Bald eagles, now, those are comparatively easy to see since the dramatic recovery of their breeding population in the United States. They even live in and around my hometown of Prescott. Visiting remote parts of the world has allowed me to see their close cousins, the other fish eagles, on multiple occasions. The most striking encounter occurred in the Raja Ampat Islands of eastern Indonesia. We were in a small boat wending our way through the remarkable karst landscape when a large sea eagle descended to its nest atop a jutting pinnacle of heavily eroded limestone. The eagle itself was striking, but its chosen perch even more so. The rock had been eroded to leave behind, from our viewing angle, the perfect silhouette of an eagle’s head.
Though they do not attract as much notice as their flashier relative the bald eagle, fish eagles and ospreys are just as attractive to watch in the wild. Skimming along above the shining surface of still water, salt or fresh, they strike sharply downward with their claws at fish that are swimming just below the surface. Their wing beats grow stronger and more determined as they fight to climb skyward with their prey while simultaneously keeping watch for gulls or other scavengers that tend to linger close by, eager to snatch away the catch of another.
Some fish eagles have it easier than others. Those patrolling the surfaces of lagoons in the Pacific have little to worry about. While hunting above rivers in the Amazon, fish-seeking raptors must keep an eye out for the occasional lurking caiman. I’ve always thought those that live in Africa have the hardest time of all.
Journeying upstream in a small boat on the Chobe River, which divides Botswana from the thin latitudinal ribbon of Namibia called the Caprivi Strip, I once watched a fish eagle hunting nearly parallel to our craft. Unlike its cousins elsewhere, it periodically had to rise and then drop down again in its quest for a meal, lest it run headlong into wrestling elephants, waiting crocodiles, migrating Cape buffalo, or the occasional gaping mouth of a yawning hippo. The eagle negotiated every one of these obstacles with equanimity, only intermittently venting its irritation with a piercing cry of indignation.
When it finally succeeded in snatching a fish from the roiling waters, it immediately retired to the top of the nearest suitable tree to consume its meal at leisure. As we motored past, the great bird looked up long enough to favor my guide and me with a suitably imperious glance before returning to its meal of fresh flesh and fish guts.
Residing where I do, on a small piece of undisturbed land on the fringes of an explosively expanding community, I have still had the occasional opportunity to observe such regal raptors at closer quarters than do my more urbanized friends. My study overlooks a small canyon through which runs a live stream. While like everything else that moves in Arizona the creek’s cheerful rush is sometimes stilled by the anvillike heat of high summer, there is almost always water present in shaded pools and secluded nooks in the sheltering granite. This permanent water source draws many prey species as well as those that prey upon them. Among these visitors can be counted the preferred diet of hawks, falcons, kestrels, and owls. Alas, the peregrine falcons that breed on nearby Granite Mountain prefer different quarry.
Over the years, I have grown intimate with an extended family of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) that nest in one of the ponderosa pines upslope from our house. I have never climbed the hill to the base of their tree in spring to observe the newborn young—I don’t want to do anything to disturb them. Perhaps in gratitude, the offspring and their parents show little shyness when hunting on the property we share.
It is difficult to imagine anything more capable of distracting someone from his work than the sight of a full-grown red-tailed hawk streaking past the window. As my chair sits but a few feet from the glass and the gimlet-eyed patrolling raptor rockets by barely a couple of yards away on the other side of it, the occurance is more than sufficient to break my concentration no matter how often it happens. Now and then, the hawk will glance through the glass in my direction. I treasure each such encounter far more than any work it may have cost me.
I have watched while the hawks dive on prey; sometimes successfully, more often not. Once, walking around to the rear of our house, I found one sitting on one of our patio benches busily disemboweling a rabbit. It stayed there, intent on its meal, until my motionless staring presence must have finally disturbed it enough so that it flew off, its ragged meal hanging limply from its talons. The reason for its departure was wholly mine. I take the blame entirely.
Nobody likes to be gawked at while they’re eating.
The roof of my study once boasted a large, old-fashioned, but at the time necessary UHF television antenna. After years of faithful service, the picture it delivered began to deteriorate until it became unwatchable. A technician I spoke to suggested there might be a problem with the antenna. There was.
Having apparently decided that at least for a change the feel of aluminum against its feet was preferable to that of wood, one of our resident red-tailed hawks had been utilizing the antenna on a daily basis as a suitable place from which to keep watch on the nearby creek. I tolerated the situation until it grew bored of the spot. Then I changed the antenna, opting in the process for one significantly less perchlike in design. My television reception improved immediately, and I am sure the raptor did not go hungry.
* * *
I frequently work on into the night. One cool autumn’s eve I emerged from my study to see something sizable occupying the middle of our driveway. In the fading light I at first took it to be a package that had fallen out of our car. I am sure the owl that I mistook for a misplaced grocery bag would have been grievously insulted at the gaffe.
It was a great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), huge of eye and robust of body. What was it doing standing on the ground in our driveway? As I approached, advancing as patiently as I could, it continued to pose there gazing back at me. The body and the great wings were the color of steel flecked with obsidian. The bird was huge, stunning. As I came closer, advancing hunched over and taking short steps, it opened its beak and yelled at me: Kree-elp, kree-elp! Was it hurt? Its wings and body appeared undamaged. Perhaps it was sick, or just old. Possibly . . .
“It’ll take your finger off.”
Emerging from the house, JoAnn had come up the driveway to look for me and had instead come upon this entirely unexpected bird-husband encounter.
I halted my advance. The owl’s beak and talons appeared to be in as good condition as the rest of him. While I wanted to pick up the bird, to check it for buckshot or wire, to calm it, I knew that JoAnn was right. The owl was not likely to respond to my touch by lying back and closing its eyes. It was much more apt to react defensively.
“We could call the vet,” I suggested.
She sighed. “It’s after hours. Maybe the forest service.” She indicated the silently staring visitor. “If it’s still here tomorrow.”
I nodded. “I know, I know.” As usual, where animals were concerned, JoAnn had voiced the right thing to do.
She turned to go back to the house. “It’s getting dark. And cold. Are you coming?”
“In a little while.”
I stayed with the great horned owl for at least another hour. Crouched on the ground, gazing into vast yellow eyes that often blinked and turned away from me, I struggled to make that absurd and illogical connection that humans often attempt when confronted with a representative of the waning wild. We are so sure that if we just try hard enough we can understand, we can communicate with wild animals. Everyone likes to think they are special, especially when it comes to establishing a relationship with other species. The thing of it is, other species usually don’t want to establish a relationship with us. If they did, they would no longer be wild. We have domesticated enough of the natural world, to serve us both as companions and as food.
Straightening, I bid our enigmatic guest good night, rose, and made a wide circle around it as I walked down to the house.
An hour later and still consumed with curiosity, I returned
to check on our visitor. It was gone. Searching the area with my flashlight, I could find no sign of him. No dropped or plucked feathers, no blood, nothing to indicate it was in any way injured or had been harmed. A mystery, but one with, to all intents and purposes, a happy ending. Returning to the house, I felt a lot better about the situation.
Maybe, I told myself, the owl had swallowed a mouse that hadn’t agreed with it. Or eaten some spoiled food a thoughtless homeowner had left out for neighborhood cats. Or maybe it had just been in the mood to sit on the ground for a while and stare at whomever happened to amble along. Hoo knows?
Two final owlish observations: the great horned owls, like the hawks, are permanent residents in our canyon. Many a summer’s night, we see them sitting in their favorite trees and hear them hooting back and forth. I have tried hooting at them in turn, and flatter myself that they answer me. In reality, they are doubtless just continuing to call among themselves, no doubt saying something like, “Don’t you wish that stupid mammal would just shut up?”
And the other thing I have learned about great horned owls . . . ?
You cannot imagine the sheer volume of their nightly defecations, the kitchen-sink whiteness of it, and how hard it can be to try and remove the stuff from patio flagstone once it has had a chance to dry. It sets like tub grout. The daily output of an entire flock of pigeons does not begin to compare.
IX
EYES ON THE TRAIL
Central Gabon, January 2007
CARNIVORE OR HERBIVORE?
When you walk through the rain forest and suddenly encounter nothing but an eye or two staring back at you, when you can see nothing but unmoving pupil and glassy reflection and no body, how do you tell whether the animal behind the eye desires to eat you, avoid you, or a little of both? It frequently depends on circumstance, conditions, your presumed palatability on the part of the eye’s owner, and a dozen or more other variables. All of them usually beyond your control.
The forests of central Gabon are among the least disturbed remaining in Africa. This is because Gabon is fortunate in having a low population-to-land ratio compared to many of its neighbors, boasts a fair amount of mountainous terrain unsuitable for easy slash-and-burn agriculture, and has managed to utilize at least some of the money acquired from the sale of its oil for purposes other than lining the pockets of its leaders, or “big men” as they are often called in Africa. The country also generates substantial income from the sale of forest products, yet remains percentage-wise one of the most forested countries on Earth.
All of this allows for the existence of national parks that in many places actually serve the function of national parks instead of private preserves for local exploiters. Within their boundaries, I have been fortunate to see some of Gabon’s many animal wonders: elephants foraging on beaches fronting the surf-tossed Atlantic; large primates like the black-capped mangabey and black colobus monkey that do not automatically flee at the sight of a human; the forest buffalo (smaller than their Cape cousins); and the outrageous red river hog, which with the white stripe down its back, facial bumps, long tufted ears, striking rust-red coloring, and the porcine equivalent of a Fu Manchu mustache, looks like a giant pig that’s been tricked out by a southern California custom car shop. I have seen hippo tracks on the beach (though alas, not their makers in the water) and chimpanzees in the forests of Loango. In Lopé National Park, a startled young silverback gorilla once paced our 4x4 for half a mile, astonishing us not only with its endurance but its speed.
But of all Gabon’s mammalian wonders, none is more intriguing than the forest elephant. No, it’s not a predator, but its size, elusiveness, and temperament make it more of a real threat to visitors than the scarce leopard or gentle gorilla.
My sister and I were staying at the Tassi Camp, a tented facility located a full day’s drive over rain-soaked tracks from the main lodge at Loango. Tassi is situated on the crest of a gentle slope overlooking damp, muddy, flat ground interspersed with sizable patches of dense forest. A short drive westward leads to uninhabited coast that is in full view of the camp. I went bodysurfing there one day, the only recreational swimmer for dozens of miles in either direction, too content to worry about sharks and the far more potentially dangerous medical debris that arrives on the current from the mouth of the Congo River not far to the south.
Our guide had been brought in from his own well-established safari operation in Zambia to help expand and professionalize the still very new tourist facilities in Loango. Though hailing originally from New Zealand, he had long since joined the community of the African bush, a neighborhood that knows no nationality save Nature. Quickly discerning that I was not a fresh-faced insurance salesman from Des Moines embarking on his first visit to the jungle, he artfully shifted his ongoing narration away from tourist generalities and became more specific and conversational. It was not necessary for him, for example, to instruct my sister and me to avoid picking up snakes or going for a hike sans full water bottle and something to eat.
Tassi is a strange place to trek. Every step you take on the open, rain-saturated terrain, you are likely to see your feet sink into muck and mud that sometimes swallows you halfway to your knees. In every direction, clumps of forest beckon. The sodden air within their boundaries is no less humid than that out on the flat coastal plain, but at least the leaves and branches of the trees offer some protection from direct sunlight. It was within these mottled woods that one morning we caught a glimpse of stocky black shapes traveling in a line. Wild chimps. A big male glanced once in our direction, and then they were gone.
My experience in similar surroundings notwithstanding, our guide (like any guide) had his ground rules. The one he repeated more often than any other was, “Forest elephants can be almost invisible. If we should happen to surprise any, whatever you do, don’t run.” Along with a handful of other rules, this admonition was repeated every time we set out for a walk.
I soon surmised that the urgency with which this caution was repeated might have something to do with a local forest elephant the staff at the camp had nicknamed Cruella. While the other amiable members of her foraging family group were content to avoid the open camp, Cruella had concluded that there was food to be had within. Whenever visitors arrived, she would magically appear that same night to try and force her way into the food lockers. With no substantial structure at hand in which to secure supplies, the staff had taken to placing the lockers high up in a tree sturdy enough to be elephant-proof. This primitive but highly effective ploy did not sit well with Cruella.
Our first midnight at Tassi, we were awakened by the sounds of shouting and the repeated loud honking and engine-revving of our four-wheel drive. Fumbling for a flashlight, I stumbled out of my cot and to the entrance of our tent. It turned out that I didn’t need the light. Less than a hundred yards away, a frustrated Cruella was confronting our Land Cruiser. With half the camp staff on board, it charged at her repeatedly. The driver revved the engine as loudly as he could while everyone in the open back end stood wildly waving their arms and yelling at the tops of their lungs. The aggravated elephant would make a charge, halt abruptly, flare her ears, trumpet her resentment, and then retreat, whereupon the entire process would repeat itself, only with her now positioned farther from the camp.
Standing in the tent opening, my sister and I watched this peculiarly African ballet for about an hour until Cruella, furious and defeated, turned and stomped off into the nearest patch of forest.
On previous travels, I had been variously awakened from a sound sleep by the plaintive wail of emergency sirens, the carousing of drunken revelers, bawling lions, high seas, and, in Saint Petersburg, an attractive Russian hooker mistakenly sent to my room by a member of the staff at the hotel where I happened to be staying who hoped I might be in need of some nocturnal company. But never before by an elephant dueling with a car.
Cruella had her revenge, though. Slipping quietly into camp the following night, she proceeded to pummel her torment
or mercilessly, bending the driver’s side rearview mirror in half and putting one of her tusks right through the windshield on the passenger side. Viewing such damage, one suspects there must be places in Africa where you can buy elephant insurance for your vehicle.
While this destruction formed the basis for some predictable light banter on the day following Cruella’s Revenge, as it quickly came to be called, it was not taken lightly as we set out on our last morning’s hike at Tassi. Out on the open, bumpy, muddy surface, we could see for miles, but we knew we would have to be more cautious when we entered the patchwork forest. Somewhere in our immediate neighborhood brooded one seriously dyspeptic pachyderm, whom none of us had any desire to surprise.
When possible, all safari walks in Africa are done in the morning and the late afternoon, not only to avoid the heat of midday but because the animals do the same and those are the best times for wildlife sightings. As we walked, we encountered some red river hogs, a pair of sitatungas, and the usual exotic birds, but for the most part, that morning at Tassi tended toward tranquillity. As the sun rose, the humidity increased along with it. Off to my right, I could hear but not see the booming surf. With each boggy step, the thought of another dip in the ocean increased its appeal.
We were hiking out on the mucky, treeless flats parallel to a clump of forest. As with all tropical forests, wherever there is an absence of trees, the undergrowth explodes to produce what appears to be a solid wall of green. This is no reflection on the equal fecundity of the forest’s interior, which often boasts ample room between individual boles in which to walk, but rather has to do with the much greater availability of unobstructed sunlight. This is why tropical rivers appear to be lined with impenetrable jungle. Every square inch of space is filled with verdure as plants on the fringes of forest or growing along riverbanks take every advantage of the precious, unblocked, energy-producing sunshine. As we walked, our guide was searching the green barrier on our right for a suitable place where we could enter.