Hoodlums on Wings

Ravens and the dark side of nature

He was perched on a wooden fence post, croaking “Tok, Tok” repeatedly and seemingly to himself. From across the road, I could see his beak opening and his crown feathers flaring with excitement. He was looking at the ground, with one set of claws on a wire and the other on the post, and there was something in the yellow grass that held his attention. Though I couldn’t see what it was, I knew it was more than likely dead or dying.

Maybe this assumption came because it was October and spooky things were already on my mind. But it was more than just that. This was a raven after all, a bird who makes a living on death. I’ve spotted many of them over the years, but never with such stark contrast, set against the classic desert panorama–a landscape bathed in sunlight, full of browns and reds, distant plateaus overlaid by brilliant blue sky. The raven here seemed superimposed, like a black hole in the galaxy or a gash in a painting. He was a visual assertion that despite an abundance of warmth and light, the desert holds space for darkness.

Of course ravens are rarely just fixtures on the scenery. Always up to something, they can be brash and loud, like rocks thrown into a pond. Usually, when their attention is captured, it means some opportunity or advantage is about to be gained. I’ve never seen them as casual observers, but usually on some task, either scavenging roadside or making murderous forays into the trees, with desperate little birds hot on their tail feathers.

One day I saw a large raven steal a house sparrow chick from its nest at the top of a telephone pole. The chick’s parents were dive-bombing desperately at the raven’s head, but were finally forced to quit after the baby was pulled apart and devoured right in front of them. Adding to the savagery was the raven’s nonchalance, like a teenager eating a Big Mac.

This neighborhood bully image is supported by the raven’s size. I’m not sure if many people understand how big they really are, at least as big as a chicken, if not bigger. Ravens are similar in appearance to crows, but larger, and their beaks are more powerful and shades darker. They have feathers that are not just black, but jet black, with a bluish tint that can only be seen when the bird turns at certain angles in the sunlight. This glare creates a metallic, even spectral appearance.

Still, the raven is not just a plunderer, scavenger, murderer. Anthropomorphism aside, he is also intelligent, which adds another level of intrigue. When you observe a raven, he’s also observing and judging you. Scientists have said that ravens have the intelligence of a two or three year old child, and there is even documentation of ravens using tools (mostly sticks and rocks) to obtain food and water, which is unparalleled in the avian world. When it comes to vocalization, only parrots can outperform the raven.

A classic horror comedy: “The Raven” starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff.

With all this, it’s easy to see why ravens have long been part of Halloween decorations, horror movies, scary stories and the darker side of folklore. The famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe depicts, in a masterful way, the perception of trickery and the feelings of dread that are possible when encountering the raven. Such moments can feel more like interactions as opposed to just mere “sightings.”

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,”Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “are sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore–Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

One such experience took place when I was a child sometime in the mid 1980’s. I was on top of a houseboat on Lake Powell in Southern Utah. It was early morning, and the water in the high-walled cove where we had anchored was dark and still. The sky was just beginning to brighten, and we awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking on the lower deck. The owner of the boat, a friend of my father, had been coming up the stairs and back down, cleaning and organizing the boat. Suddenly we heard two ravens talking to each other on the cliffs above, with deep, gravely, voices that echoed across the canyon making them seem even more supernatural.

One little boy, still inside his sleeping bag, became quiet and began to stare into the sky. He was the boat owner’s son, and after a moment he couldn’t help but ask: “What are they saying Dad?” The innocence of the question was indelible.

“They’re saying, ‘Eat Johnny,” the father replied, with a mischievous smile. We all giggled, but little Johnny remained silent, his eyes fixed upward, his body frozen with fear. It was only later in life when I realized that “Eat Johnny,” was entirely within the realm of possibilites.

Edward Abbey depicted the raven’s adaptability as one of nature’s undertakers. In “The Dead Man at Grandview Point,” he described them rising “heavily and awkwardly” from the bloated corpse of a man who had fallen victim to the wilderness.

Despite my many observations, I had never actually handled a raven until just a few years ago. My kids had barged into the house one day, wide-eyed, to tell me there was a large bird in the garage. I went out and found a raven on the floor. She appeared to be an older bird, thinning, but still with vitality in her eyes. I couldn’t immediately tell if she had any injuries, but she’d obviously had her bell rung, probably from hitting a window, or the side of the house. She must have come in through the open garage door. I put on a pair of gloves and corralled her in a corner, scooping her up and holding her wings close to her body so she wouldn’t thrash. Then I took her out to the driveway, with open sky above us, and set her on the ground to see what she would do.

She looked at me for a moment, with those dark but shiny eyes that seemed to be sizing me up and drawing me in. Then, in an instant, she took off, lifting upward with big flapping wings toward a stand of nearby trees. Soon she had disappeared into a tangle of dead limbs and shadows. Never once did she look back to thank me. There was only a sense that she had made yet another escape and seized yet another opportunity.

For the Love of Lizards: A World Lizard Day Tribute

Masters of terrain, they enliven the desert like no other animal can

On a bright summer morning, near the 4th of July, I was navigating foxtails and prickly pear cactus, making my way toward an outdoor amphitheater in a small community park in Southeastern Utah.

The heat was tolerable, partly thanks to a nearby canyon which still had shade, a small creek, and a latent pool of overnight air. After about 500 feet of meandering, the dirt path soon diffused across several big slabs of sandstone, speckled with patches of green and orange lichens.

Perhaps it was luck, or just that my eyes were already primed for color, but I happened to notice something especially vivid and alive, some 30 feet away. Whatever it was, it was perched near the back row of the amphitheater.

As I moved closer, I began to see the big collared lizard, warming himself in the sun.

The Eastern Collared Lizard. Photo by Z. Toad. (all rights reserved)

For a moment he watched me as I stood watching him. He seemed very self-assured, but as soon as he realized my presence he was gone in a blur, disappearing into a nearby crevice. It was as good a find as any reptile enthusiast could ask for. I was struck, perhaps more than ever, by the vibrancy of his markings that, in isolation, seemed more tropical than temperate.

I’ve had many such encounters with wild lizards over the years. It’s true that sometimes they can seem ubiquitous, commonplace or even pesky, but their prominence on the landscape has made them fine subjects for art and literature and historical accounts of all kinds.

John Muir, while following sheep through the Sierra, made sure to include lizards in his warm and detailed observations:

“Lizards of every temper, style, and color dwell here, seemingly as happy and companionable as the birds and squirrels…”

“The Whiptail” by Z.Toad, colored pencil.

Edward Abbey, too, seemed to find lizards philosophically useful, and as much a part of the wilderness as the rocks and sunshine:

“The lizard sunning itself on a stone would no doubt tell us that time, space, sun, and earth exist to serve the lizard’s interests; the lizard too, must see the world as perfectly comprehensible, reducible to a rational formula. Relative to the context, the lizard’s metaphysical system seems as complete as Einstein’s.”

As for Muir’s depiction of lizards as being “companionable,” I would say this is true, at least in my experience with Western species. Even the dreaded Gila Monster is mostly a gentleman, unless provoked. (Disclaimer: Do not attempt to prove this.)

In younger days, lizard catching was a regular part of my outdoor adventures. But it was a real challenge to actually get them in your hands. Most lizards seem to have speed woven into their DNA, and the hotter it gets, the faster they become.

Still, when captured, lizards usually relax dramatically, and only occasionally will they attempt to bite, and then for just a moment or two. Releasing a lizard back into the wild is easy, and sometimes they will even pause to say goodbye before jetting off.

A striped whiptail becomes docile after capture. Photo by Z. Toad.

As for hunting techniques, I started out catching lizards like a caveman would, using just my hands or maybe my hat. But after more failures than victories, I eventually learned to use tools, including butterfly nets and fishing poles with the line tied into little slip knots at the end. Bucket traps were an option too, but riskier and probably illegal.

Not all of it was fun and games, however. After several solid captures, I realized that many lizards detach all or part of their tails while trying to escape. And there was something about seeing an amputated lizard tail, bloodied and wriggling on the ground, that made the pastime seem less appealing.

These days, I mostly just capture photographs if possible. Lizards are very keen about spotting any movement, being always wary of predators, so it’s easier to get close to them if you move very slowly.

One of the hardest species to photograph are the whiptails, because they, in particular, are full of speed, and their movements are almost bionic. They rarely hold any position for long. Despite this, they’re probably my favorite desert lizard, because they look so much like bigger monitor lizards–or even miniature Komodo Dragons. In reality, whiptails are actually more closely related to the Tegu, a large lizard native to South America.

A blue-bellied plateau fence lizard oversees his kingdom in a Ponderosa forest. Photo by Z. Toad.

Whiptails occupy riparian areas, where willow, rabbitbrush and tamarisk are common. They are also the kings of dry riverbeds and trailside clumps of Gambel’s oak and Manzanita. Their presence can often be detected by their distinctive tracks in the sand, which consist of long continuous lines flanked by tiny claw marks.

As for the species at higher elevations (mostly the fence lizards) they can be more muted in color and athleticism, but they are respectable nonetheless. They can often be spotted on the tops of boulders, doing little push-ups as a type of signal to other lizards or even intruders.

One of the most amazing of the desert dwelling lizards is the Chuckwalla. It’s a species that was often considered food for native peoples in the Southwest. Chuckwallas are known for their ability to inflate their bodies inside rock cavities, wedging themselves inside and making it nearly impossible for a predator to remove them.

A fence lizard blends in with the surroundings, including fallen leaves. Photo by Z. Toad

With all the charming, and sometimes bizarre, antics that lizards can display, it’s easy to agree they deserve recognition. And this week, August 14th, is World Lizard Day, so it just made sense to write something about them. Ultimately, lizards are so admirable because they seem unwilling to go unnoticed, especially when compared to other reptiles, like bashful snakes.

As for the collared lizard, he certainly seemed to think he was something special that day. And how could he not when his territory included an amphitheater of all things? In retrospect, it was a perfectly poetic setting–the best of backdrops for one of nature’s true performers.

Ancient Trees and a Legendary Bear

Natural history and mythology share a landscape in common

I was standing beneath the branches of a centuries-old Limber pine, contemplating the accomplishment of its life and admiring its three main trunks, pointing like a trident into the sky. It was a clear August morning. Nearby, a ridgeline of knee-high grass flowed south, overlooking the azure shores of Bear Lake and the idyllic town of Garden City, where I had been staying with family for a couple of days. The contrast between the beachtown and the forest was sublime.

I had dropped my backpack at the foot of the tree, well aware that I was the first visitor of the day–a rare occurrence in this age of faddish recreation. While resting beneath the ancient tree, I watched the morning sunlight filter through the remaining forest, washing over treetops before percolating down to the understory. At the trailhead, I had learned that Clark’s Nutcrackers had done a lot of work here, using their wings and beaks to scatter an estimated 30,000 tree seeds across the surrounding range.

I’d been wanting to do this hike for some time, not for physical fitness–the trail is barely over a mile long–but because the surrounding area had something in its history that called to me. This corner of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest had a story to tell that went beyond ancient trees–it was a holdout of sorts, for the deepest kind of wilderness, where nature and mythology were intertwined.

“Old Ephraim” was the last known grizzly to roam the State of Utah. Standing ten-feet-tall on two legs and weighing over 1,100 pounds, the local shepherds called him “Three Toes,” after one of his forepaws was injured while tangled in a steel trap. Leaving his crooked print wherever he went, he wandered the mountains between Bear Lake and Logan for many years, eluding poisoned bait and bullets alike.

But the great bear finally met his end on an August night 100 years ago, when a trapper named Frank Clark, desperately looking to avenge the deaths of hundreds of sheep, finally found his chance. As Clark’s hound dogs assailed the trapped bear, he fired shots from an under-powered rifle, merely killing by degrees. Old Ephraim died slowly overnight while Clark listened and waited in the dark.

In his story “The Bear,” William Faulkner beautifully encapsulates the simultaneous glory and emptiness of the trapper’s toil and the ferocity of his foe:

He had already inherited then, without ever having seen it, the big old bear with one trap-ruined foot that in an area of almost a hundred square miles had earned for himself a name, a definite designation like a living man–the long legend of corncribs broken down and rifled, of shoats and grown pigs and even calves carried bodily into the woods and devoured, and traps and deadfalls overthrown and dogs mangled and slain, and shotgun and even rifle shots delivered at pointblank range yet with no more effect than so many peas blown through a tube by a child–a corridor of wreckage and destruction beginning back before the boy was born, through which sped, not fast but rather with the ruthless and irresistible deliberation of a locomotive, the shaggy tremendous shape. It ran in his knowledge before he ever saw it. It loomed and towered in his dreams before he ever saw the unaxed woods where it left its crooked print, shaggy, tremendous, red-eyed, not malevolent but just big, too big for the dogs which tried to bay it, for the horses which tried to ride it, for the men and the bullets they fired into it; too big for the very country which was its constricting scope.

On the way to the Limber pine. Photo by ZT.

With my eyes overlooking this related country, and my mind thinking back, I felt the peculiar amalgamation of triumph and disappointment. It was still very much that ancient wilderness, but it had been changed forever, diluted and domesticated by the assault of good intentions.

That doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness, men myriad and nameless even to one another in the land where the old bear earned a name, and through which ran not even a mortal beast but an anachronism indomitable and invincible out of an old, dead time, a phantom, epitome and apotheosis of the old, wild life which the puny humans swarmed and hacked at in a fury of abhorrence and fear, like pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant,–the old bear, solitary, indomitable, and alone; widowered, childless, and absolved of mortality–old Priam, reft of his old wife, and outliving all his sons.
William Faulkner–“The Bear”

My surroundings made it easier to get lost in nostalgia. I imagined Ephraim chuffing and rooting as he might have passed beneath this same tree on a morning just like this. I was reluctantly grateful for the Boy Scouts who, at some point after Ephraim’s death, exhumed his remains and, more nobly, donated his skull to the Smithsonian and later the Utah State University. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ephraim) The donation likely helped the legend to go beyond just the back porches of sheep men and ranchers.

My backpack still leaned against the base of the Limber at its widest point, as wide as a car. I saw other smaller and younger specimens of Limber, some “only” 200 to 300 years old, and a long-forgotten wooden railing which marked a spot where early forest managers had apparently attempted a makeshift viewing platform, probably an effort to protect the roots of the old tree, which were now partially exposed and thick as railroad ties.

The trail leading up to the Limber had been well-groomed. I had entered the forest to the sounds of squirrels and birds echoing into the still warming air, taking the left-fork first and then climbing a fairly steep incline through shimmering fir and aspens, alternated with clumps of mountain mahogany and gamble oak.

The trail going back held more of the same beauty. To the west, was a mosaic of treelines and clearings–good bear country that was now filled with summer sun. The trail was bright and cheerful and the rockless dirt underfoot was full of organic material, giving it a sort of sponginess that returned energy and made my footsteps light. I passed a few pines bent from years of heavy snows, one at nearly a 90 degree angle, like a chair.

A Morning View on the Limber Pine Nature Trail. Photo by ZT.

As I rounded a bend on the western section, I came into a small clearing with a good view. Recent rains had left mud puddles and it was in one of these that something caught my eye. It was a fresh black bear track transecting the path, headed back to the east toward the Limber. By the looks of it, the bear was small, maybe even a cub from last year. But it was definitely on top of the other tracks and had likely been made within the last couple of hours. I got some photos, looked around anxiously (more so for the mother than for the cub) and continued on.

A black bear track on the trail. Photo by ZT.

It had been a poetic, even ironic discovery. The bear print was a reassurance that the wilderness here, while profoundly changed from Ephraim’s time, was not completely lost. There was still continuity, flowing like a river between the ancient and the modern. The old tree was still holding this line in both time and legend. And it appeared that the bears, in their own way, were holding it too.

An Ode to Quail

Out of failure comes a greater appreciation

We weren’t always on good terms. I tried to shoot one once, during a boyhood attempt at being a hunter. Gripping the stock of my Daisy lever-action BB gun, I went down on my stomach into the dry grass.

The little covey was pecking through sunlit fallen leaves, like miniature rhinos, with their thick necks and plump gray bodies moving in sync. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. After about five minutes of crawling, stopping, and squinting down the gun sights, I was getting closer.

It’s a strange thing about hunting. The adrenaline. Even though the prey wasn’t dangerous, it somehow still felt dangerous. My pulse was up as I pulled myself along, trying not to snap a twig. So far, they seemed oblivious to my presence.

Gambel’s Quail at Phoenix Zoo. Photo by ZT.

When quail get startled, they flush from cover into the sky and branches above, sending a wave of surprise back to the observer. I’d felt it a few times before, while hiking along, just enjoying the scenery, or daydreaming about girls. Suddenly there would be a burst of beating wings from the understory in front of me, and it would be some time before the hair on the back of my neck returned to normal.

I was getting closer now. My long sleeve shirt was damp at the elbows, and it was getting harder to keep quiet. Both arms were aching from holding up the gun and alternately pushing it through the grass ahead of me.

And they were constantly moving, these crazy quail, with bobbing heads and a quick, almost robotic, movement that made it very hard to keep sights on them for long. I wanted to take a trophy male if possible, as most hunters do. With black and white face markings, head plumes (topknot), and reddish feathers fading into gray, the males were unique. They were also bigger, of course, which meant more to eat. I was planning to take one home and cook it up, while my family watched in awe.

Finally, I got my chance. One of the males paused in the sunlight. I’d already chambered a BB, so I snicked off the safety and pulled the trigger.

“Didn’t even flinch,” I thought. I worked the lever-action again as quietly as possible and chambered another round. Plank, I fired again. Nothing.

“Was my aim really that bad?” I knew I could easily shoot a camouflaged grasshopper from 20 feet. These birds were much bigger. I tried again, this time firing directly into the tightest group in hopes of hitting one of them, any of them, trophy be damned. To my amazement, nothing again.

Although I was inexperienced, I knew that chances come and go quickly for hunters. It was no different now. Just one of them caught a sound of me and up into the sky they all went. There was no raised heartbeat now, only sinking disappointment. I got up and checked the ground where they’d been, just to be sure.

During the walk home, I questioned what I’d been doing anyway, and began to worry that I might’ve just wounded one of them and it would now be left to a slow death, gasping in the dirt until some lucky predator could come along.

I didn’t want to be that kind of hunter anyway, causing unnecessary suffering. But there was no way to follow them up, no blood trail or tamped-down grass. When quail are gone they’re just gone. And I wasn’t even sure I’d hit one. Maybe, after all that crawling and squinting, I was just a bad shot. Or maybe the gun had failed me, lobbing the BB like a grenade instead of sending it straight, which it had been known to do occasionally. Regardless, I had failed.

Seeing them better

A few years later I learned that using a BB gun to hunt quail (as opposed to a shotgun with birdshot) would’ve been difficult to say the least. And eating them probably wouldn’t have been the delicious experience I had hoped for, certainly not with my prehistoric cooking skills. There was no guarantee it would’ve tasted good at all, being so exotic. I tried eating pickled quail eggs on a salad once at a fancy Brazilian restaurant, and the experience left me questioning whether I’d ever eat eggs again.

There are two subspecies of quail that have very similar appearances in the West. The California Quail occupies the coastal regions including Oregon and Washington, with range stemming into parts of northern Nevada and Utah. The Gambel’s Quail, its southwestern cousin, ranges through southern Utah and Arizona into Mexico. The Gambel’s has a lighter gray plumage with more reddish tones on its wings and less distinctive black scales on its belly.

While there are many scholarly descriptions of quail, I found the Cornell Lab’s to be the most eloquent:

“The California Quail is a handsome, round soccer ball of a bird with a rich gray breast, intricately scaled underparts, and a curious, forward-drooping head plume. Its stiffly accented Chi-ca-go call is a common sound of the chaparral and other brushy areas of California and the Northwest. Often seen scratching at the ground in large groups or dashing forward on blurred legs, California Quail are common but unobtrusive. They flush to cover if scared, so approach them gently.”

(The Cornell Lab,https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/California_Quail/overview#)

Making Amends

Nowadays quail are just for watching. Their distinctive presence occupies some of the best types of habitat–where cleared land meets shrubs or treeline. It could be said that quail announce where the wilderness begins. Somehow their calls reassure me there’s still variety in the landscape.

But they aren’t just ambassadors of the chaparral. They’re, thankfully, a backyard and garden bird too, often seen scuttling across roadways or patios from one shrub to another on those blurred legs and sometimes blurred wings. Like special warfare operators, quail can utilize both terrestrial and aerial environments.

One thing for sure is they like to move quickly, and they often can’t be watched for long without binoculars.

Either way, it’s just enough time to be satisfied with the sight, and to be reminded of how life rolls on, from old failures to new understandings.