Wild Encounter with a Cooper's Hawk

The wildest encounter I have ever had with an animal in the outdoors occurred during a canoe trip down the Delaware River in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area back in the summer of 1983. My co-leader Margaret and I were guiding adolescent summer campers on a combined canoe/backpacking that was taking us down the Delaware River and then north on the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey.

One day Margaret and I were in the same canoe. I do not recall who was in the bow and who was in the stern.  As we paddled downstream, one of us noticed what appeared to be a bird flapping its wings midair several feet over the water and a few yards from shore but going nowhere. Paddling closer, we realized the bird, a  Cooper's Hawk, had become entangled on a fishing hook suspended from a fishing line hanging from a tree branch out over the river.

Margaret steadied the canoe as I stood up in it. I reached up as high as I could and grabbed the line. I then pulled it down as low as I could, passing over the tangled bird until I could reach the line above it.  Using my Swiss Army knife, I cut the line about a foot above the hawk and sat back down in the canoe while I was holding the fowl by the line. Margaret paddled over to shore where we both climbed out onto the New Jersey bank with me still holding the hawk, suspended by its wing, the fishing line still in my hand.

Hawk after we removed the hook

While I held the hawk by the line, Margaret emptied a small nylon stuff sack and put the sack over the hawk's head, covering the beak. She then cradled the creature in her hands while softly singing to it.  I used my knife to carefully cut the three barbed hook, line attached, from out of the crook of the animal’s wing.

After I removed the hook, Margaret sat the hawk down on the bank and removed the stuff sack. The Hawk stood up straight, puffed out its chest, and pulled back its wings as if enjoying its freedom, and stared straight at us. I grabbed my  camera and snapped the attached photo. I don't recall how long all this took, but it seemed like a half hour or so.

Margaret and I had no idea how long the hawk had been suspended mid-air over the river by its wing, nor do we know what eventually happened to this beautiful creature, but we both felt intense satisfaction for having freed it from its predicament. The experience was the highlight of a very memorable trip. Thirty-seven years later, I still recall it as one of the most intense, transcendental wilderness encounters with an animal I have ever experienced.

My Mentor Muir

What book or author has motivated you to get outside, venture forth into the wilderness, hit the trail, and experience nature?

I was already a bit of a hiker, backpacker, and camper when, as a teenager, I first encountered John Muir through the pages of Edwin Way Teale’s The Wilderness World of John Muir. I received this 332 page hard back as a Christmas present from my sister and brother-in-law when I was sixteen years old, over forty years ago! I think I read it soon after and have come back to its worn pages time and again. Like an old friend whose stories remind me of younger days, whenever I read Muir, whether from the pages of The Wilderness World of John Muir or from The Mountains of California or Muir’s Mountaineering Essays edited by Richard Fleck, I find that Muir’s words can usually transport me back into the wilderness, even wilderness I have never personally experienced.

Muir’s compulsion to experience nature and the wilderness, and his ability to write about what he experienced, captivated me and motivated me to go and do likewise. Reading about his 1,000 mile walk has convinced me that had they existed at the time, Muir would have hiked both the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, and would have probably blogged about his adventures if the technology had existed. His descriptions of the High Sierra, especially the area around Yosemite, invited me to not only explore nature and experience my own wilderness adventures but to also, like him, write about them. Maybe there is just a little Muir in me when I blog about a hiking or backpacking trip on Summit to Shore.

While not directly backpacking related, my favorite Muir story is, without a doubt, “Stickeen,” a touching story about a brave little black dog that accompanied Muir on a glacier while Muir was exploring in Alaska. I have returned to that story many times, and almost every reading brings tears to my eyes. If you have ever experienced K-9 companionship on the trail and have not read this short story, a mere nineteen pages in Teale’s The Wilderness World of John Muir, do so at your earliest opportunity, but make sure you have a box of tissues handy.

This post, slighty edited, first appeared on The Trek.

Backyard Fall

Autumn has finally arrived in New York City, at least the vibrant leaf colors I usually associate with fall, and particularly in the little corner of Queens that is our backyard. Recently one morning I opened the back door so that I could take food and water out to the cat. Flaming yellow leaves of the single maple tree growing in our small patch of urban wilderness greeted me, foliage brilliantly illuminated by the morning Sun to the southeast, vibrant translucent gold set against a cloudless dark blue patch of sky that hinted of winter.

Some trees in my Ridgewood neighborhood have already lost most, if not all, their leaves. Other trees are still dressed in full green, holdouts against the season. The tree in our back yard falls into the middle of the spectrum, still holding on to most of its leaves but every leaf offering its previously hidden pigment. If its leaves were fiery red, I would claim the tree was a descendant of Moses’s burning bush, aflame but not consumed. Its leaves are golden yellow however, suggesting this particular tree ought to be sitting at the end of some rainbow and guarded by leprechauns.

Now that the morning temperatures have cooled, I have taken to wearing a hat in the morning when I walk our dog, and I have totally abandoned wearing shorts, a past habit I mourn, as I have surrendered to fall’s onslaught. While the mercury has fallen, the blond leaves on the tree in our back yard lift my spirit whenever I see them, interest paid in advance of winter’s debt. If it were not for this and other such bright spots in what could otherwise be canyons of brick and mortar set amidst concrete and blacktop plains, I would be tempted to crawl into my urban den, not to stir from hibernation until the first hint of spring.

Life Will Find A Way

Sometimes even against the greatest of odds life finds a way. For instance the other day I noticed a few small purple and orange flowers poking their way out of a thin crack in the concrete in front of the house (photo right). Upon closer examination I discovered that the winners in the struggle for survival were pansies.

My wife thinks that last year she scattered some loose pansy seeds after planting pansies in a flower pot on the front steps. Somehow a few of these seeds settled in the crack, survived the winter, and are now flowering. I find it amazing and worthy of awe.

Back on March 22nd I wrote in that day’s post that “every-day beauty can be seen in places other than the obvious, from tree lined streets, both residential and commercial, to wildflowers growing in window boxes.” I had no idea back then that the beauty of nature would be making an appearance out of a thin crack in some concrete, but it is. And it has touched my citified soul and caused me to ponder greater mysteries.

In my mind it is not a great intuitive leap from those pansies poking through a thin crack in the concrete to life on our planet. Against great odds life took hold on this planet and while some species have become extinct, life in general still thrives on a hunk of rock circling a star in the midst of the cold vacuum of space, sort of like a concrete in front of our home sun.

Why We Go to the Summit and to the Shore (and to the Sky and to the Cave)

I just finished reading John Muir’s The Mountains of California. While there were several passages that stirred my soul and re-ignited my desire to return to the mountains, overall the book did not live up to my expectations. Nevertheless, a paragraph in the penultimate essay, “In the Sierra Foot-Hills,” offers an argument for our setting aside and protecting wilderness areas and why we visit them, and prompted me to pen the following reflection. But first the passage:

"Fresh beauty opens one’s eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountains-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to the common every-day beauty."

Unless you experience Central Park or one of New York City’s other parks, you might think there is not much fresh beauty in New York City. Yes, New York City has its share of urban decay and blight, but there is still common every-day beauty to be seen in places other than the obvious, from tree lined streets, both residential and commercial, to wildflowers growing in window boxes.

An ordinary lone evergreen growing in a yard in Queens takes on symbolic significance once you have seen the giant sequoias of Muir Woods. Skates and mussels in Jamaica Bay look more beautiful once you have snorkeled amongst the coral and tropical fish of the Caribbean. Even calcium deposits dripping from underneath bridges and in the subway appear more sublime after you have seen stalactites in Mammoth Cave.

We normally think of large wilderness preserves as a place for urban dwellers to retreat to, to find fresh air for the lungs and solace for the soul. Wild places, once visited, can also transform how we look at the urban environment and help urban dwellers to appreciate even a common orange pansy growing in a front stoop flowerpot (photo right).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A day spent in the wild can help us refocus our gaze and see our urban landscape in a fresh perspective.

Mountain Anamnesis

I am still meandering through John Muir’s The Mountain’s of California. His description of the forests of the Sierra has been a little slow going, but out of the blue, in the midst of his description of the “Magnificent Silver Fir, or Red Fir,” I stumbled upon the following description of a campsite upon his waking in the morning. Muir’s prose transported me in my mind’s eye to a mountain environment, from which I have been away far too long, and served as one more reminder of Muir’s awareness of and ability to communicate the sublime. Muir writes:

In the morning everything is joyous and bright, the delicious purple of the dawn changes softly to daffodil yellow and white; while the sunbeams pouring through the passes between the peaks give a margin of gold to each of them. Then the spires of the firs in the hollows of the middle region catch the glow, and your camp grove is filled with light. The birds begin to stir, seeking sunny branches on the edge of the meadow for sun-baths after the cold night, and looking for their breakfasts, every one of them as fresh as a lily and as charmingly arrayed. Innumerable insects begin to dance, the deer withdraw from the open glades and ridge tops to their leafy hiding-places in the chaparral, the flowers open and straighten their petals as he dew vanishes, every pulse beats high, every life-cell rejoices, the very rocks seem to tingle with life, and God is felt brooding over everything great and small.

My heart began to race and my breath quickened as I read the above passage. By the time I finished I was nearly in awe. After several pages of documenting careful scientific observation which left me a little cold, Muir served up a description of a campsite in the morning that stirred my soul.

It has been a long time since I have been in the mountains and even longer since I have had the opportunity to spend a night in a tent, rising in the morning to experience sun, warmth, and signs of life returning. Reading Muir has reminded me of the Mountains’ beauty and ability to reawaken my spiritual sensibilities. It is time for anamnesis.

Sublime Nature

For the past several months I have wanted to write about sublime nature. The desire grew in part from a comment my fellow kayaker and water blogger Bonnie wrote in response to my post about Searching for a Retreat Center. She wrote “Kayaking sort of IS my retreat. I don't think I ever feel as peaceful & right with myself & the world as I do when I'm out on the water.”

I could not agree more with my friend, but I would add hiking and climbing to kayaking and trails and mountain tops to water. Sometimes I wonder how much of my religious and spiritual sentiment is an outgrowth of my love of the outdoors and how much of my love for the outdoors is an outgrowth of my spiritual and religious sentiments. My ecological ethic has, after all, been as influenced by Thoreau, Muir and Abby as by the two creation accounts of Genesis and the Book of Psalms.

While recently serving jury duty I started reading John Muir’s The Mountains of California and was inspired by Muir’s following description of alpenglow. “To me [alpenglow is] one of the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devout worshipers. Just before the alpenglow began to fade, two crimson clouds came streaming across the summit like wings of flame, rendering the sublime scene yet more impressive, then came the darkness and the stars.”

Whether it be evening alpenglow, early morning mist rising and burning off from calm water, or sunlight illuminating early morning fog in an Appalachian forest accompanied by the gurgling of a mountain stream (photo right), my spirit can be similarly lifted by the experience as if I were in a Gothic Cathedral illuminated by candlelight and the sun shining through stained glass windows, the sound of Gregorian Chant resonating off the stone walls.

Anatomy and Evolution of a Prayer

I generally follow and adapt “Prayers of the People: H” found on page 120 in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship when leading the Prayers of the People. One petition in particular of this prayer has developed and grown over the years of my ministry. The petition reflects, among other things, my passion for the environment. The petition reads as follows:

Awaken all people to the danger we have inflicted upon the earth.
Implant in each a reverence for all you have made
that we may preserve the delicate balance
of creation for all generations.

While the petition as I pray it might slightly change from Sunday to Sunday, what follows is generally the petition as I now pray it.

Awaken all people to the inconvenient truth
about the danger we have inflicted upon this planet entrusted to our care.
Implant in each of us a reverence for all you have made
that we may restore and preserve the delicate balance of creation
for all creatures, even to the seventh generation.

The Book of Common Worship was adopted in 1993. "A Brief Statement of Faith" was adopted two years earlier, in 1991. I like to alter the original petition in the Book of Common Worship to reflect the confessional language of line 38 of "A Brief Statement of Faith" which reads “and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.”

I am a charter member of Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, now Presbyterians for Earth Care, and in 1996 was trained as a Restoring Creation Enabler at the Ghost Ranch “God’s Earth – Our Home” weeklong conference the week before the Albuquerque General Assembly. Reflecting my association with Presbyterians for Restoring Creation and my RCE training I usually alter the original petition to pray that we may “restore” as well as “preserve” the delicate balance of creation.

In the late 1990’s I was active with West Virginia’s Interfaith Climate Change Campaign. Years later and soon after Al Gore released his award winning documentary film about global climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, I began to modify “the danger we inflict upon this planet entrusted to our care” by referring to “the inconvenient truth about the danger we have inflicted upon this planet entrusted to our care.” I do not think Al Gore would mind.

As far as I know I cannot claim any Native American ancestry. Nevertheless, my spirituality has been influenced by Native American spirituality, especially my reading of Crazy Horse Hoka Hey! and The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, participating in a Sweat Lodge, and attending a few Pow Wows. As I understand Native American spirituality, ”the seventh generation” refers to the Iroquois belief that we are responsible to provide a quality of life for those seven generations to come.

I believe that our responsibility to provide for the seventh generation refers not only to humans but to all creatures. We share this planet entrusted to our care with birds of the air and fish of the sea as well as other animals of the land and interconnected in a web of life that humans are only now beginning to understand. Thus we seek to restore and preserve the delicate balance of creation not just for humans but for all God’s creatures.

Over the years, my own experiences and interests have influenced how I pray this particular petition in the Prayers of the People. How have your interests and experiences influenced the content and language of your prayers?

Bird on a Rope

I went by the Sebago Canoe Club Monday morning to mow grass. The club grounds were serene and quiet. As I was getting ready to open the garden shed to bring out the mower I saw this bird (photo right) perched on the rope of a boat holder. A young robin perhaps?

Even as I was opening the shed and bringing out the mower this feathered friend did not move. At first I thought it might be a precariously balanced decoy, a finely crafted replica meant to deceive. As I approached closer, however, I could see its chest rising and falling as it breathed. There was no eye movement. No feathers were ruffled. Just the chest rising and falling. This bird remained perched stone cold on the rope of the boat holder even as I approached as close as two feet.

If my memory serves me right, the only other wild birds I have approached closer to were injured and not able to fly.

For a few minutes in the midst of an otherwise busy Monday I was transfixed by this extraordinary encounter.