What A Fool Believes

What a fool believes--he sees--no wise man has the power--to reason away... Doobie Brothers

American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) with a northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides). This picture would have made my dad, who adored ‘Sparrow Hawks’ (the former name for American Kestrels that he introduced me to as a kid), and who relentlessly trapped any pocket gophers invading his perfect lawn, grin a mile wide.

Anyone who thinks he or she is going to sneak up on pretty much any bird of prey is a fool and certainly in for a bit of a rethink at some near juncture. They don’t miss much, you see. They can’t afford to. Noticing is a big part of how they make their living. It’s how they stay alive. And usually at the expense of others not noticing enough …or soon enough.

A few days ago, while walking along a haphazard row of leafless, twenty to thirty foot trees lining a broad, late summer meadow of waist high, rain-dampened prairie grasses I noticed an unusual looking little sparrow cowering behind a tree branch at about eye level, less than twenty feet from an American Kestrel who had just alighted at the top of the centermost of those dead trees.

“Well, hello, little one! Tell me, who are you?”

This uber-cautious little Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum), caught my eye by cautiously peering around the tree branch to keep an eye on the American Kestrel that had just flown in and perched nearby.

Turns out it was a little Grasshopper Sparrow whose pragmatic sense of caution caught my attention and turned it into an unexpected boon. The mere presence of that attentive Kestrel perched nearby kept my little, migratory, songster friend ‘pinned down’ as it were. He was so noticeably hesitant to move about, obviously unwilling to flit and hop and do normal sparrow things in search of breakfast as long as the Kestrel was watching from a vantage point strategically above him. Apparently I seemed less threatening to him than the Kestrel so it was I who got to study him (my very first encounter with a Grasshopper Sparrow, making him a new ‘life-list’ addition), while allowing the little falcon pretty much nothing; a most astute decision if you ask me.

(A quartet of ‘Grasshopper’ portraits. Click on each image to see details and colors.)

Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum)

He stayed there within that very confined area, avoiding direct, line of sight contact with the colorful little falcon who would have happily eaten him for breakfast, given the chance, while remaining completely open to me, affording minutes of close observation and picture possibilities with a species of bird I’d never seen before, possibilities that, under normal circumstances would have lasted little more than a fleeting glance, or at most a few seconds of slack-jawed observation before watching him flit away.

A Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii), peeling up a bit of bark in search of some tasty little six or eight-legged breakfast morsel in hiding.

There were several other sparrows in those leafless trees in addition to ‘The Grasshopper,’ all of them considerably less nervous seeming; a handful of White-crowneds, a few Lincoln’s and a few Savannahs. Each did seem aware of the needle-taloned observer high in that tree next door and all were suitably careful in their own breakfast reconnaissances, but unlike ‘The Grasshopper’ they also seemed to be enjoying themselves and their companions, despite the safety limitations.

According to eBird a Grasshopper Sparrow had never previously been observed/recorded at this birdy, birding site which, atop every other wonderful thing about it, made my little friend a solitary, winged unicorn as well, one obviously just passing through.

Weary. New place. No friends. These might explain at least some of the nervousness.

I was smitten.

After firing off fifty or sixty frames, between the ‘Grasshopper,’ some of the other sparrows and the Kestrel I thought was ready to move on. But just then that little falcon flew out a distance of maybe a hundred feet, hovered for just a moment and plummeted to the ground, reappearing mere seconds later, wriggling pocket gopher in tow, which Mr. Kestrel then very efficiently ferried back to his perch, there to continue squeezing toward the big sleep, waiting for the struggling rodent to surrender before making it his next warm meal.

Behold the portrait of them that opened this little story, above.

How the heck does a Kestrel hear a pocket gopher from that distance with everything else going on, the diesel tractor in the field nearby and the cacophony of morning birdsongs all around? How did he, while looking in the opposite direction hear and then fly directly to a spot above this chubby little gopher, spot it, dive on it, immobilize it and then fly back to the tree all within less than a minute? Had he actually been waiting for, listening for this burrowing rodent all along?

Remembering how I had begun tiptoeing, moving very slowly and ohh so silently after Mr. Kestrel had flown in and landed in that nearby tree, I was only slightly chagrined at my own foolishness. Yeah, he probably never even noticed me, I chided myself, standing there like a big goob, telephoto camera in hand, pretending to be sly like a fox, quiet as a mouse and practically invisible. Turns out, ‘quiet as a mouse’ isn’t much of a hurdle for a blue-winged mouser with hearing and vision bordering on the supernatural.

What a fool believes
he sees,
no wise man has the power
to reason away… 

Song by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, performed by The Doobie Brothers

It’s nearly always a safe bet to assume that most wildlife you notice will have been aware of you long before you became aware of it. This is certainly true with birds of prey. So, maybe, instead of trying to get all sneaky and pretend-invisible, which only makes you look more suspect to the birds and a fool to anyone else watching, move and behave as if you know they see you, but do so quietly, so as not to tense or alarm them, out of respect for their needs. And maybe add in a little ‘matter-of-fact’ so you don’t come off as creepy.

Trust me, they already know you’re there. They just haven’t decided yet how dangerous you may be to them. Fight? Flight? Or pretend to ignore? That is the only possible ‘say’ you’re ever gonna have in this equation, so use it. Act right.

You don’t see birds freaking out and flying away each time a cow swats a fly or takes a couple a steps, do you? Why? Because they’re not threatening.

Here’s a bit of free, nature nerd advice for the day: Be more like a cow.

Yep, that’s it. That’s the whole deal.

Don’t spend it all in one place.

Freezing fog at sunrise, somewhere between John Day and Burns