The Delightful Horror of Family Birding. Eli J. Knapp

23 • Life’s Harrier Moments

       24 • Birdfeeder Blues

       25 • Clutch Performance

       26 • Frustration or Fervor

       27 • Just Because

       28 • It’s Not You, It’s Me

       29 • Moral of the Mourning Doves

       30 • OCD Ecology

       31 • Never Again … Until Next Time

      INTRODUCTION

      One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

      —William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

      The flat tire wasn’t unexpected. We’d suffered six already caravanning across the cheese-grater roads of East Africa. What I didn’t expect, however, was a beautiful black and white bird with an outsized bill just off the road from where our equally outsized truck had suddenly lurched to a stop. Toucan Sam leapt to mind. I had made a habit of identifying—and often failing to identify—the incredible wildlife with which Tanzania overflowed. Nearly every day of this semester abroad, I had thumbed through my ratty field guide while madly spinning the focus knob on my semi-functioning binoculars. This bird was new. It was some kind of hornbill. But what species? With at least twenty minutes to kill, I decided to find out. To do so, I needed a closer look.

      I made my way past the twenty other students, somnolent in their seats, and climbed down out of the truck. Unsettled by the sudden bipedal commotion on this little-traveled dirt road, the ungainly bird flew deeper into the acacia scrub. Determined, I went in after it. I wove around several head-high thorn bushes and glimpsed the bird again. Just as I raised my binoculars, it flew off to another perch deeper in. We played this aggravating game of hide-and-seek for several minutes until it occurred to me that I should get back to the truck lest I hold up the gang.

      I gave up on the bird and turned to head out the way I’d come. Just as before, I wove around thorn bushes. I expected to encounter the road … but no road appeared. I stopped and listened, hoping to catch sounds of my group. Nothing but the mechanical throb of cicadas. Despite the heat, a shiver ran down my spine, causing me to—against my better judgment—pick up my pace. For several more minutes, I speed-walked through identical-looking trees, unwilling to admit a horrifying fact: I was lost. Not only was I lost, but I had no food, no water, and I seriously doubted whether anybody had seen me leave. Even worse, chances were that with the tire changed, they would unwittingly leave without me.

      I willed myself to stop and regain composure. A breeze of hot, dry wind sent small desiccated leaves swirling around my expensive shoes. A black beetle scurried into a penny-sized hole in the hard-baked African soil. If only I could do the same. Here I was, a confident twenty-year-old, a recent member of the National Honor Society, yet more helpless than a newborn wildebeest.

      Minutes dragged by, and the sun’s rays increased their slant across the orange-red earth. I picked a direction, yelled a few times, and hoped for a response. None came. I glanced down at my watch. Surely the tire was changed by now. Ahead in the loose dirt—footprints! Hopeful, I bent down and examined them. My own. I was walking in circles.

      In the midst of this new wave of panic, I heard the soft but unmistakable sound of bells. Bells! Was Santa’s calendar skewed in Tanzania?! Savoring a rush of childlike giddiness, I beelined toward them. But they weren’t reindeer I found in the African bush; they were goats, dozens and dozens of them. Before I knew it, the amoeba-like herd engulfed me, munching on the move. I stood my ground as the unfazed animals marched around me, likely annoyed that I wasn’t palatable. Where there were goats, I reasoned, there were people. And if there were people, I would be spared.

      “People” turned out to be a knobby-kneed boy whose head maybe reached my belly button. A burgundy cloth hung from one shoulder and tied around his waist with a frayed piece of sisal. He couldn’t have been older than twelve. Despite being startled to find a white guy out in the bush, he didn’t run. He just stood and looked at me, letting his goats disappear into the scrub.

      Since my Swahili wasn’t good enough to explain my predicament, I dropped to one knee and sketched a line in the dirt with a small stick. Then I tried to imitate a truck’s diesel engine. Wordlessly, the boy watched my poor charade, nodding slightly. Then, he spun on his heels and started walking. His herd—all his responsibility—was abandoned.

      I followed like an imprinted duckling. There was no way this boy was going to get away, even if it meant ending up in a distant village. Fifteen minutes later, we popped out on a road—my road. Fifty yards away was the truck. Our driver was tightening lug nuts with a large tire iron, and the other students, oblivious to my panic-stricken absence, were playing hacky sack in the road. I hadn’t been missed at all.

      Overcome with relief, I pantomimed for the boy to stay, that I wanted to give him something. I ran to the truck, rummaged through my duffel bag, and found some Matchbox cars I had brought to Africa as token gifts. Perfect. I grabbed them, jumped off the truck, and ran back. The boy was gone.

      Immanuel Kant once wrote, “Man is the only being who needs education.” What Kant didn’t clarify was what form of education man needs. As I discovered in the Tanzanian bush, my fifteen years of western-based education held little practicality. For life skills, I had nothing on the young goatherd.

      Knowledge comes in many ways and from many sources. Most of mine up to that point had come in the controlled environment of a classroom. My teachers held forth in typical classrooms, in which teachers teach and students learn. In Tanzania, my education was upended. It became experiential, and much of it came from nature itself. It also came from unexpected sources, including small goatherds.

      These lessons were hardly profound. But they matter greatly. Now, as a parent and a college professor, it seems I relearn them weekly. The essays in this book chronicle this journey. At times, it’s been difficult and disorienting. But it’s been delightful, too.

      Life has afforded me new eyes to see nature. In that roller-coaster year before we wed, Linda called me excitedly from work in Santa Barbara.

      “Is everything okay?” I asked, unused to her calling midday.

      “There’s a beautiful yellow-orange bird outside my window! It has a black bib,” she added.

      “Is it a goldfinch or a house finch?” I asked, naming the first birds to come to mind.

      “The bill is too slender,” she replied confidently. Not yet keen to the West Coast birds, I couldn’t come up with any alternatives.

      “Can you draw it?” I asked. She came from a family of artists—I was confident she could.

      “I’ll try.”

      Later that night, Linda produced a sketch she’d done on a piece of scrap paper. Just a few simple but well-placed lines. Quick, yes. But obvious field marks and expert proportions. No doubt a hooded oriole. I was smitten, both with the bird and the artist. This was—and is—who she is. Linda overflows with curiosity about the natural world. While I’m obsessed with the creatures around us, Linda’s more balanced, thank heavens. While she’ll crane her neck out a window to see a cool bird, I’ll careen down a ravine. Our mutual interest is expressed differently but unites us nonetheless. I held onto the sketch