Birding Without Borders

by Noah Strycker

  “What kind of writer are you?” he asked.

  “I write books,” I said.

  “Well, what kind of books?” he pressed.

  “Books about birds,” I said.

  “What birds? Can I see one of your books?”

  “All kinds. I write about all kinds of birds. Sorry, I don’t have any books with me.”

  “Hmm. What are you doing in Jamaica, then?”

  “Looking for Jamaican birds.”

  The man became increasingly suspicious, asking a litany of questions. He read every line of my form, and eventually jabbed at a line near the bottom with his index finger.

  “You haven’t listed a local address,” he said.

  “That’s because a friend is picking me up and I don’t know where we’re staying,” I said.

  “You must have a local address. You can’t pass. Step back, sir, please. Next!”

  Brusquely kicked out of the immigration line, feeling embarrassed and denied entry into Jamaica on my first attempt, I wandered around in limbo while everyone else from my flight was checked through to customs. Eventually, I found a wall advertisement for a luxury hotel and copied its address onto my form. Then I scribbled out “writer” and, in its place, wrote “BIRD MAN” as my new occupation.

  When I approached the counter again, it was the same man, but he acted like he hadn’t seen me just half an hour ago. Instead of asking questions, he smiled, scanned my form, stamped it, and filed it.

  “Have a great visit!” he said, and I walked straight through.

  So that was the trick. You just have to fill in every blank, and the wilder your responses the better. After that lesson in Jamaica, I wrote down random hotel addresses on immigration forms—often ridiculously expensive, five-star establishments—and always called myself a “bird man.” Nobody, anywhere, ever said a word.

  The United States official in Houston was no different. Snapping shut my passport, he slid it briskly across the counter.

  “Welcome home!”

  ✧-✧-✧

  It was sweet to hear those words at a border crossing. For the next week and a half I’d be in my home country. I would even spend a couple of nights in my own bed before moving on for the rest of the year. As I walked past the baggage claim into a warm Texas afternoon, I could feel parts of me relaxing that hadn’t unclenched in nearly five straight months in Latin America.

  Somehow, down south, I could never let go of the feeling of being on guard. In the front of my mind, I was always aware of the logistics; in the back of my mind, I was always ready for something to go wrong. Because few of the places I visited were familiar, each day presented a series of little decisions that, at home, I don’t even think about: Where is the nearest electrical outlet? Can you rinse your toothbrush in the sink? What’s for breakfast? How do you adjust the showerhead without electrocuting yourself? Collectively, all of these small questions keep you engaged, but they are also taxing, and they prevent you from settling into a routine.

  The farther I traveled, the more on edge I felt. I always knew how far away I was from home, both physically and figuratively, even if on an unconscious level. This is something innate to all of us: as humans, when we explore the far horizons, we need a base to return to. Nobody can be a true nomad forever, as alluring as that might sound; we all crave a place of our own.

  I hadn’t quite realized how much I’d missed home until I walked under an airport sign that said, “Welcome to the USA.” That sign made me excessively happy—not from patriotism especially, but from a sense of letting go, knowing that, for the next stage, I’d be on well-known territory. I didn’t even care that it was Texas, which might as well be a foreign nation to me. Outside the Houston airport, I looked at the big cars, the road signs in English, the steakhouses, the sprawling gas stations, and even the hitchhikers with the giddy feeling of coming home after a long sojourn in the wilderness. It was as exciting to visit my own country now as it had been, months ago, to leave it.

  I had no time to slow down, though. This border crossing began a new phase—a sprint across the United States and Europe, with little space to rest. For the next three weeks I’d board a flight, on average, once every two and a half days during the short, intense northern summer.

  When I set up my itinerary I’d intentionally planned a mad dash through North America and Europe. It simply wasn’t worth more time. Ironically, the three continents with the most birders have, by far, the fewest birds: the United States, Europe, and Australia each host fewer than half as many species as South America, Asia, or Africa. Diversity concentrates in the tropics, so, strategically, I focused my efforts on the most species-rich areas. It’s also easier to get around with First-World infrastructure, making it possible to blitz from one bird to the next in the United States and Europe, slashing the time needed for these destinations.

  My United States leg would be short and sweet: after two days in Texas, I’d scheduled two days in southeast Arizona, two days in Southern California, several days at home in Oregon, and one day in New York before flying to the Eastern Hemisphere for the rest of the year. It seemed laughably short, but numbers drove my itinerary. I was aiming for specific bird targets, and I would move lightly and quickly to get them.

  At the Houston airport I was met by Michael Retter, a friend who had recently moved to Dallas and had volunteered enthusiastically for a two-day road trip in his adopted state. He was waiting when I arrived, and, as the afternoon light faded, we jumped in his car.

  “We’ve just got time,” he said, “to see one good bird before it gets dark! Did you see a Worthen’s Sparrow this morning, by any chance?”

  “Uh, yes, I did,” I said, “outside of Monterrey.”

  “Good!” said Michael. “Because I doubt if anyone has ever seen a Worthen’s Sparrow”—endemic to northeast Mexico—“and a Red-cockaded Woodpecker on the same day. That would be a neat trick!”

  Michael explained that he’d reached Houston a little early, so he’d stopped to scout a patch of pinewoods near the airport while my plane was landing. There he’d found a Red-cockaded Woodpecker—an endangered species of the southeast United States—and, because this might be my only shot at seeing one this year, we were now headed back to see if we could locate it again.

  While we drove toward the stakeout, Michael outlined his ideas for the rest of our route around Texas: First we’d hit the pinewoods for a few species like this woodpecker, then slide down the central Gulf Coast to pick up some key shorebirds. After that, we’d hightail it to the hill country of central Texas for two endemic nesters, the Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler, before perhaps streaking down to the southern tip of the state for any remaining targets. It was a lot for two days, but the freeways around here had a posted speed limit of eighty-five miles per hour, and Michael was willing to drive all night if necessary.

  “Excellent!” I said. “Let’s go for it!”

  Texas is a great birding state with well-established hotspots, and it was just a matter of connecting the dots to find each species. But my must-see list here was a little unusual, as Michael observed. The birds that people typically look for in Texas were mostly ones I’d already seen: either Mexican specialties that barely make it across the border (which I’d already found in Mexico) or long-distance migrants that accumulate along the coast during spring (which I’d already seen on their wintering grounds in Central America). On my shopping list were locally common birds that normally wouldn’t seem very exciting: Blue Jays, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens, and other backyard residents. I had already recorded the rarities elsewhere—in the places where they were common.

  But the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, which isn’t common anywhere, presented an exquisite exception. These woodpeckers are persnickety about where they live, digging cavities only in the trunks of live, mature, longleaf pine trees in scattered patches of savanna forest between Texas and the Carolinas. That pickiness hasn’t helped their populations adapt to a shifting landsc
ape, and today the Red-cockaded Woodpecker is listed as an endangered species. Their nesting areas are now heavily managed and monitored to protect the birds that remain.

  Michael’s woodpecker spot was a ten-minute drive from the international terminal, and we arrived just before sunset.

  “These birds can be sort of lazy,” he warned as we walked into the forest. “Each evening, they climb into their tree cavities to roost for the night. Sometimes they go to bed early. I hope we’re not too late.”

  He pointed at a tree with a garish white stripe of paint around the base of its trunk.

  “It’s easy to find Red-cockaded Woodpecker nesting sites because many of them are marked,” he said. “Researchers paint the trees to help monitor populations.”

  The two of us stood a hundred yards away and watched quietly. Luckily, our timing was perfect: right after sunset, a bird swooped in, landed on the tree, and announced its presence with a loud queeck like the sharp sound of a squeeze toy.

  The woodpecker was small, less than nine inches from bill to tail, and intricately patterned with black and white over its entire body. Its cheeks were bright white, helping distinguish this bird from other small black-and-white woodpeckers like the Downy and Hairy. It hitched vertically up the bark, moving in jerky spasms toward the entrance of its cavity. In the distance I could hear one or two others queeck-ing back and forth; the Red-cockaded Woodpecker is unusual for living in social groups, with multiple roosting sites on each territory, and I supposed they were bidding each other goodnight after another long day of pounding their heads on pine trees.

  With one quick heave, the woodpecker dove into its hole. Its head appeared at the entrance for a few seconds, as if taking one last look before going to sleep, then retreated inside.

  “That’s it!” said Michael. “Come on, we have a ways to go tonight.”

  With a sigh, I turned to follow him out of the forest. The woodpecker was at home, but I was just passing through. Even in my own country, I seemed to be a visitor, never quite satisfied with where I stood at any given moment. As long as there were more birds to see, I had to keep flying on and on and on.

  ✧-✧-✧

  When I did finally reach home, I couldn’t settle. In my original plans, I’d allowed several days at my house near Eugene, Oregon, as the only rest stop during the year. In late May, almost at the midpoint of my round-the-world journey, I thought it might be nice to hang around home for a little while.

  I had a few jobs to do, anyway: get a haircut, get my teeth cleaned, pick up my duplicate passport with visas for Africa and Asia in it, buy a new cell phone, replace my watch battery, purchase new shoes, swap worn-out clothes for replacements, spray my gear with mosquito repellent, and scarf down my mom’s fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Those tasks took half a day. But then, accustomed to birding every single second, I couldn’t help feeling restless. After one night in my own bed, instead of taking it easy, I called up a couple of friends, Dan and Anne Heyerly, and asked if they’d like to go birding for a couple of days.

  I’d known the Heyerlys since I was about twelve years old, attending meetings of the Southern Willamette Ornithological Club in Eugene. Dan, a retired real estate appraiser, and Anne, a pharmacist, met through the group and were married a few years later. When I was a teenager they often took me on local excursions, encouraging my interest, and they had done as much as anyone to help guide my passion for birds. Now they liked to vacation in far-flung destinations such as India and Morocco on hardcore birding trips, wearing matching field gear and keeping their lists together. As friends and fanatical birders, they were closely following my progress.

  “What are you missing?” asked Dan, getting right to the point.

  “And do you think you’ll reach six thousand by the end of the year?” pressed Anne.

  She had been running some calculations of her own and thought I had a good chance of hitting 6K.

  I’d already drawn up a list of bird targets in Oregon, and I thought I might add fifty species in my home state. For once, I could enjoy being the local expert. It was fun to plot out routes on familiar turf.

  “I could use a few coastal birds like Greater Scaup and White-winged Scoter,” I said, “and it would be nice to see a Tufted Puffin, since I won’t find one anywhere else. As for the final tally, who knows? I guess six thousand is possible!”

  The three of us decided to hit the central Oregon coast, where a longstanding puffin colony would give us an almost guaranteed sighting of the charismatic birds. From Eugene it was a two-hour trip to Newport, a small city on the rocky shores of the Pacific Ocean, where we’d start working our way north to the puffins.

  As we drove, I told Dan and Anne about my most recent stops in Arizona and California, which had been productive but tiring. In Arizona, birder friends John Yerger and Scott Olmstead of Tucson joined forces to exhaust nearly every possible species in two days, even venturing into the famed California Gulch, a remote canyon on the United States–Mexico border, to nab a skulking Five-striped Sparrow. Dan and Anne nodded with appreciation—they’d been there, too. Then, in Los Angeles, I spent two crazy days birding with a colorful cast of characters: a NASA asteroid physicist named Lance Benner; an entrepreneurial nonprofit CEO named Dave Bell; and a twelve-year-old superbirder named Dessi Sieburth, who had just been named the American Birding Association’s “Young Birder of the Year” in an annual competition that I had also won as a teenager. Despite our differences, we shared an all-consuming passion for birds, and we stayed up each evening talking about little else.

  Increasingly, as the Big Year rolled on, it seemed I was gaining a little celebrity, among birders at least. Word about my project had filtered out, and now I was being recognized each time I arrived in a new place. People told me they were following the blog, and many asked about my recent adventures. It was fun to be feted, but sometimes tiring. After a full day in the field, I often stayed up late as the guest of honor, adding to my deficit of sleep.

  Dan, Anne, and I spent an easygoing day on the Oregon coast, hitting some scenic spots typical of our beautiful state. These places were all rooted in me from a lifetime of attachment, and I noted all the familiar details of the lighthouses, rocky promontories, shallow bays, and miles of towering sea cliffs. Sunshine lit up the landscape, and hardly a breath of wind licked the water. Lush, green forest lined pristine sandy beaches, unspoiled by development, where seals and otters frolicked in the sparkling breakers.

  It was one of those idyllic summer days that people visiting Oregon hope to experience. After months of traveling, I had worried that my sense of awe would get jaded, but now I marveled anew at the natural assets of my home state—which, in 2015, was named the most popular state in the United States to move to. Having witnessed the whole range of spectacular scenery lately, I was glad that, for sheer magnificence, the Oregon coast compared favorably with just about anywhere.

  Near the peaceful seaside town of Pacific City, Dan, Anne, and I stopped to look for the puffins. We set up our spotting scopes on a beach and aimed at offshore Haystack Rock. Tufted Puffins, like awkward clowns with enormous orange beaks and yellow head plumes, nest in burrows and cracks in the rock, where they can be seen flying and perching during the summer. Each year, pairs return to raise their chicks in the same burrows they used the previous season.

  As we stood there in the late afternoon sunshine, I thought back to some of the other places I’d stood so far—from Antarctica to the top of the Andes, the Amazon to the Mexican wilderness. It felt just as satisfying to be here, where I knew the birds like friends and where my friends were birders. When this year ended, I knew I’d be content to come home.

  “I’ve got one!” shouted Anne, peering through her scope. “It’s flying clockwise around the back of the rock.”

  Dan and I watched the right side of the stack, where, sure enough, a football-shaped black bird with a neon-orange beak rocketed into view. This Tufted Puffin, my 2,701st species of the year, flew
on stiff, paddle-shaped wings, flapping so hard that it seemed it could barely stay aloft. Those wings become flippers underwater, and puffins are one of the most elegant swimmers in the bird world, but it was hard not to laugh at the bird’s clumsiness in the air.

  A man on the beach stopped, stared at us with a curious expression, and asked what we were looking at.

  “A puffin!” I said, keeping my eye glued to the scope.

  “Oh, that’s cool,” he said, casting his gaze offshore. “I see them out on the water sometimes, when I’m on my surfboard.”

  He paused, surveyed the scene, and murmured, mostly to himself, “This place is incredible, isn’t it?”

  Just then, behind the puffin in my field of view, I saw a spout of water rise above the horizon—a whale taking a breath against the gathering sunset. In these calm conditions, it was easy to spot the blow from a great distance, and I watched the whale surface a couple of times in quick succession.

  “Yes,” I agreed, with a huge grin. “There’s no place like home.”

  10

  Missed Connections

  ISHOULD HAVE KNOWN that my worst flight nightmare would come true in the United States. After months of smooth sailing with any number of dubious-looking airlines in Latin America, the wheels finally came off in New York. There, courtesy of United Airlines, I experienced the real-life embodiment of the nine circles of travel hell.

  I couldn’t seem to get out of the state. My first flight from Ithaca was delayed, then canceled, because the crew failed to show up. Rather than rebook me onto a flight with a later departure, the ticket agent stuffed me into a taxi bound for a completely different airport, where I waited out the rest of the afternoon, only to learn that a second flight was delayed, then canceled, because of thunderstorms. After that, in exasperation, I caught a Greyhound bus to New York City, arrived in the pelting rain at 2 A.M., crashed for a couple of hours at a Manhattan hotel, and managed to fly out the next day. By then I had been delayed for twenty-seven hours. It was a short, infinitely short, period of time in the space of a whole life, but an excruciating epoch within the confines of the Big Year.