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In the field with El Niño

(or,Try a little whine with that soggy PB&J?)

Fieldwork (biologists’ euphemism for getting out of the office), like any other outdoor job, puts one in the position of dealing with the elements. This being an El Niño year, Mother Nature has been doing the dealing and the deck is stacked against those of us (un)fortunate enough to be out in it. Friends and acquaintances think that working in the field with peregrines and eagles is an exciting, glamorous occupation. Some say, "Wish I got paid to go bird watching all day." I ponder this as I try to remain motionless, rainwater dripping from my nose, in a blind hacked out of the lake-side willows…at 4500 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains…in January…Have I mentioned that its 5:30 a.m.?

What I also think about is that my friends are most likely still in their nice warm beds and when they do get up they’ll go to work in their nice dry offices, order out for lunch, the usual stuff. On a day like today thoughts like this are somewhat irksome.

But I’d rather not dwell on the situation that I’ve selected for myself, especially because I have to stay in here until it’s dark. You see, I want to catch this eagle. But eagles are smart, early risers, and they don’t let a little thing like incessant precipitation bother them. If you want one to come down to the ground where you can catch it you can’t let them see you there. So my colleagues and I got up at 4:00 and worked up a sweat digging in a trap in the dark and the rain so that all this eagle will see on its pre-dawn arrival at the lake is a nice fat fish lying on the beach. Unfortunately for me, the wind is blowing about 40 miles an hour and the eagles are much more interested in flying than sushi. As I pray for sun (to dry out my PB&Js) my thoughts turn to great sushi dinners I have known.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always like this. Some field activities like getting stuck in the mud up to the axles can be quite humorous occasions. Especially when it’s someone else’s truck. But that sort of thing usually doesn’t last very long and we can all laugh about it later, until the photos come back.

As cliché as it sounds, a little adversity does make success all the sweeter. An example of how sweet it can be comes from this year’s effort to capture and radio-tag four bald eagles at Millerton Lake on the Fresno-Madera County line. This we accomplished in ten days while El Niño took a siesta. And on one misty morning we were fortunate enough to witness a spectacular exhibition of stamina and determination. The matriarch of the lake, an adult female, who, with her mate, has wintered at Millerton for over a decade, spent the better part of an hour trying to catch her breakfast—in this case an unfortunate gull. She made pass after pass as the gull narrowly escaped her outstretched talons by diving into the lake. At each miss the eagle would complete a wide circle, flapping hard, coming around into the wind for another try. Finally, she plucked the exhausted gull off the surface of the lake and carried it to a nearby island. She looked as though she had hardly broken (the eagle equivalent of) a sweat. Then another eagle tried to steal her prize. In the ensuing confusion the gull managed to make its escape. This was good because we were ready and waiting. And when the female flew over the trap we had laid out for her, she threw caution to the wind and was soon aboard the boat and being fitted for a new satellite transmitter.

Wait…it gets even better. The sun came out. The timing of the capture happened to coincide with the arrival of a class of 20 sixth-graders who had come to the lake for a bald eagle tour. By radio we arranged to meet them on a high bluff above the boat dock so they could see an eagle up close. There we talked a bit about the project and introduced them to "Daisy". Mike Smith, who has observed the region’s eagles and other wildlife for years, named her in honor of his late friend, Daisy Moore. Daisy and her husband John Moore had been elders of the Eagle Clan of the Mono Tribe and according to Mike they; "lived their lives like eagles."

Before releasing her, Mike serenaded Daisy with the truly moving Eagle Song taught to him in a sweat lodge by an elder of the Tachi tribe of the Tulare Basin area. When the hood came off Daisy let out the piercing tremulous call unique to bald eagles. Twenty young jaws and twenty pairs of eyes stretched wide in awe of their first face to face encounter with an eagle half as big as the man holding her. And as Daisy soared off, still in search of her breakfast, someone in the crowd was overheard to say; "Man, this is the best bald eagle tour ever!" I think it was the tour leader.

-Brian C. Latta