Douglas

Yesterday I received a supply of guidebooks from the school and a pair of binoculars. I had been looking forward to collecting these items for a full week. Although I spend quite a bit of my time in the woods, field biology is not among my strengths. I can identify deer, dandelions, birch, and other obvious plants and animals. That is as far as my elementary understanding of plants and animals gets me. When it comes to identifying birds, I am utterly perplexed. One would think that because I spend so much time in the woods I would be inclined to learn more about the nature that surrounds me. But this is not the case. It does not bother me to not know the name of every colorful flower I see on my walk around the block. Instead, I learn about pieces of the world around me when they peak my attention. I prefer to admire the simplistic parts of nature. I look at it with the eyes of an artist, not those of a scientist.

The tall trees of my sector canopied the surrounding area, shading me from the intense sunlight. I sat my guidebooks down and grabbed my binoculars. I decided the logical place to begin my exploration of field biology was birds. After watching a slideshow in class of nearly every bird in Northeast Ohio, I figured “how hard could this be?” There were not many birds to memorize and the loud chirping noises around me suggested that I was in a prime location. I was wrong! The first bird I saw was a male Northern Cardinal. These birds are probably the most common on my street, so it was a slightly pathetic find. Furthermore, the bird’s red feathers make it impossible for any human to miss. When I tried to look at the bird with my binoculars to gain a closer look, he saw me and flew away.

I moved on and tried to find another bird to identify. The ceaseless high-pitched chirps to my right seemed like a good place to start. One would think that it would be easy to locate the source of an endlessly repeated noise, but my attempt provided futile. After I walked to my right, the noise seemed to develop from all around me rather than a single location. Even if were to hear where the bird was coming from, the chances of finding him in the leaves of the canopy would likely be fruitless. The birds I did see jumped from tree to tree so quickly that there was no chance that I could ever identify them. My endeavor left me feeling discontented.

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During a cool day in July, I packed my gear into my cabin’s squadron of green Old Town canoes. As a counseling team, we had already decided the canoe pairs of the day. The daily announcement of these groups are anxiously awaited by the eleven year old campers eager to find out if they would be canoeing with their best friend. Because of the odd number of people in our group, one unlucky camper would have to duff for the day. After calming the ecstatic campers, we announced the canoe pairs.

I was paired with two campers, meaning that one of them had to inevitably accept to duff. To my astonishment, Douglas enthusiastically offered. I knew beforehand that Douglas knew quite a bit about birds. During one on one conversations with him, he always liked to talk about them. His introverted personality would become animated and engaged when he saw a rare bird and shared it with the group. I did not know how to respond in these instances. I just tried to ask questions and keep him excited, but deep down inside, I always thought it was a bit of a strange talent. That was until I was in a canoe with him for a day on the Namekagon River…

I later reflected in a letter to Douglas’s parents, “Douglas’ love for birds is truly remarkable. I have seen some intense passions before, I myself am a serious car geek and encyclopedia, but never before have I seen anybody that knows his passion as well as Douglas. On the second day of the trip, I was in a canoe with him, and it was an incredible experience. While we paddled, he would say something along the lines of, ‘you see that bird over there in the distance?’ By in the distance, what he really meant was something along the lines of a flying spec in the distance. ‘That’s a Blah Blah Blah!’, he would explain, and then he would tell us about it. We would ask him, ‘Douglas, how on earth do you know this?’ to which he would respond something along the lines of, ‘I can tell by its flight pattern’ or ‘because of its call.’ The sheer amount of birds he could identify and the amount of knowledge he knew about each one of them was astonishing and so cool. One time a bird on the shore was making a weird hissing sound at us, and Douglas told us not to get any closer otherwise the apparently slightly aggressive type of bird would attack us. Who knew? Bird knowledge saved us from potential danger. That moment was one of the highlights of my entire summer. For us on a canoe trip, the bird spotting talent made canoeing much more exciting. I have never seen someone so excited to duff in a canoe to just watch the birds and splash the other campers.”

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I moved to my backyard, essentially an open field, which I thought would provide better spotting. At this point, I gave up on bird identification with my guidebook. All I wanted to do was just see a bird up close, in the flesh. I slowed my movements this time around as to not scare any away. I was standing below a tall oak tree in my yard when I heard some chirps emerging from it. After looking straight up into the tree with my binoculars for a few minutes, my neck strained from the effort, I finally saw a group of small birds resting in the tree. I could not identify them, but for a brief instance I stared into the eyes of a bird. But the bird was not who I thought of in this almost spiritual moment, instead it was the shy eleven-year-old camper that continues to blow my mind.