Zen and the Art of Finding Wildlife part 1

Florida can be hot as hell. After months of winter in Yellowstone and the boreal forest of Minnesota, landing on the Gulf Coast this past spring, with the heat and sun and humidity levels so high the locals were out walking their goldfish on leashes, my body struggled to catch up. Along the white sandy beaches of pulverized limestone, the breeze that rolls in off the Gulf of Mexico is paradisical. The waters this time of year dry out the air. But I wasn't on the beach. I was inland. Swamps. Mosquitoes. Venomous snakes. Alligators. And, well, I'm sure you git the gist of it.

This stretch of the Gulf Coast is where things begin to transition from subtropical to tropical. Technically, that’s not true. The tropics begin and end with very specific latitudes known as the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn - otherwise known as 23.5 degrees north and 23.5 degrees south. I was at 27 degrees north, a long way off from the Tropic of Cancer. But that great thermal mass we call the Gulf of Mexico, with an average temperature of 80 degrees F, allows for a strange glimpse into another world.

Strangler figs entangle sable palms, sending down their roots from seeds left in the canopy by birds, twisting around, enveloping, and strangling the host tree. Gumbo limbo trees abound, especially the closer to the coast you get, and with strange flaking bark these tropical hardwoods are also known as the tourist tree – because they look like they are red and peeling. Black headed parrots and monk parakeets build colonial nests beneath flood lights at soccer fields, while iguanas bask in the sun amidst the red flowers of Brazilian peppers. Welcome to the new Pangea.

The further you move away from the life-giving waters of the Gulf, however, the more “North American” the biota becomes. The non-native royal palms that frame highways filled with Range Rovers and Aston Martins give way to southern live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Cabbage palms mix with saw palmettos mix with sable palms mix with laurel oaks. Red shouldered hawks are prolific, hunting red saddlebag dragonflies on the wing. Endangered gopher tortoises waddle across the open prairies that lie between the seemingly impenetrable oak and palm hammocks, whose shadowy realm is like metaphorically peering into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

After being issued a grocery list of warnings the day before from a local photographer about venturing into these hammocks wearing nothing more than a pair of Chaco sandals on my feet - something about eastern diamondbacks (the largest venomous snake in North America) and pygmy rattlesnakes (the smallest venomous snake in North America) - I ducked under a tangle of muscadine grape vines as thick as my forearm and stepped into the shadow realm.

Scattered shafts of light penetrated the overstory of the forest. It’s dark, it’s humid, and thanks to the almost complete lack of light, the ground is covered by little more than the skeletons of dead trees and a foot of leaf litter. With no light reaching the forest floor, all life seems to be crowded about high in the canopy. Bromeliads and orchids cover the long and sprawling branches of the live oaks. Epiphytes, such as the cardinal and pineapple air plants, both of which are endangered species, can be seen overhead amongst carpets of resurrection ferns who live and die by the rains each week.

The region was experiencing a drought. Rivers were low. Lakes were low. And each footstep in the leaf litter sounded almost explosive. These are the dead and dried out leaves of live oaks, hard, and waxy, brittle from the lack of water on the ground, and completely unlike the soft and supple fallen leaves of your typical deciduous oak. This was a problem. The task at hand was not a simple one because we had no idea where the owls might be. Each step sent out a loud and sharp crack into the deafening silence of the forest still waiting out the heat of the day.

The night before, I had followed the territorial call and response of a barred owl pair to the edge of this hammock. It was already dark, and we were exhausted, covered in mud and sopping wet from 4 hours lying prostrate and motionless in a freshwater bullrush marsh photographing sandhill cranes as they flew in to roost for the night. But the call of the owls told us all we needed to know. This was the core territory of a mated pair. And being the first week of April, they were likely to be harboring a brood of owlets.

We had no idea where they might be in the hammock. This time of the year, this far south, owlets would have branched by now. Barred owls, like many species of owls, are cavity nesters, often taking over the abandoned homes of pileated woodpeckers and modifying it to their needs. In one meta-analysis of scientific research done over the last century on barred owls, it was found that barred owls preferred cavities, whether abandoned woodpeckers or natural, 74.8% of the time. But the owlets have no interest staying cooped up inside such nesting cavities. As soon as they are capable, they climb out onto surrounding branches. And from there, it’s just a matter of days before they begin to move from tree to tree, exploring their ability to flutter and “coast” through the air, as they learn the physics of flight. This means that the owls and their owlets could be anywhere within this 50-acre section of forest. Or not. We could be wrong. Maybe no owlets are here at all. Maybe it was just a pair of owls hooting it up the night before, the excitement and passion of young love in the night.

Situations like this demand a certain mastery of reading the signs of the natural world. Owls are everywhere. In the United States, there are some 18 different species of owls. They can be found in every forest, in every patch of suburban woods. Yet, how often do you just walk out into the woods and find an owl?

There is a reason for this, of course. Well, there are many reasons. Owls are primarily nocturnal, for one. Sure, there are several species who are up and about during the day, such as snowy and burrowing owls but most of these birds of prey are creatures of the night. They live and die by their secretive nature, their ability to hide and melt into the surrounding environment.

Add to this the fact that it was four in the afternoon - along the southern Gulf Coast of Florida. The sun was high. Temperatures were in the low 90s. Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse. Us modern day humans are the only species silly enough to be moving around at this time of day save for species like bison and pronghorn with their highly adapted hypothalamus that provides an upgraded air conditioning system for cooling their brains. The rest of us, whether mammal, bird, reptile, or amphibian, would be smart to lay low at this time. And the owls were likely hidden up high, deep in the shade, still sleeping off all that sangria from their midday siesta.

Finding owls isn’t all that different from finding any other elusive species in the wild. It’s a multisensory experience. One in which all senses are put to the test at exactly the same. Sure, you might be able to “spot” the owls in the trees. But then again, their sole occupation in life is not being seen. Alternatively, you could potentially listen for their telltale calls to find owls like I did the night before in order to narrow down your search. But the typical “who cooks for you” call of a barred owl is reserved for territorial and mating needs. Loud calls are all about announcing “this is my tree, stay away,” or otherwise “hey, come on over to my tree.” These are the calls of the night, usually. The hoots and hollers of these birds only tend to fill the air once the sun goes down.

The point that needs to be understood here, is that you cannot rely on one solution. Yes, sometimes we walk into the woods and find an owl by sight. Other times, it’s by sound. But most often it’s a combination of the two and understanding the most nuanced details you are experiencing given that owls are actively working hard at not being found – like all elusive species.

Both the drought and the low light of the hammock were working against us. With each footstep, I announced to the world my presence. Predator alert. Stranger danger. The noise also drowned out and destroyed any possibility of hearing the soft and subtle calls of a barred owl to her mate or owlets. Add to this the fact that shadows and darkness dull the clarity of vision. Color is a function of light. The less light, the less color. Shapes disappear and bleed into shadows. Edges become blurred. And our primary means of gathering information and interpreting the world becomes more hindrance than help. No one ever said wildlife photography was easy work.

Have you ever listened to how a deer walks through the woods? It’s very different than us. I’m always fascinated by how people plow through the forest, sounding a bit like a freight train. Deer, who make their living by not being detected, however, are like ghosts moving through the forest.

It’s not that deer don’t make noise when they walk though. No animal is going to move along the forest floor without making noise in the leaf litter – especially when it’s dry like this. Heck, a gray squirrel often sounds like a bull elephant stomping around in the forest! Instead, deer typically prioritize observation, especially when things don’t “feel right,” over some sort of efficient plan to get from point A to point B like our species.

Step, step, pause. Step, step, step, step, long pause.

This is the pattern of foot fall you will often hear when watching a deer move through the forest. It’s purposeful. Each footstep is planned and executed in a particular manner. Each hoof’s placement is considered. It’s also observational. The deer is drinking in every clue, every sound, every smell, and studying the slightest hint of movement. Typically, if you hear a twig break from a deer, it’s because you are watching / listening to a buck (male) who caught their antlers in something accidently. Otherwise, the footfall is light. And there are long pauses in between. Each pause is where the deer is listening, watching, smelling, for anything that has changed, anything different, anything “out of place.”

When I am in the forest in search of animals, I like to think of every step I make as a rock thrown into the water. Sound moves in waves. So, the analogy is fitting.

Toss a small pebble into a pond and ripples unfurl in concentric rings around where it lands. The bigger the rock, the bigger the waves and the farther they travel. This is similar to walking. Each step you make sends a ripple through the forest. Hard heavy footsteps send big powerful waves across the woods. Small purposeful steps send small waves. Snap a dry branch as you step, and the wave is big enough to be experienced hundreds of meters away or more.

Imagine sitting in a small boat on a calm day. The occasional small wave that rolls under you is barely noticed. You barely move. A single larger wave that seems out of the blue may be noticed and thoughts of “woah, where did that come from” occur, but then we typically go back to doing whatever it is we are doing. But when larger waves come suddenly, and repeatedly, rocking the boat over and over again, we stop and take notice and go on alert. And the larger the waves, the further our boat gets pushed away and the more likely we head for shelter.

This is how our footsteps work with other animals. Each step a wave. Small sporadic waves with long pauses tend not to raise alarms. Large repetitive ones, however, send everyone running for cover.

Most modern humans, because of our hyper technological lifestyles, have lost the ability to hear or recognize sounds at the outer limits of our natural hearing range. We are bombarded by noise at all times in civilization. The hum of electricity. The blaring of TV and radios. The roar of planes, the deafening and discordant sounds of motorized traffic in general. The WHO reports that by 2050, an estimated 1 in 4 people on the planet will suffer from some sort of hearing problem as a result.

Humans naturally have a hearing range between 20 and 20,000 Hz. But it’s the range between 2,000 and 5,000 that we are the most sensitive to. For the record, Hz, or hertz, measures the pitch of the tone whereas decibels measure the loudness of the tone. By the time modern humans in western civilization hit middle age, however, that upper range has typically fallen to between 12,000 and 14,000 Hz. To put this into the metric of the real world, we are slowly losing our ability to hear everything from bird sounds to even the full spectrum of noise that our footsteps make when walking and crunching and shuffling through the woods. In other words, you are probably much noisier than you realize. Add to this our cultural tendency to prioritize efficiency and speed above most other things and we have a recipe for disaster when working in the field searching for wildlife.

All this matters when it comes to finding anything from barred owls to bobcats. Not only are we often so noisy that we alert every living creature in the forest to our presence LONG before they see us, but we also cannot hear above our own noise. Looking for wildlife is not like going for a hike in the woods. And these shortcomings are only amplified if we have actually spotted an animal to photograph and are now attempting to get closer.

Step, step, pause. Listen. Watch. Breath. Repeat.

To Be Continued. . .