Seeking solace outdoors
As time grows short and the holidays tighten their grip on your
life, I’d like to offer a suggestion: spend an entire day
– from dark a.m. to dark p.m. – outside.
Seeking solace outdoors
As time grows short and the holidays tighten their grip on your life, I’d like to offer a suggestion: spend an entire day – from dark a.m. to dark p.m. – outside.
That’s it. There are no further instructions required. Pick the spot of your choice, or pick a few, from your favorite morning spot to the sunset-viewing locale of your choice.
At a time when all the mountains have been climbed, oceans crossed and the other giants of adventure slain, it sounds too simple to offer much promise for adventure. A day outside probably will not yield any armchair stories, but it will certainly reveal some personal memories, and at the same time insulate you from, and inoculate you against, the holiday stress that’s infecting everyone else.
I’ve done it a few times, usually as part of an Audubon Society Christmas bird count, which is an annual effort to count every bird within designated circles all over North America. Counts take place during December, right around the holiday that shares its name with them.
These cool days of our California winter are also perfect for a dark-to-dark adventure because they are the shortest days of the year, so you can watch the whole show without getting up at 4 a.m.
Why all day?
Because the landscape itself, and the activity unfolding upon it, changes with each hour. Because things will reveal themselves to you in new ways. Because too few of us spend enough time rooted to the land and the landscape.
My last all-day nature bath came in mid-October. It wasn’t a red-letter dark-to-dark adventure, but it still presented its share of memories, so maybe it’s a good example. We began before dawn in San Juan Canyon, listening to the calls of owls through the trees. Pygmy Owls and Western Screech-Owls sang soprano and left alto parts to the Great Horned Owl’s baritone. As the eastern sky showed the first streaks of green light, different birds began stirring, one at a time. It happened so gradually that each call was easy to identify at first. Minutes later, the full dawn chorus was going, but we had arrived in time for its much more subtle prelude.
At mid-morning, we stood off Airline Highway, overlooking Paicines Reservoir. There, a Merlin seemed to relish making streaking passes low over flocks of Killdeer for the thrill of creating chaos. Merlins are small, dark falcons that tend to migrate with – and dine upon – shorebirds, and the shorebirds are acutely aware of their tastes.
At day’s end, we stood in a pasture in Northern San Benito County, discussing how odd it was that we had been out all day, seen more than two-dozen deer and more than 110 different bird species, but we hadn’t managed to see or hear a single Barn Owl, one of the most common large birds of the area. Within minutes, one, then another, then four of these ghostly white birds emerged from the darkness, floating silently over the field. One dipped and rose with some small animal gripped in its talons.
As we left the area, a skunk trundled by. Another appeared a short distance away, and a third put on a bit of a floor show, turning circles, capering, and even kicking up its back feet to dance on its forelegs briefly. None of us knew why the skunk behaved as it did, but it was a reason to end the day, tired and smiling. We’d been there for the whole show, and the skunk was a fitting last act.
Granted, it’s cold at dawn in December, even in San Benito and Santa Clara counties, but the cold is a tonic for all of us grown fuzzy from too much time inside.
Cold is also linked to two of my favorite dark-to-dark day memories. The first was found approaching a watering trough on a hilltop near Hollister. It was still frozen, but a few drops of water had melted around the edges of the tank. The trough was decorated with a mixed group of more than two dozen Western and Mountain Bluebirds, shining iridescent lapis as they dipped up precious droplets of the only liquid water they could find that icy morning.
The other memory came as I watched some Least Sandpipers along the edge of a small pond, also just outside Hollister. An American Kestrel dove into the flock with breakfast on his mind. The tiny shorebirds scattered, and the Kestrel didn’t hit the brakes in time. He went skittering across the icy surface of the pond like a hockey puck fresh from the oven.
Equipment for a dark-to-dark day is simple: food, drink and more layers of clothing than you think you’ll need. Sunscreen is probably a good idea, too – this is sunny California, after all.
Go out and make some memories of your own. The experience will brighten your holidays like no trip to the mall ever would.
¬¬¬Mark Paxton lives in Hollister and works in Morgan Hill. You can reach him via e-mail at pa*****@ho******.com.
