running through your yard.”

There was. Between my two stately Sugar Maples was a torrent, twenty feet wide, muddy, debris laden, and roaring. In my favorite pink pants (yes, you read that correctly, pink) and tank top I flew out the door and flung my hands in the air and cried, “That’s my garden!” I proceeded to crash through the water in my bare feet and knee deep in roiling runoff. Roar. That’s all I could hear.

A tributary of Akeley Run had backed up – too much water in too short a time. A flash flood. In Cable Hollow? Are you kidding me? No, not in the least. It went around my neighbor’s and made a beeline for the back of my house. Remember that brand new patio I mentioned a few articles ago? Underwater. My garden fence? The water snapped the PVC pipe poles right off. Leftover granite from patio, my dad, brother and a shovel all were instantly enrolled in a crash course about water diversion.

We built makeshift dams to prevent the water from barreling into the house. We dug ditches to divert it toward the creek and not the tomato plants. And then it was over.

The sun came out before the last trickles of water hit the creek. It was like some sort of bad dream. We cleaned up the mess, my family went home, and I exchanged stories with the neighbors, many of whom said, “Oh it gets worse. In ’92 it was bank to bank. Took us a week to clean up.” Great. At least the power was back on.

Neighbors were out in the road, talking, comparing, helping each other, and cleaning up. Those who had left came back, those that stayed shared the play-by-play. Everyone sought some comfort in the company of others in the same situation.

The next storm rolled in at 12:24 am. I waited by the window, wondering what I would possibly do about it all in the dark. No flood that night, but I didn’t sleep.

Monday morning. Of course it was raining. The sump pump had kicked off its hose, there were 14 inches of water in the basement, already over my boots. Great. Donning tools, sandals and work clothes, I headed for the basement. As I was fussing with the pump in freezing cold ground water, I heard the water start the run through the walls. The creek was overflowing again. Roar.

I arrived upstairs in time to watch the wall of water surge across the neighbor’s lawn. Again. Adrenalin is powerful, and I was able to lift massive pieces of granite to rebuild the dams from the day before. I grabbed logs from yesterday that had washed into the yard. I took my two folding eight foot tables and used them as dams. Eventually my two tier dam diverted most of the water from the house. This run was worse than the previous one.

Now there were two feet or water in the basement and it was licking at the furnace. Two trees were down on the phone lines. The road was caving in. I called in reinforcements. I dug the ditches deeper. I built a third tier on the dam for next time. I was lucky.

Water is awesome. I thought that for the first time a decade or so ago watching a documentary on floods. Watching the small, babbling brooks around my house eat mature ash trees and asphalt roads and scare the living daylights out of me reminded me that water is awesome. I respect it more, I fear it a little more. I am more resilient for the humbling I experienced standing in it as it sought its own path rather than the culverts and bridges that we laid out for it.

I watched trees, full blown too-big-to-wrap-your-arms-around trees, wash through my other neighbor’s yard. They lost eight feet of bank and their driveway. Refrigerators, freezers, fifty gallon barrels were among the flotsam careening down Akeley Run. The force of the water started eating the road, and soon it looked at if some starving creek monster had risen and taken a big bite out of it.

Later, I picked up my yard – shingles, tires, logs, hemlock branches, dead crayfish, dead fish, living salamanders and frightened mice and voles. I staked the dams in place, not betting on the forecast of sunshine. The basement reached three feet and the furnace now needs some first aid. I watched two sump pumps pump 4000 gallons of water an hour out of my basement for 11 hours. I am grateful.

I am fine (I feel like I’ve been beat with a 2×4 but I’m fine.) I have my house, with power, gas. My animals are safe. My possessions are intact and undamaged, for the most part. My garden, well, the garden is apparently quite tenacious.

Others are worse off. I understand flash floods better. I respect nature more, especially water. Thunderstorms will probably scare me more now. I’m going to build some stone walls on the east side of my house. I have to rake some rocks and plant some grass and build a new fence. I’ll help the neighbors first, though.

Originally published in local papers 15 August 2009.

 

The Pleasure of Field Trips

By Sarah Hatfield

Field trip! Those are magical words. Those two words mean you get a break from the mundane and get to go do something out of the ordinary when you “should” be doing something else. Field trips are like a breath of fresh air on a stagnant day, they are the view of the stars after a week of cloudy nights, they are…fun! Exciting! Different!

I remember in second grade (I think it was second grade) our school field trip to see the Brig Niagara. It was a scary ship then! Out of the water, and you could go down in it where the paper mache surgeon was operating on some sailor’s leg…creepy! But I remember.

A field trip is a journey by a group of people away from their normal environment. That’s an official definition. Some others include words like educational, excursion, observation, first-hand experience, and more. Usually a field trip is taken by students, but aren’t we all students, always? Learning doesn’t stop when outside the classroom walls. It happens all the time, especially when you are out of your “normal environment.” I would go so far as to say that the more often you take field trips, of any sort, the more you learn. Routine doesn’t teach much more than routine…

My recent field trips are almost always to the woods or to the beach. Field trips rest me, inspire me, and seem to breathe a quiet but intense energy back into my lethargic mind and somnolent soul. Sitting on a teeny tiny stone dam built in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, watching amber-winged dragonflies skim the surface and a snapping turtle slowly rise to the surface as the sun peeks above the trees is delight in its purest form. I might see an animal I’ve never seen, or learn something about myself, or realize a trait of a fish I’d never noticed, or talk to someone I just met and will likely never see again. I am changed for the experience. I have learned something.

You can take a field trip for many different reasons – to celebrate the end of school is the most common thought when someone says field trip. But there are so many other reasons! You can take a field trip to learn something. The places to go to learn are innumerable. Museums, nature centers, walking tours, galleries, libraries, lectures; the list goes on and on. You can even learn something in your own backyard with the right book and your own five senses.

As an education staff here at Audubon, we take field trips. Usually we go to other nature places to learn and get ideas about exhibits and things like that. And we ALWAYS learn something! It’s fun because it’s not the regular work day, and because we can share ideas and comments and criticisms, it makes for a lively and entertaining trip. Some are close and for more, um, mundane reasons (think “getting ice cream in Frewsburg to test out the van before camp”). But others are educational, like our recent Volunteer Thank You trip to Reinstein Woods near Buffalo. It was our way of expressing our gratitude to our trail guide and animal care volunteers, and a field trip to visit another nature center.

Entertainment is another reason for a field trip, of course. Amusement parks, zoos, aquariums, plays, opera and tons more are places you can go or things you can do to be amused. You’ll probably learn something, too, but the whole plan is to occupy your mind and time. Again, as simple as a beach or a local creek can be an entertaining field trip. Collect rocks or shells, watch birds, fill buckets with crayfish then let them go again. Just go.

In case you’re looking for an opportunity to go on a field trip, there is one on August 17, Monday. It is a trip to Presque Isle, in Erie to see the Purple Martins and visit the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. The trip will include the 4pm showing of the Mysteries of the Great Lakes movie, a stop for food, and then a caravan or carpooling to the roosting site of the Purple Martins.

If you’ve never seen this, it is beyond spectacular. Up to tens of thousands of Purple Martins flock in to roost at peak season, so many that it shows up on Doppler Radar as a mass. It is truly a fabulous field trip, virtually in your backyard.

So, play hooky that Monday. Take a field trip and take a break from what you “should” be doing to go on an excursion with a group of people, to see something first-hand that is totally outside your everyday experience.

Originally published in local papers 8 August 2009.

 

In Their Words

By Sarah Hatfield

I spend my summer teaching Day Camp. This means that I am teaching kids about nature, in nature, most days of July and August. I wonder if they get anything out of it, if they learn anything, if they even enjoy themselves. It’s hard to tell sometimes, but one week of camp this year was eye-opening and I still smile thinking about it.

A great way to catch what the kids think is to have them tell you – either in a sharing circle, a survey or a quiz. Wild Birds Unlimited gives us a grant every year (thank you!) to help assist families in sending their kids to camp. One thing they want to hear, though, is the kids experiences in their words. A few kids volunteered to write essays for the program, and so I thought I would share pieces of their experiences with you.

Venya Jenkins wrote: “My favorite day at Audubon Camp was when we went pond dipping. Pond dipping is when you get into the pond looking for stuff. We found snakes, bugs, turtles, and dragonflies. You can get in the pond and get wet and muddy. I like to get muddy and my mom says the muddery I am, the more fun I had.”

Pond dipping seems to be a great hit with the campers. Liam Ndiffer says: “Last summer when we went pond wading there were lots to look out for and catch. Pond wading is when we try catch living things in the pond with nets. Among the things we catch are tadpoles, water bugs, and also finger nail clams. My favorite thing to catch is tadpoles because they are so funny to watch. After observing the things we catch we always let them go which is makes me feel proud! Our teacher tells us which things to avoid in the wild and what things are alright to touch. We learn tons of great facts and information about how animals live and survive in the wild.”

Day Camp is often a time when kids discover that they are ok outside their comfort zone. Anthony Frangione writes: “I’ve never really been a kid who likes being around bugs, or to touch creepy crawly things too much. But my parents thought it would be a great time for me and I thought it would be too. I was surprised at how much I loved being there, and I have to say that I really enjoyed my week at camp.”

A few specialty camps made an impact with the kids too. Kaitlyn Healy, a regular Day Camper, shares about Art Camp: “I loved it when I went to Art Camp last year. We were told we were going to paint a tree that represented us, not a regular real tree. First we went on nature walks. We saw that trees weren’t just brown but are different colors, reds and purples! After we looked at a lot of different trees, we started to sketch the tree that we would paint. I sketched 2 trees before I got mine perfect. My tree was hot pink on a bright blue background, with bright stars and swirls coming off its branches instead of leaves. Next we wrote about our tree. This is what I wrote:

My Tree Story

I am a fantasy tree.
I like swirls, diamonds, hearts, and stars.
I am pink.
I like that.
I am fun, exciting and fresh.
I grow fun, giggles, laughter, and great memories.

My tree is about intelligence and individuality and fun. My tree is original in its own special way. It was so much fun to combine art with learning about nature.”

I taught a Survival Camp this year to a group of mostly fifth graders. It was enlightening and one of the best experiences I’ve had teaching camp. The idea was to give them basic tools and information to survival getting lost in the woods. I was amazed at the shelters they built, their attentiveness and how much they remembered. This experience for me gave rise to the brainstorm of actually taking them out in the wilderness with minimal supplies and doing a three-day survival expedition. I would take that group of kids in a heartbeat.

I learn a lot every year from teaching camp. This year will be no different. Kids impress me every year with their energy, their minds and their passion. I hope that their camp experiences are just as exceptional as mine are, that they learn and play and enjoy and feel at home in nature.

When I’m smiling at the end of a camp week, it was a great camp. I am still grinning.

There are openings left in some of our camps. If you know a kid in third-seventh grade, give us a call and send them to camp. We’d love to learn from them, and hope to give them an opportunity to learn.

Originally published in local papers 25 July 2009.

 

A New Box of Crayons

By Sarah Hatfield

Have you ever noticed that there are so many shades of green that don’t even have names? I’m all for the Crayola crayons, especially the big box with 64 colors. But I’m sure that there are more than 64 colors of green alone! Just look at the world around you and you begin to see that a color is so much more than a word.

This notice of color will get you noticing other things. Perhaps the shape of a fern leaf is particularly pleasing to you. The yellow of a cinquefoil becomes an obsession. Filtered sunlight through a pine stand invokes a silent awe. Nature is pretty stunning, and that’s why it is often photographed, painted, sketched and transformed into art in so many ways.

During Audubon Day Camps, there are two sessions of Art Camp, taught by artist Lori Rothfuss. She works closely with kids as they establish a connection between themselves and nature, and the end result are some stunning pieces of art created by children. It is never to early to grasp that connection and learn to express it in an art form.

To celebrate that connection to nature through art, Audubon is hosting Art In The Woods on July 18 and 19. This is an art show and sale designed to showcase creations inspired by nature. Paintings, carvings, jewelry, photography, collage and more mediums will be on display and sale, all with a natural theme or feel.

Many of the artists will be working on a piece while at the festival and all will be on hand, so if you want to ask questions about how they are inspired by nature, or how they connect and interpret nature into their art, you may. You may get inspired yourself by hiking along the trails. The sun might be hitting a Green Frog just right and it makes you pause. Or the dew in the morning under a big maple might captivate you for a moment with a sparkle and gleam.

A friend and I started a nature crayon list one year. Among the amazing colors we baptized Skunk Cabbage Leaf Green, Colt’s Foot Yellow, Muskrat Brown, Cardinal Flower Red, Lichen Gray, Bone White, Serviceberry Pink and Slug Slime Orange, which might, quite possibly, be one of the most fabulous colors in the world. It made us look at color and appreciate all the shades of green in the forest and field and pond.

Here’s an experiment to get you started – go to one of the hardware stores or home improvement stores and get a few of those color chip cards. Green is the most versatile, but you can choose any color. Take them outside and see how many colors you can match. I think you’ll be surprised. It will open your eyes to a whole new world of color.

If you come to Art In The Woods, you should stop and ask the artists what got them hooked on nature as their inspiration. Was it color? Maybe it was light. What about the feeling you get when you walk into a forest? That could be an inspiration. Stop by on Saturday from 10am until 6pm and Sunday from 10am until 5pm to view the artwork.

Audubon isn’t just promoting a connection to the planet through art, though. Since there is going to be food served during the festival, we make an effort to use environmentally friendly dishes. That might mean that they are compostable, biodegradable, made from 100% recycled content, able to be recycled, or reused. That message of wise resource use compliments our energy saving measures, which you can learn more about in the exhibit.

Connecting to the planet can happen in so many different ways, from inspiring a sculpture to bringing your own beverage container to a festival. It can be as simple as taking a walk in the woods, or as complex as establishing native plants in your yard to mimic different native habitats to encourage wildlife. Even attending a program at Audubon can help you connect to the planet, like the Little Explorers program this Saturday morning from 10-12 or the Cold-blooded Tales program this afternoon from 1-3. You can call for more information about both of those programs.

Originally published in local papers 11 July 2009.

 

Lights Out! Headlamps On!

By Sarah Hatfield

The smell of campfire lingers on my sweatshirt the day I get home from a camping trip. It makes me smile. If I close my eyes, I can hear the snap of the white pine kindling, the birds chattering their evening songs, and the light sigh of the wind rustling the aspens. It is the highlight of nice weather, camping is.

It is living as close to the land as some of us can get. You instinctively rise with the sun, the dawn chorus rattling around your brain like a lullaby of chimes and bells. The dew on the tent is heavy and the air is thick with moisture when you unzip the door and peer out at the morning. Toss on a sweatshirt, grab some kindling and get a fire going to boil the water for coffee or hot chocolate.

I was camping this past weekend at a state park in Pennsylvania. It was beautiful. Hard to believe that though I’ve lived in Pennsylvania most of my life, there are still so many stunning places I have yet to see. The weather was perfect. It was clear and mostly warm, with comfortably chilly mornings and evenings so that down sleeping bags and campfires are craved and appreciated. A light breeze while hiking to counter the sun’s warmth and mostly clear skies with a spattering of clouds.

Fortune was kind and the bugs weren’t bad at all. A few bites here and there, but nothing to complain about. The bats came out in droves in the pink dusky light, which might explain the lack of insects. Such acrobatics they perform dipping and twisting and doing aerial pirouettes over the creek. I am greatly for the boisterous display of energy during their hunt, it made the evening hikes more pleasant.

I don’t watch bats much while at home, simply because there is a roof and usually things to do, like laundry or dishes. But camping lets the obligations fade and the leisure take their place. Blazing sunset clouds, moths, bats, fireflies, and more are the opening acts for the night show which might feature squabbling raccoons, shooting stars, visiting porcupines, and owls.

Food seems to taste better, too, when camping. Whether you’ve spent the day hiking, fishing, boating, or just playing, the food prepared under a blue sky over burning wood is made richer as a result of its location. A sausage on a toasted bun, soup with fresh veggies, crisp snap peas and asparagus as an appetizer, hot chocolate, Jiffy pop and marshmallows as the “after dinner mint,” the menus are infinite and simple, yet mouth-watering.

You don’t have to travel to a state park. You don’t even have to go to a campground to experience a lot of what camping is about. Try your own backyard. Pitch the tent, roll out the sleeping bags, get out your flashlights and your star charts, find a deck of cards and you’re all set. If you can make a fire, make one. This great adventure to the backyard will help you connect with the world in which you live, drag you away from your energy dependent house, and let you reconnect with your family.

Leave the cell phones inside and off. No watches or clocks need be in a tent. No video games or iPods or portable electronics of any sort. This is real time – with the tangible world and the people you share it with.

Bring games, a Frisbee, and a butterfly net. Bring a camera, a journal, and lawn chair. You’ll end up with smiles, great memories, and a lighter mind.

If you can get farther away from your daily life, do it. The state park system in all the states is great! There are county parks and national parks, too. There are private campgrounds, and friends with big yards. The farther you get from what you do every day, the more you connect with the people and place you are with.

The point of this is that June 27 is The Great American Backyard Campout, promoted by the National Wildlife Federation. The idea is that the more you are outside, the more likely you are to protect it and value it. It’s true, by the way. Our daily lives depend on a healthy natural world, from the water we drink to the food you cook over the campfire. Camping is a fun, easy and inexpensive way to strengthen those connections to the world that supports all of us.

You can go the website to learn more about the national campaign, http://www.nwf.org/BackyardCampout/. Of course, Audubon encourages you to get out as often as you can in whatever way you can. Play backyard football, go for a walk at lunch, throw your canoe in the river, sit on the porch and drink your coffee – every little interaction with the outdoors builds a connection.

I hope to see houses dark on June 27th and the soft glow of fires instead. Even the flash of flashlights playing hide and seek, kick the can, or sardines would suffice. Get outside for a night, camp in your backyard, rediscover your connection to the planet.

Originally published in local papers 20 June 2009.

 

An Exchange of Plants, Friendship, and Knowledge

By Sarah Hatfield

My routine to wind down from a day at work is to wander around my one acre and check on my plants. Some of them I nurture, all of them I care for. The census includes everything from radishes to Staghorn Sumac to pale yellow Hollyhocks.

Growing things is therapy, and creates a sanctuary of sorts. The plants bear me no ill will for unloading my stress and worries upon their leaves and petals. Human ailments and afflictions do not bother them and so they absorb them as sweet, spring rain. I am grateful for that.

I walk. I greet the flowers – “Hello iris! Oh, you’re going to bloom this year. What a nice shade of purple you are.” And so it goes as a meander around. It is a way to keep time, real time, not people time. It is that, perhaps, that grounds me in the hectic season of spring.

Gardening, or growing things in general, whether it be trees or vegetables, or even crops, creates a bond with something more…primitive. It forces you to pay attention to that outside man’s creation, the rain and clouds and temperature and soil. It slows down time until you are in tune with a natural cycle, not one run by a wristwatch or cell phone. Plants have their own time. By following their movement everyday, I start to adopt that time, too.

My love of plants is known to friends and coworkers and Auduboners. Every offer of “I’ve got some extras…” is met with a yes! and so I have a garden full of extras – the unwanteds, extras, or no-longer-needed’s. It makes for an eclectic collection, but also one that is filled with stories and histories.

Some of the iris I have came from my friend’s grandmother’s garden. A lot of the lilies came from Ryan’s mom’s gardens. Most of the rhubarb came from Don, my coworker. I’m looking forward to transplanting some of my late grandmother’s yellow iris this year. And an awful lot of the stuff I have came from the Plant Exchange at Audubon.

This is a neat event, because it started to give local gardeners a chance to share their plants with each other. Originally just an exchange (with encouraged donations to Audubon), it brought people together and gave them a chance to get some new plants, some wanted plants, or to give away some extras.

This year (the fourth) the exchange is broadening to include a sale. Local greenhouses and nurseries have donated a variety of plants, some for the gardens, and some for the sale. Because there is no Secret Garden Tour this year, the Secret Gardeners have also donated plants from their gardens for the sale. Between the businesses, including Barmore’s Greenhouses, Krist Hansen Nursery, Big Tree Landscaping & Nursery, Robert’s Nursery, Four Seasons Nursery & Garden Center, Mike’s Nursery and the gardeners, there will be lots of plants for sale. And that’s not including the plants that people bring on exchange. I promise, there will be lots of plants.

The way the exchange works is that plants are “priced” according to pot size. For every plant you bring in (it must be in a pot) you will receive a ticket coordinating with the size of the pot. You may turn those tickets in for another plant, or combine them to get a larger plant, or use them in combination with cash to purchase plants. Or you can just pay cash for anything. We still encourage donations as all the proceeds go toward benefiting the Audubon gardens.

Originally published in local papers 30 May 2009.

 

A Festival of Birds!

By Sarah Hatfield

The morning was misty, that morning fog that envelops the trees, and lies across the water like a down comforter. The sunlight was bright, but diffused, as if a private battle was occurring between the elements for the rights to morning. My dad was driving, I must have been, oh, I don’t know, ten, maybe? He was drinking coffee, I was absorbing everything with the intent and the priority of a kid – colors and sounds and little things that loom large in the eyes of youth.

We were headed to Presque Isle, for a bird banding demonstration. I don’t remember a lot; pulling into the parking lot, a few other people, walking down a trail to a small gathering in the morning woods. I remember no faces. I don’t even remember the mist net. What I do remember is the blazing handful of sunshine in the bander’s hand. He (or she) was holding a Yellow Warbler. I remember that. The contrast of the brilliance against the subtle morning was intense. That was my introduction to a group of small birds called warblers. It quite possibly may have been the singular moment my affinity for them began, as well.

In the years that followed, I have been lots of places and seen lots of birds. It is most likely something inborn that I have a weakness for small things – I have had that since childhood. In any case, to this day I maintain a fascination with warblers, the little birds that frustrate so many other people. It also appears that I’m not alone in my addiction.

The Roger Tory Peterson Institute (RTPI) is hosting a Birding Festival June 4-7 and they are focusing on, you guessed it, warblers. Specifically they will focus on those warblers that nest on the Allegheny Plateau. There are 27 of them, you know. Now, it won’t be all warblers because it is impossible to take a birder out and tell them to ignore all but the warblers. But the objective of the field trips is to go to all the different habitats to find all 27 warblers.

What better excuse do you need to attend than the possibility of a field trip? Some of the locations on the itinerary are Hearts Content, Akeley Swamp State Gameland, Newbold Estate, and Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania, and Allegany State Park, Watts Flats Wildlife Management Area, Conewango Swamp Wildlife Management Area, 100-Acre Lot and RTPI, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Woodchuck Hill, Long Point State Park, Chautauqua Lake Outlet Wetland Preserve, and a special multi-site field trip featuring some of Roger Tory Peterson’s old birding haunts in the Jamestown area. Whew. That’s a relative Who’s Who (or Where’s Where?) list of great birding in this area.

As if the field trip lure isn’t enough, there will be workshops and field trips with some of the hot names in birding, Kenn Kaufmann, Pete Dunne, Lang Elliott, and John Rappole. Scott Stoleson, a famed ornithologist from our neck of the woods, does bird banding and research and will be there as well. Scott does bird banding at Audubon on Saturdays in May and we love him (and so do the visitors that show up at the crack of dawn)! If you don’t know these people, or at least their names…well, I’m just speechless.

Of course, the main appeal of this event is that there are going to be all sorts of birders with a variety of skills and areas of expertise there. And when you get that many people who are obsessed about birds together, it’s amazing they don’t all start sprouting feathers, the energy level is that intense. It’s fun, too. You get to be outside, sharing something you love with others, and learning things from people that live and breathe birds (not literally of course, that would be weird) daily and get paid for it – this is their job! How cool is that?!

I started my obsession early and it has followed me through life. I’m not a seeker – going out to just check a bird off my list. I love the birds themselves, and the most familiar are the ones I connect with the most. I can’t teach a group of children in the spring without singing “sweet, sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet!” and then pointing out the Yellow Warbler broadcasting that song from the tip of a dogwood bush. It is the song of spring, and the handful of sunshine I saw when I was a child changed my life. It could change yours, too.

For more information, visit the website http://www.rtpi.org/birding-festival.html or call Jim Berry at (716) 665-2473 x225. The festival will be fun, a good time, and you’ll get to see warblers! I really can’t conceive of a better way to spend a few days than that. If you can’t make the festival, keep in mind that both the Roger Tory Peterson Institute and Audubon have good birds and a lot of knowledge to share. We love birds, but we’ll talk to people too, if it means we can share our love of birds!

Happy Warble-ing!

Originally published in local papers 23 May 2009.

 

A Pilgrimage to Place

By Sarah Hatfield

My college reunion is coming up, the last weekend in May. Now, my college friends are scattered across the country, so reunion is one of the few times we get a chance to see each other. I am not going. I can’t. The Allegany Nature Pilgrimage is the same weekend, and when push comes to shove (people versus nature), the great outdoors will win. In case you were wondering, that’s how central a role nature plays in my life.

According to the source of all sources Wikipedia, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search for moral significance. It can be secularized a bit, to mean a journey or search for something of personal significance. Regardless, it is a meaningful journey. And the point is in the journey, the getting there of it all, rather than in the destination.

Allegany, of course, refers to the place – Allegany State Park. It encompasses 65,000 acres of land, from creeks to forests to fields to hills. Campgrounds and cabins, trails and amenities such as canoes, paddleboats, and more attract people from all over the country. It’s a great place to go backpacking and hiking and picnicking. And of course, it’s the site of the annual Nature Pilgrimage.

So this weekend, May 29-31, is a journey into the wildness, to learn about wildflowers and trees and fish and moths and ferns and birds and more. Sure, there is a destination for your car and belongings, whether it is a cabin, a campsite, or in one of the group camps. But the purpose is the travels of your thoughts over those three days.

May your thoughts wander to that which you never noticed before, the little insects and lichens that colonize the world underfoot. You might notice the colors as they are, not as you assume them to be, and fill your mind with a rainbow whose ribbons of hues have no name – you must invent them. Or perhaps you will meet a person who will stand with you and stare and puzzle out eyelines and wingbars until you key out the warbler.

This pilgrimage is not one of religious origin, but it is, for many, one of personal belief and faith. Spending a weekend in the woods, photographing the awesomeness surrounding me, catching fish for the fish program, wandering off into the night in search of frogs, sitting and laughing around a fire, playing Frisbee with friends, and feeling the earth start its transition to summer is a reaffirmation of my faith in this planet. I believe in her resilience, and her weakness. I have faith that she can survive the wounds we inflict, but that she will forever carry the scars.

This weekend in the woods is fun. Pure, simple, natural fun. This weekend is also educational, though as far from bookish and lecture-like as you can get. It is about hands-on experience and learning by engaging your sense on a primal level – seeing, touching, smelling. This weekend is reflective. It gets you so close to the world’s support systems, and reminds us that the things that keep us alive are right here in a state forest. All the medicine and doctors in the world can’t help if there are not enough healthy plants to exchange the air and decomposers to break down the waste.

This weekend is a chance to hang out with fellow naturalists and nature-lovers that you might not see all that often during the course of the year. Most of all, it is a weekend that is about you and the state park surrounding you. There isn’t good cell phone reception, so essentially, you’re pretty cut-off from the hustle and bustle outside the boundary lines. And there’s no TV or radio to hear news. There are cars, but not many. It is about the life all around you that awakens the life within you.

Maybe that’s where the pilgrimage part comes in. You travel away from your daily life and into Allegany State Park. You journey away from routine and bills and schedules and obligations into meandering and interest and exploration. As you walk through the forests and fields, each step takes you closer to the very essence of who you are.

Originally published in local papers 16 May 2009.

 

Connecting People to Animals

By Sarah Hatfield

The moment the chickadee lands on your hand, turns his head to look at you, snatches a seed, and leaps into the air. The first leopard frog song of the year – a slow internal rattle that magically wakes up something inside you. The feel of a day old chick in your hand, the warmth and fuzziness as you hold it up to your cheek. These are things that, without fail, bring a smile to my face.

Animals have a power that we forget about a lot of the time. Even interacting with them daily, there is time to forget. It’s only when my little orange cat lays on the top shelf, with his head resting on the clothesline and his big eyes looking at me that I realize the happiness I gain from my pets and the animals in this world. When the chickens run helter skelter through the yard, wobbling from side to side like miniature linebackers, it makes me laugh out loud, no matter what the day has been like.

That’s why animals are used in therapy. They bring an element that other people lack. They depend on us for so much, and yet retain such an air of independence that it hard not to admire them. They trust us to give them what they need. Yet they are survivors, fighters. They do only what comes naturally, with no agenda or ill-intent. They play and eat and hunt and sleep and bask and swim and just live every day. They just are. What a treasure they have in their simple lives.

Some people abuse that innocence and trust, though. They hit, starve, kill, scar, neglect, or traumatize animals. Whether the reason is ignorance or maliciousness, there is no excuse. And so there are organizations everywhere dedicated to the cause of helping animals.

People can help animals in so many ways. We can volunteer at a shelter where abused, neglected or abandoned pets are given sanctuary, a reprieve from their terror. We can adopt an animal that needs love and companionship and patience to learn to trust. We can volunteer for a wildlife rehabilitation organization who takes in injured and orphaned wildlife, releasing those able to be released, finding suitable homes for the non-releasable ones.

It doesn’t end there. Just using your eyes and collecting information can be the key to saving a species from its demise. Biological surveys are vital in helping animals and the scientists who study them. Program exist around the world to do just that – monitor population of turtles, frogs, bats, birds, insects, just about every animal you can think of. There are some that happen right here in the United States, right here in New York and Pennsylvania.

You can help. Don’t ever doubt your ability to help. Clean up trash in a stream, block off a section of heavily trafficked roads during salamander migration, protect habitat for nesting birds and egg-laying amphibians, support your local wildlife sanctuaries. There is so much you can do.

That’s the theme this year of our Animals of the Earth Day event. The date is April 26th, from 1-4:30pm and there will be both people and other animals in attendance. We’ve invited a variety of people that help animals from all over the area to come and show off what they do and how they help. Some of their animals will be there as well. It’s a great way to celebrate the Earth (it is for Earth Day, you know), learn more about how to help animals, and meet some of those animals up close. Your admission fee of $5 helps too, because it’s the money that goes towards caring for the more than 25 animals that serve as the educational animals for the Audubon.

We hope you join us this day, to meet some animals, help some animals, and visit our 600-acre wildlife sanctuary. As of this writing, some of the participants include the Northern Chautauqua Canine Rescue (NCCR), a wildlife rehabilitator, a reptile rescue, a pet store employee/pet owner, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and of course, Audubon. Other participants are tentative.