I spent last week birding in New Hampshire. On Wednesday, I
went north, to the White Mountains, in hopes of pretty much the same northern
birds we get in the Sax-Zim Bog and Boundary Waters area. Unfortunately, New
Hampshire is prone to the same autumn weather patterns that we are in the North
Woods. I’d had a perfect sunny day on Monday on the coast, and a perfect sunny
day on Thursday when I went to a popular hawk watch site, but Wednesday started
out rainy and although the drizzling finally stopped, the gloomy darkness
remained. We didn’t see many birds at all thanks to the weather, but I didn’t
even care. I was out with one of the premier birders in the state, Dave
Govatski, who has personally hiked every single mile of trail in the White
Mountain trail guide, and personally skied every mile of cross country ski
trails in his entire state. He’s one of the most committed conservationists
I’ve ever met, who spearheaded a lot of great projects to protect valuable
habitat and to create wonderful paths and boardwalks to make them accessible
with minimal damage to vulnerable ecosystems. I know a lot of people who are
creative and knowledgeable, who can come up with great ideas for protecting
important places, but Dave is not just a visionary—he’s a doer and an effective
project manager who has the practical experience, passion, and energy to see
the projects all the way through, beginning with the fundraising. He’s a
veteran, and credits his military experience with giving him the practical
know-how to get things done.
Dave brought me to several spots where moose are often seen,
including places where some people had seen them earlier that day, but we
didn’t see any at all. I’d seen one feeding in a pond while driving up to his
house, but that was on an interstate with a semi right behind me and one in the
left lane, so I had no margin of error to slow down at all. Moose are very much
threatened by climate change, their future not at all secure, but despite the
fact that I didn’t get any good looks, they seem to be doing quite well in New
Hampshire, where there are moose crossing signs all over the place.
Dave Govatski and I also got skunked on Boreal Chickadee,
Gray Jay, and Black-backed Woodpecker. We crossed the Vermont border to get to
the place Dave thought would be best for Spruce Grouse, and in that case we had
wonderful luck, with a gorgeous male right there on the path ahead of us. As we
approached, the bird didn’t flush—he simply strolled a short ways off the
trail, giving me wonderful looks. I don’t like to use flash, and the light was
very, very poor, but I took dozens of photos and a few turned out okay, even
taken at 1/20 of a second using an ISO of 1600.
As fun as it was spending a day with a superb naturalist, it
was also fun to meet Dave’s wife, who actually lived on Peabody Street when she
was a little girl. Her house was just a couple of blocks from mine, and she
went to St. Michael’s School just down from me. This of course made me think of
the differences between human migrations and bird migration, which somehow
doesn’t seem as random. Then again, I didn’t ask a single bird I encountered
whether it had spent time in Duluth, and now I’ve migrated back. I could ask my
backyard birds whether any of them have spent time in New Hampshire, but I
suspect that most of them aren’t talking.
