Nature beyond Solitude: Notes from the Field

by John Seibert Farnsworth, Thomas Lowe Fleischner (Foreword by)

Overview

John Seibert Farnsworth's delightful field notes are not only about nature, but from nature as well. In Nature Beyond Solitude, he lets us peer over his shoulder as he takes his notes. We follow him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and grad students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment. With humor and insight, Farnsworth explores how communal experiences of nature might ultimately provide greater depths of appreciation for the natural world.

In the course of his travels, Farnsworth visits the Hastings Natural History Reservation, the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the North Cascades Institute's Environmental Learning Center, and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501747304
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

A lifelong student of literary natural history, John Seibert Farnsworth taught environmental writing and literature at Santa Clara University. He is author of Coves of Departure.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Notes from the Hastings Natural History Reservation

Don't trust your memory; it will trip you up; what is clear now will grow obscure; what is found will be lost. Write down everything while it is fresh in your mind; write it out in full — time spent now will be time saved in the end, when you offer your researches to the discriminating public. Don't be satisfied with a dry-as-dust item; clothe a skeleton fact, and breathe life into it with thoughts that glow; let the paper smell of the woods. There's a pulse in a new fact; catch the rhythm before it dies.

Elliott Coues, Field Ornithology, 1874

June 19 Last full day of spring

I'm five minutes early, but the deep voice on the other end of the speaker tells me that I'm right on time. It's the kind of voice that sells pickups on TV. Full-sized pickups. I punch in the code, the electric gate swings open noiselessly, and I drive into the reservation, pulling over just inside to await Vince, the reserve director. A University of California, Berkeley, official-business-only pickup arrives in no time. The Cal pickup dwarfs Little Dog, and Vince is covered in sawdust. When he shakes my hand he warns me that I've arrived on the cusp of a heat wave. But I already know that. A nationwide "heat bubble" has been forecast stretching from here through the desert southwest, and extending through much of the Midwest, lasting most of the week. The forecasters have prophesied all-time records being set in places like Phoenix and Death Valley. But it's only in the 90s here, right now, in this rolling oak savannah. We won't hit 100 until tomorrow.

I am ready. I've brought along a broad-brimmed "soaker hat" that my mother sent out for my sixty-second birthday, back on the first of this month. Polyester. I looked it up on the Internet and was informed that it's tan, and that its braided trim adds a rugged accent. In the mirror, it looks like a cowboy hat trying desperately to pass as something else. When I'm finally unpacked and able to stroll the reserve, I'm happy to discover a faucet at the side of the road halfway between my study and the labs, as if someone put it there specifically so that I could keep my hat wet during the commute. I stop, remove the hat to wet it for the first time ever, and learn a quick lesson when an earwig washes out with the first gush. Before I can protest, it scrambles up under the internal sweatband. Pincher bug! From now on, I'll let the water run for a moment before inserting my hat into this faucet's stream.

I know the earwig is harmless. All the same, I flush it out rather that capture it by hand.

When I get up to the labs, conversations focus on the impending heat wave. They are worried about the birds, of course. Acorn woodpeckers are cavity nesters, and it's expected to get hot enough inside some of the trees to kill nestlings. It's anyone's guess how many birds will be lost over the course of the next week.

I'm immediately snatched up by Natasha, a fourth-year PhD candidate who wants to climb to a few nest cavities tomorrow. Protocols require a safety assistant whenever technical climbing is involved, and so it is that I'm pressed to service. We'll weigh chicks and we'll get to do some banding, she promises. It will be fun. I find her smile convincing.

Natasha's face clouds slightly with what appears to be her singular concern: whether I'm a morning person. I assure her that I can be up at first light, but she waves off such silliness. "I usually start work at 7:00," she explains. But tonight the grad students are planning to camp out on the top of a hill. They've borrowed a nine-person tent from the reserve director, but some are now thinking that it will be too hot for a tent. Regardless, we won't be starting until 9:00 tomorrow. She hopes we'll be in the shade most of the morning, so I'm not to worry about the late start.

I poke around the lab a bit. It's narrow and cluttered. Along one countertop sits an array of clear, plastic boxes — Tupperware? — peppered with tiny air holes and occupied by black widow spiders, females, one spider per box. At the moment four teams of researchers are present at the reservation, studying acorn woodpeckers, western scrub-jays, black widow spiders, and western bluebirds. There's history here, decades' worth. Part of that history is narrated by a bumper sticker affixed to an office door that proclaims, "Bluebirds rule. Woodpeckers drool." I tell Natasha that I look forward to working with her tomorrow and then I wander away, my hat almost dry in the afternoon sun. I wonder, rhetorically, what it would be like to be Natasha's age again, looking forward to a hilltop campout during the almost-full moon on a hot evening one night prior to the summer solstice.

This year, for the first time in my life, the full moon will sync with the summer solstice.

The breeze comes up at 5:30 p.m., and transforms the reservation. Birds suddenly remember their songs, and my ears are drawn back outside. I've been assigned a studio in the schoolhouse, which was built in the 1920s to serve as a boarding school, back when this was still the Hastings Ranch. The original curriculum featured lessons in the morning and horseback riding in the afternoon for those who had finished their lessons. Current events were discussed at lunch, and French was spoken at dinner. In modern times the official language here is birdsong, and cell-phone service has never made it out this far. But we have electricity here in the schoolhouse, and I was smart enough to pack a small electric desk fan in one of my duffels. For the rest of the week, that fan will be my prized possession.

I'm here for two weeks, actually, which is a good thing. They charge researchers twenty dollars a night for stays up to a week, but for longer stays the room rate is discounted to fifteen per night. With a research budget like mine, this is a very good thing. It's probably an even better thing for the crew here studying the cooperative breeding behaviors of acorn woodpeckers. They've been conducting this study, here at Hastings, for forty-five years.

A quick word about the birds. Acorn woodpeckers fascinate scientists because they live in groups, often with multiple breeding males and females, and nonbreeding helpers. The breeders share mates readily, and females lay eggs in a common nest, which is always a cavity nest. They hoard acorns in communal granary trees, which hold thousands of acorns in holes drilled by the group over a period of years. They have brilliant black and white faces, and the adults have a glowing yellow eye. Red crowns. They are quite vocal, even for wood-peckers. Some would call them "articulate."

June 20 Summer solstice

Regardless of the prospect of a late start, I awaken at daybreak. The dawn chorus here at the schoolhouse is particularly raucous; the Steller's jays and the western scrub-jays compete to outshout each other, while the California quail scream about Chicago. I hear the wakka-wakka-wakka of nearby acorn woodpeckers. Far off, I hear the squeeze-toy screams of a red-shouldered hawk. Crows in the background further contribute to the chorus' discordant timbre. As an aficionado of the universal dawn chorus, I rate the one at this field station a courtesy grade of B minus. Fine effort, but too many corvids. Otherwise, the morning is delightfully chill, and I slip into a lightweight fleece sweater before switching on the teakettle. I can barely wait for the tea to steep before heading outside with spotting scope and binoculars. My impatience causes me to spook the wild turkeys that congregated over by Little Dog. Tomorrow morning I'll know to pause on the porch, opening the screen door slowly.

The birds I'm seeing are all fairly common hereabouts, but no less enjoyable for their familiarity. Old friends: the blue-gray gnatcatchers, an industrious black phoebe, frantic Anna's hummingbirds, bumbling California towhees, an ash-throated flycatcher, an orange-crowned warbler, and plain-old warbling vireos. Acorn woodpeckers and western bluebirds, everywhere. Cavity nesters seem to define the avian community in these parts — this community is distinctly oakish.

The solitary part of the morning passes all too quickly, and I forgo the morning shower knowing that I'll probably need it worse by midafternoon. I fill all three water bottles — two with water, one with ice tea — and then in a testament to my own absentmindedness leave them sitting by the sink. Unencumbered, I make my way to Natasha's lab, eager for whatever awaits.

Consistent with my customary punctuality, I walk into the lab at 8:55. Natasha announces that plans have changed because her major professor, Eric, spotted two woodpeckers flying to a sycamore tree last evening, and heard the chicks greet them. Our first job this morning is to find the nest cavity.

There are no trails here, once we leave the road, except for the one Natasha breaks through the waist-high grass. I follow, and quickly realize that it had been a mistake not to bring my above-the-ankle leather boots on this trip. I'd considered it, but had decided that they would be too hot. So later this afternoon it will take me half an hour to remove the grass-seed spears from my socks.

Natasha seems impervious to poison oak, almost carelessly brushing up against it, and I find it difficult to keep up with her as I choose careful paths around toxic shrubbery. At a few points I suspect that my boots have gotten into it — the oily, glossy leaves are almost impossible to avoid in these woods. I'd been warned about this by a biology professor back home; when she heard that I was heading for Hastings, she mentioned two concerns: poison oak and ticks. At least she didn't mention the rattlesnakes.

We stop at the first sycamore we come to, and immediately begin searching for woodpecker-sized holes. After a few moments we hear a voice calmly asking, "Where are you?"

"We're at the sycamore on the cabin side of the creek."

"That's the wrong tree."

"Are you sure?"

"I'd be able to see you if you were at the right tree."

Pause. Then, "So where is it?"

"Come toward my voice."

We find the right tree in due time. Eric is uphill from it, but we can barely see him through the thick understory. This sycamore is twice the size of the first, and when we arrive at its base, we are greeted by dozens of mosquitoes. They are tiny, and I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt, as is Eric. Natasha's arms are bare, and the mosquitoes find her attractive. She comments on them, but doesn't waste energy slapping them away. We have birds to find, and she raises her binoculars toward the canopy, as do I.

We can't get a good view from where we are. Eric thinks the nest cavity will be on the uphill side of the tree because adult woodpeckers have been approaching the tree from that direction. However, the poison oak is especially thick on that side of the tree, and there's no way to get a view without wading through it.

Natasha wades through it.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. Since my move to California in 1984, the avoidance of poison oak has been a major preoccupation. I'll hike at night, I'll hike in the rain, I'll hike uphill on a sweltering day, but I won't willingly cross through poison oak. In her next thirty-two steps, Natasha will entangle in more poison oak than I've touched in the past thirty-two years. But not without protest.

"I'm swimming through poison for you, Eric."

"I can see that."

I've never supervised a PhD student — my college doesn't offer doctorates. But I've been one, and I'm certain that the relationship between PhD students and their supervisors is one of the least understood of all human relationships. No metaphor really works: not adviser/advisee, not employer/employee, not preacher/choir, not master/slave, not even teacher/student. Colleagues? Sort of, but not really. You don't wade through a thick thatch of poison oak for a colleague.

We ultimately identify two cavities that might contain nests, but the only way to know for certain, short of observing woodpeckers using them, is to peer inside. The decision is made to use a camera scope, so Natasha and I hike back to the woodpecker shed to pick up a remote camera and a huge telescoping pole. It would probably be more productive for me to hang out here with Eric in case woodpeckers happen by, but I'm hoping to pick up a water bottle when we get back to the lab. I end up borrowing one of Natasha's.

We return. I do not follow when Natasha wades back into the thicket of poison oak with the camera. After all, I've already earned my PhD.

I realize, somewhat gradually, that somewhere during the course of that last round trip back to the lab my hiking boots have failed miserably. Well, they're not "boots" really, not in the sense that they cover my ankles. They are the sort of hiking shoes a fellow like me uses when trekking through arid regions like Baja, where I've done a great deal of my trekking this past decade. But Baja doesn't have grass spears like they have here in the oak savannah, and at this point my ankles are thoroughly pricked. I look down at my footwear and am shocked to see dozens and dozens of grass spears entrapped in the mesh. And it's a good thing I can't see my socks from here.

I realize, belatedly, how wrong this is. I train my binoculars on Natasha's legs and, through the poison oak, I can tell that she's wearing all-leather boots, calf-high, the kind without the cooling mesh. Now I scope out Eric's feet. Yes, all-leather boots. The warm kind. The kind that protect your ankles from grass spears.

I don't remove the spears. No. I've tramped through enough poison oak at this point that I'd only be aggravating my problems. It's better just to bleed in silence.

"This one's empty," Natasha reports.

Oh yeah. Woodpeckers.

Natasha emerges from the thicket, and moves to another possible nest cavity on my side of the tree. The camera transmits its live image to Natasha's cell phone, and she squints to see deeply into the cavity. It, too, turns out to be empty. We regroup, and Eric suggests that one of the field assistants be reassigned to sit in this grove until the woodpeckers return so that the location of the nest cavity can be discovered. This could entail sitting here alone for hours, just a forlorn field assistant hanging out with the mosquitoes. He asks which assistants are doing the least critical work today, and Natasha runs through the day's assignments. She is ultimately in charge of scheduling the workflow, although she tells me later that the field assistants usually get to choose their own daily assignments according to interests and specialties. Usually.

Eric vanishes into the forest; Natasha and I return to the lab. She quickly downs a pint of water, and then we head for the shed where the climbing equipment is stored. We're back to plan A, which involves us hiking through a lot more waist-high grass. She leads the way, encumbered with a stout climbing rope and an impressive assortment of technical gear, no doubt paid for by the National Science Foundation. She has forgotten her field notebook, a formal document using the Grinnell method, but once we arrive at the tree she is relieved to discover that I'm carrying two notebooks, either of which we can use to record the information and then transcribe it later into her notes. I finally feel that I'm making a contribution.

This tree is an enormous valley oak, the girth of its trunk as voluminous as any oak I've ever seen. I estimate that it would take six undergraduates, hands outstretched, to encircle this tree. I girdle it with the anchor sling, careful to reverse the gates of the twin carabiners when connecting it. This is a common safety precaution among climbers, and Natasha is encouraged to see me set up a proper anchor without needing to be instructed in how to do so. She belongs to a tribe where field craft such as this is crucial, and now, as far as she's concerned, so do I. I don't mention that I learned how to set a proper climbing anchor before she was born.

She climbs athletically, obviously an old hand at the ascenders, and yet I can hear her labored breathing once she's eight or nine meters up. I make a mental note that at least she's human. When she finally arrives at the branch, she snugs herself up, withdraws a hammer from her tool satchel, and, using the claw end, begins to open up the nest cavity. Years ago the Hastings researchers developed a system of adding a "bottom door" to the cavity entrances. It's held shut with a couple nails driven halfway in, and in theory can be removed easily to give the researcher access.

She calls down that this is an "ant tree," which I duly note. I will later learn that this means she'll have ants biting her arms as she works. Acorn woodpeckers prefer to nest in ant trees whenever possible; the ants protect their eggs against predators, especially snakes. The strategy seems to be less effective with PhD candidates.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Foreword
Sundowner
1. Notes from the Hastings Natural History Reservation
2. Notes from the Santa Crus Island Reserve
3. Notes from the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory
4. Notes from the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest
5. Notes from the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center
Afterword

What People are Saying About This

Carl Safina

I keep saying that what we need are stories from the original real world, from what, in our estrangement from nature, is called "the field." And here they are, rendered in the moment, on site, feeling the sun as it crosses the sky. John Farnsworth has found, and shares with us: great places, fine people, and the right words.

Robert Michael Pyle

In this utterly original investigation, Farnsworth takes us deep into the hearts of field stations along the West coast and, by working alongside scientists and students, shows us why they remain essential. Witty, attentive, and familiar, this book will change what you thought you knew about nature study in the modern era. If you love the living world, read it right now.

Editorial Reviews

This audiobook unfolds like a real-time journal of environmental field research and translates well to audio. Listeners will follow the author as he visits several West Coast research sites and interacts with both scientists and the natural world they are studying. John Patrick Walsh offers an engaging narration that exactly suits the material. He is at times breezy and conversational and at other times soberly serious. The author mixes in humor, which Walsh delivers in appropriate tones. Farnsworth uses a lot of sentence fragments to emphasize various points, and Walsh makes good use of these in his narration. This work was inspired by the writings of Thoreau and Muir, although it doesn’t reach their emotional and timeless depths. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2020 - AudioFile