Quote taken from VINS-2008 (http://www.vinsweb.org/cbd/mtn_birdwatch.html)
You will find Joan Collins and her son William as members #4756 and 4755 on the registry of the Adirondack Forty-sixer Club. Membership in this elite club is guaranteed to those who carefully execute and document the completed hikes of the forty-six Adirondack peaks above 4000 feet. Joan and William climbed the fourth highest peak, Skylight Mountain, on October 8, 2000 to complete their quest to become 46ers.
At least 6000 others have completed the requirements for membership, but few have accomplished this goal over a 14 month time period as William did at age 8. Climbers of the forty-six peaks face boulder fields, stream crossings, steep slopes, wilderness, occasional bears, snow, ice, and weather conditions that are constantly changing. It is not unusual to start out at a base altitude in 70 degree, sunny weather to experience hours of cold winds, fog, snow or ice above 4000 feet. The accomplishment of Joan and William attests to her determination, drive, passion, and attention to detail she models in all aspects of her professional, family, recreational, and volunteer life. These attributes shape Joan’s impact on bird conservation and education in Adirondack Park.
Joan became interested in birds in 2001 under the tutelage of Elliot Adams who was the Mayor of Sharon Spring, NY. He noted Joan’s interest in birds and spent the next 30 days teaching her to identify birds. She was addicted. Her early observations on finding barred owl nestlings and witnessing the white-winged crossbill irruption of 2001 cemented her interest in field ornithology. She eagerly studied and learned the plumages and vocalizations of every bird she encountered. Joan learned quickly and was proficient enough in bird identification to lead her first bird field trip in June 2001(?). A summer doesn’t go by without Joan leading local field trips in the Long Lake region of the Adirondacks.
Joan’s love and enthusiasm for birds grew exponentially. She edited newsletters for the local Audubon society, and by 2005 she had been elected President of the influential High Peaks Audubon Society. Joan has completed surveys for the breeding bird survey as well as the New York State breeding bird atlas, and has written and edited species accounts for the later. Joan’s wrap-sheet of newsletter writings, field trips, and surveys is two arm-lengths long. Joan’s writing includes a first-hand account of snow burrowing in common redpolls. Common redpolls move south to the Adirondacks in winter.
I wrote Joan in July 2006 inquiring on how and when to find Bicknell’s Thrush on Blue Mountain. Bicknell’s Thrush is for the most part a quiet bird that nests in high elevation balsam fir and red spruce forests in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. These forests above 4000 feet are dense tangles of dead trees and dark needle bearing trees and shrubs. Although the forest is short (10-25 feet), the thick dark foliage and blow down trees make the forest impenetrable off the trail. It is very easy to become disoriented just feet from the trail. These robin-sized, dark birds are impossible to see unless they are perched on the end of branches singing.
Bicknell’s thrush received formal recognition as a unique species at the annual meeting of the American Ornithological Union in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their decision was based on the seminal research of Canadian Ornithologist Henri Ouellet published in 1993. Formerly treated as a subspecies of the more common Gray-checked Thrush, Bicknell’s had been essentially understudied since discovered by Eugene Bicknell in 1881 in the Catskill Mountains. (http://www.ns.ec.gc.ca/wildlife/bicknells_thrush/e/species_is_born.html). The rugged landscape and habitat of Adirondack High Peaks, the Catskills, and locations in VT and NH made studies at best difficult. Bicknell’s thrush differs from Gray-checked Thrush slightly in color and few physical features such as wing dimensions that make precise identification of these birds in migration a challenge even for skilled ornithologist. Nevertheless, the Ouellet study provided a firm foundation for recognition of Bicknell’s Thrush as a separate species. Although the songs and calls of these species sound very similar to humans, Bicknell’s doesn’t respond or react to gray-checked songs when their played in the field. The two species have separate breeding grounds and some molecular data suggests that Bicknell’s may be more closely related to another thrush called the Veery. Subsequently, Lambert, Rimmer, and Goetz have established that Bicknell’s winters on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles. Gray-checked thrush winters in Central America.
Joan responded to my email request that Blue Mountain in Hamilton County had a stable and relatively large population of Bicknell’s thrush. She indicated that dawn or dusk was the best time to hear and see this bird. The tone of her email suggested the bird is a finicky singer preferring clear skies, cool temperatures, and no winds. Because the bird hides well in the spruce/fir foliage, Joan suggested that June and September were the best months to see the birds when they are at the peak of singing performance. In June, the birds are preparing to nest and mate, and in September juvenile birds are practicing their newly acquired singing ability.
The past two years, I have tried on three separate occasions to see and hear Bicknell's Thrush on Blue Mountain in the Adirondacks. For the past 15 years I have taught a three-week field biology course at fifteen miles away at Raquette Lake during August. The timing and relative proximity to Blue Mtn. seem to provide a good opportunity. In August 2006 and 2007, several students from my Field Biology class departed Raquette Lake at 4 A.M. to begin the hike up Blue at 4:30 A.M. The trip was also repeated in June 2007 with my son, Cory, and Tom Pasquarello. Although we chose beautiful mornings for hikes, I only heard three "veeer" calls with the bird remaining hidden.
We were determined
for 2008 to have different results. On June 2, 2008, Tom and I rolled into Long Lake to stay at the home of Joan Collins. Joan’s home is in a rustic setting on 140 acres overlooking Long Lake. Black-throated blue warblers, ovenbirds, and hermit thrush sang near the porch of her home. At dusk common loons howled from the lake below and barred owls hooted in the surrounding forest.
We learned about Mountain Birdwatch during Joan’s vegetable lasagna dinner. Mountain Birdwatch was organized by the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) Darryl Lee McGrath, a journalist from SUNY Albany, brought salad and fresh bread and I shared some of the cucumber soup made for my wife’s birthday the day prior. Darryl was working on a booking examining New York endangered bird species and the people who study them.
Joan laid out the plans for our ascent on Blue: 1:45 a.m. wake-call; 2:30 departure; 2:45 arrival at trailhead and 4:00 arrival to the Blue Mountain peak. Joan would sit, observe, and listen for white-throated sparrow, winter wren, Bicknell’s thrush, blackpoll warbler, Swainson’s thrush from five pre-determined points near the mountain top. We were instructed to be quiet and not move a muscle during these census periods. Joan would record the relative locations of calling, singing, and visual birds within a 50 m radius from her location. This information would be noted on a circular graph that would be filled with the bird species four-letter code (BITH for Bicknell’s Thrush) and lines drawn to indicate birds responding to songs and calls.
Blue Mountain (elevation 3759 feet) stands as a majestic pinnacle in the skyline from Raquette Lake. During August, the sunrises over Blue and the sunset paints the mountain with beautiful colors. In my early years at SUNY Cortland, several warned me of the dangers of hiking Blue Mountain with a class. The trail runs along an old creek bed with basketball sized rocks. The upper third of the trail is steeper with smooth surfaced rocks that are slippery when wet. The trail poses many business opportunities for orthopedic surgeons. My family’s first ascent of Blue occurred in when my children were 5 and 7 years of age. The trip up and back took five hours. The kids thought the hike was punishment, the parents thought is was an endurance test on our patience.
The wake-up knock on the door arrived as planned. There wasn’t much sleep between 9 p.m. and 1:45 a.m. as the barred owl outside the window gave short performances all night. The Adirondack sky at 2 a.m. was very dark. The brilliant Milky Way belt cut the sky in half from north to south. Joan zipped along the curvaceous road from Long Lake to Blue Mountain in her Toyota Prius. My Saturn GLS was racing to stay within site of Joan’s Prius.
At 2:45 a.m., after signing in at the trailhead, we began the hike. It was a mental challenge to make our bodies work to avoid treacherous rocks. The forest was dark and silent except for headlights and the sounds of rubber hiking boot heels hitting rocks and rayon sliding past rayon on our legs. At five feet, Joan has a small stature, but appears natural, confident, and surefooted in walking the mountain in the predawn hours. She carries a backpack with clipboard, extra clothes, water, and essential items. I don’t know the weight of the backpack, but the size was easily half the height of Joan.
Joan often completes the Blue Mountain hike and survey alone and in the dark. Her stories describe other feats of bravery in the name of bird surveys. Pillsbury and Kempshall Mountain are two other peaks where Joan completes surveys alone. Kempshall sounds like a hell-filled climb requiring trail blazing and camping overnight. She recalls encountering two lost soles on a recent Kempshall excursion who eventually followed her to the summit for a cold night of unexpected “roughing-it.” The next morning Joan led the two beleaguered gentlemen out of the forest and back to their car.
We stopped occasionally to remove extra layers of clothes and once at a small stream that crossed the trail. Joan spoke of how this stream with small shrubs has attracted at least one breeding Canada Warbler which was new to this trail. The trail was dark except for the occasional reflection of streaming water or the whitish glow of hobblebush flowers littering the ground. The clear, cool, early morning hours changed as we approached the mountain. A grayish black cover began to block out the Milky Way and a dull roar of wind moved the forest overhead.
At precisely 3:55 A.M. we heard our first Bicknell’s thrush sing a couple of hundred feet below the summit. We froze in our tracks and listened intently. My heart pounded with excitement and for a moment I stopped breathing. Joan heard other distant calls and then instructed us to remain quiet on our final approach to the summit. The final trek passed quickly with great anticipation and the summit was reached by 4:15 A.M.
Joan quickly established a work platform with headlamp and notes on a flat working surface. The mountain has a lone fire tower and an acre of exposed granite surrounded by dense Christmas tree shaped firs and spruces. Our signal to remain still arrived precisely at 4:30 A.M. when Joan announced the time. Quickly Joan started listening and recording the locations and behavior of the five target species on the summit. I used the direction of Joan’s headlamp and her slight head movements to identify the direction of important bird vocalizations.
Several thrushes were in the dwarf forest to our left (west) and uttered several different calls. One eager singer was volleying between singing posts just downhill from our position. My ears perked with excitement. Even Pasquarello had an intense look upon his face. I believe he was studying the method and intensity of Joan recording notes and listening for birds. During the ten minute summit observation period, Joan noted four Bicknell’s thrushes, one Swainson’s thrush, and one white-throated sparrow. The summit winter wrens did not begun to sing until after Joan departed for census point 2. In the early morning hours of June 3, 2008, Joan recorded 19 bird species across all five census points. This included a total of 8 Bicknell’s thrushes.
Tom and I remained on the summit for nearly an hour following the count. Except for a brief tracking of a Bicknell’s thrush on the western slope we remained quiet and in our own world. I followed the pattern of flight of the singing male for almost 20 minutes as it volleyed back and forth over its territory singing from a new location every few minutes. I had a brief 30 second glimpse of the bird against the gray sky while it delivered song from a utility wire. After two years of searching, my goal of hearing and seeing a Bicknell’s thrush was fulfilled. The key to my earlier failures became evident at 5:40 A.M. when the last Bicknell vocalization was heard for the morning. By 6:15 we were ready to leave. (http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/broyles/bicknell.wav)
Later Installments. There are many lessons from the chase and encounter of Bicknell’s thrush on Blue Mountain. These included (a) remaining discoveries, (b) climate change and environmental politics, and the importance of citizen science in the Adirondacks. These issues will be explored in upcoming Broyles Blogs.
1 comment:
Great post! I feel like I was there!
Post a Comment