Ghost Birds

We’re erasing the whiteboard. We’re not going to drive the Pacific Coast Highway as planned. We won’t hike a trail in the Olympic Mountains, beachcomb for agates on the Oregon coast, or spot migrating shorebirds. It would all be too much activity, on top of thousands of weary miles already driven for work.

What we’re going to do instead: retreat somewhere warm and stop moving. Lay on the beach, read books, sleep. What we’re not going to do is develop anything resembling an itinerary. Absolutely not.

I casually start flipping through travel guidebooks.

“Can I read you something? Haleakalā National Park has a protected preserve with seventy-six species of native plants and forest birds.”

Jim doesn’t look up from his computer. “You either go on a birding trip or a vacation, but not both.” His glasses are perched on the end of his nose, his face bathed in blue-white light.

I understand. Birding trips mean entirely different packing—bringing all the gear. Rubber boots, khaki outerwear, rain jackets, sun hats. The old burlap satchel stuffed with dog-eared guidebooks, pencils, sunscreen, water, snacks, a journal. Then the heavy spotting equipment: large binoculars, pocket binoculars, the scope and tripod.

Still, I don’t see why we couldn’t do a little incidental birding. Jim never goes anywhere without his binoculars — and I want to try out my new telephoto lens.

The room is quiet, except for the clackety-clack of his keyboard.

“Waikamoi Preserve is the only place on earth to spot the rare…”

“It’s not a birding trip.”

***

He built the cabin himself. Finished the interior, board-by-board, in gleaming knotty pine. The compact space was adorned with handmade artifacts from another life. Snowshoes from teaching years in northern Alberta. A slow-rolling, oak rocking chair beside a wood-burning stove. Patchwork quilt on the bed. Rustic, original oil paintings flanking the windows.

The front deck faced a small clearing. Rain barrels, a firepit, a shed with axes, galvanized buckets of birdseed. Beyond that, eighty acres of dense, swampy, undeveloped land on the outskirts of Elk Island National Park. A peaceful, lonely solitude.

We were standing on the deck when Jim glanced upwards and gasped with an emotional shriek, clutching his chest. His eyes flooded. “There they go!” he cried.

We watched in silence as two Sandhill Cranes circled higher and higher, until they were just two specks in the cotton sky.

***

I’ve convinced Jim to stop and stretch our airplane legs at Keālia Pond National Wildlife Refuge. Yes, there are birds. But it’s just a pitstop, a glimpse, before checking into our hotel. I promise.

We amble along the boardwalk beside the marsh. Hawaiian Stilts are moving with their spidery legs through the water. I spot a Black-backed Night Heron, fishing from the edge of the reeds, and slowly inch forward with my camera. Click, click. Jim doesn’t say anything.

I take a mental note of other visible birds: Lesser Yellowlegs, Mallards, Cardinals. Plus the heron and stilts. Y-M-C-H-S, got it. I’ll jot these down later when Jim isn’t looking.

***

He had a lifetime of birding adventures with his late wife, Wendy. Teachers and naturalists, they’d spent thirty soulful years together grokking nature: hushed in prairie wetlands, eyes in binoculars, enchanted by birdlife.

I don’t know all the places they travelled to, but he told me they went birding in Panama, Malaysia, the Texas Gulf Coast, and the Orkney Islands. They spent winter storm seasons in Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. Somewhere, they must’ve seen Puffins because of Wendy’s collection of mugs. When I hold one in my hand, I think: Something magical must have happened.

***

We’re listening to a slack key guitarist in the lounge, drinking piña coladas, feeling very mellow. But this is going to be an early night. In the morning, we’ll head out to the volcano. Sunrise at the summit of Haleakalā is supposed to be an awe-inspiring experience.

Our bartender David is a native Hawaiian. He tells us if we’re lucky, we just might see the Nene — an endangered Hawaiian goose. “It eats the berries on Haleakalā.” Jim’s ears prick up.

“It will be in the open grassy fields as you drive up the volcano.”

David pauses, looks up to the rustling palms, and becomes faraway for a moment. He shares a personal story when the Pueo, a short-eared owl, flew beside his moving vehicle, suspended in air and time. The Hawaiians believe the Pueo — a revered ancient guardian — brings good luck and protection.

“It was a deeply spiritual moment.”

***

Once, long ago, I confessed, “I don’t know the names of birds, but I still appreciate them.”

Jim’s eyes had remained fixed in his binoculars. “You’d be surprised how much your appreciation grows, if you learn a bit about them.”

He taught me how to identify birds, not just by sight, but with help from the other ‘S’ words: size, shape, sound, site, and season. These observations and field notes would help with identification. We started my lessons at home with urban backyard birds.

I mostly learned about birds at Cranberry Marsh, a wildlife conservation area near Valemount, British Columbia—on our work route between provinces. We never drove by Cranberry Marsh without stopping. It became ‘our’ place, a hushed wetlands without ghosts. A sacred spot that offered fleeting encounters with the divine, where Jim once thought he heard the elusive Virginia Rail in the reeds. Where I was first mesmerized by the striking sunset plumage of a Western Tanager.

Cranberry Marsh gave me another first-time rush: witnessing a mated pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, fluttering in the woods on the fringe of the wetlands. That first sighting filled me with joy as I sprinted to watch them more closely and capture their image.

I became spellbound learning folklore of a similar but presumed extinct bird: the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. How could such a beautiful creature no longer exist? Maybe, maybe, it could still be found somewhere deep in the southwestern cypress swamps. Jim said no, they needed old-growth trees and large tracts of land. Their habitat was now too fragmented, over-forested—there hadn’t been a confirmed sighting since 1944.

The Ivory Bills were almost certainly gone forever.

The acceptance of this loss filled me with an intense, irreconcilable longing. I would never see an Ivory Bill in my lifetime. A birder’s saudade: nostalgia for something that could never be.

***

The views at the volcano’s peak are beyond magnificent: great pillowy clouds resting on a vast, otherworldly moonscape. I’ve never been on land this high above sea level. An altitude sickness headache starts to grip. Jim suggests we explore some park areas at lower elevation.

Winding our way down the volcano, we discover Hosmer Grove at the edge of the forest. There’s a public notice board with the rules of the campground and a handwritten list of bird sightings from the day before. Jim stops to read the list, chats with a park ranger, and then suddenly ‘It’s on.’ He’s come alive, already walking ahead, stepping into a misty, eucalyptus grove.

I’m more accustomed to seeing birds in familiar prairie tones: dust, old twigs, dirt roads. These birds in the lush forest are the tropical colors of blossoms, fruits, sunsets. Of ancestral stories and dreams. They lure us farther along the nature trail and we enter a blissful state of flow, forgetting time and place.

It’s not a birding trip, but as soon as we get back to our hotel, Jim goes directly to the front desk and reserves two spots on a guided hike. It’s been decided. We’re going to Waikamoi Preserve.

It’s not a birding trip, but as soon as we get back to our hotel, Jim goes directly to the front desk and reserves two spots on a guided hike. It’s been decided. We’re going to Waikamoi Preserve.

***

It’s a hot, dry morning. My camera is already covered in red dust.

There’s a group of nine. “A few listers,” Jim whispers in my ear.

Listers are a certain kind of birder—always on the hunt for the next, new bird. Once you’ve seen your first few hundred different birds, it becomes more challenging to add to your “life list.” You must travel to more distant or remote locations to see birds in other habitats.

Even so, most birders won’t add to their life list unless they are confident of the bird’s identification. Jim still has a lot of unsolved mysteries, fleeting bird encounters with unanswered questions. I’ve started my own life list but aspire to bird like Jim — never losing a sense of wonder for the birds I’ve already seen.

Our guide, Emily, is a thirty-something park ranger with a passion for preserving Hawaiian native forests. “My koas,” she says affectionately.

She’s been living on Maui for five years. Before that, four years on the Big Island. Emily has specialized research studies on the endangered Maui Parrotbill, a honeycreeper endemic to Hawaii.

“You’re with the right person if you want to see one.”

Before entering the preserve, we take turns scuffing the soles of our shoes against a boot scraper to remove any non-native seeds. We follow Emily single-file toward the gate. A scarlet ‘I’iwi hops between branches outside the preserve, its curved beak reaching into yellow blossoms.

Inside the preserve, tucked away without the sounds of modern life, we become time travelers. The humid air is filled with prehistoric music: incredible, unfamiliar, lyrical birdcalls.

Jim and I linger at the back of the group, taking our time to scan the treetops, listen for calls, follow our instincts. His binoculars fix on a particular spot; he doesn’t move or speak. I breathe in the scented air, close my eyes, allow the forest chatter and chirps to imprint memories. Our group disappears down into the valley; Emily motions for us to catch up.

Although the hike lasts several hours, it seems over too soon. Jim and I drive down the winding road of the volcano, relaxed and sunburned, consumed by the serene contentment for a day well spent in nature.

And then it happens: I see a flash of the endangered Hawaiian goose.

“The Nene!” I cry out.

Jim slams the breaks with his birder’s trained reflexes. We scramble out of the car and walk along the edge of the road, scanning the landscape. The scrub brush is silent, unmoving. A still-life painting. The prairie-toned, twig-brown Nene has vanished.

We climb back in the vehicle and creep slowly down the road, occasionally stopping for another search of the area. I start to question whether the flash was real. Why does it seem slow motion in my mind? Maybe it was a drowsy passenger dream. Or perhaps a vision—a brief, mysterious, otherworldly encounter.

The mystery of the unconfirmed Nene compels us to make a third and final pilgrimage to Haleakalā before our departure home. We hike through the grassy area before Hosmer Grove—nothing. We return to the site of the flash and comb the area, switchback by switchback. Nothing.

I take one last look across the brush, shield my eyes with my hand, and squint into the sun. The Pueo is soaring overhead, watching me.

***

By all external evidence, we had the intended, restful Hawaiian vacation. We felt silky trade winds against our skin, toasted every sunset with fruity cocktails, read books on the lanai, and mailed home postcards of glossy palm trees. Common, unhurried, aloha time activities.

We also laid flat on our bellies, in lava dust on a volcano, leaning over a steep ledge, listening to the clucking of Hawaiian petrels burrowed in the cliffs.

Jim thought he spotted the rare Maui Parrotbill, but never wrote it down in his field guide. I didn’t write down the Nene, either. We were enchanted by the ghost birds of our imaginations. It was the best not-birding trip ever.

***

I haven’t been birding in a very long time. Not with binoculars, field guides, and an intended purpose, anyway. I haven’t been back to Cranberry Marsh, or the wetlands in Elk Island National Park. I’ve never seen another mated pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, or Sandhill Cranes riding the prairie thermals on their migration south. These things belong to another life.

If I chase them, I will only find ghosts: the echo of his heart, the disappearance of shared purpose, the vanishing of our brief intact world, born from the love and ashes of extinct worlds before.

But, sometimes now, I dream of birds—exotic creatures from astral worlds, with bright, beautiful feathers and mysterious songs. I always try to photograph them but never succeed. They’re too quick, too bewitching.

When I wake, I’ll be overcome with a deep sense of wonder for these fleeting, magical encounters. A flash flood of longing will rush my veins. I’ll close my eyes to remember all the details before they fade: exact size and shape, brilliant colors, melodic calls. The joyful way they—and my Love—exist now in another primordial time and space. ❖