Pat Bean's blog

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Black-billed magpie ... Photo by Stephen S. Skrzdlo

Back in the 1980s, and a few years before I noticed birds lived among us, I was visiting a friend who lived alongside the Snake River.  As she was showing me her farm, I spotted some long-tailed black and white birds flying over the water. I thought they were magnificent.

My friend laughed, and said the birds were pesky magpies, cousins to crows, and that farmers despised them.

This was the first magpie I could recall seeing. And never had I watched such a sight as the one before me. The magpies, their dark feathers glistening with an iridescent sheen in the sunlight, were swooping, circling and diving above the water with a winged grace that astounded me.

A few weeks later, I found myself hanging out with a group of New Agers at a “Back to the Goddess Worship.” As a feet-on-the-ground, cynical journalist I wasn’t a believer, but these people were my friends. Besides there there wasn’t much else to do in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Night found me sitting beneath a starry sky and a blazing campfire on the rim of the Snake River Gorge when the workshop leader asked each of us to tell us what animal was their totem. She began by divulging that hers was a mountain lion, and then passed the talking stick to the next person in the circle. I listened in amazement as the women talked about bears, foxes, golden eagles and wolves.

I didn’t have an animal totem and decided when it was my turn to speak, I would simply say so and pass the stick along.

As soon as the wooden rod touched my hand, however, this voice from out of nowhere said: “Magpie.” It took a minute for me to realize the words were coming from my own mouth, and that I was continuing to speak.

“… because the magpie is loud and raucous like a Texan which I am and can be, is playful and intelligent as I hope I am, and its black and white colors range across the entire color spectrum, which to me represents a broadminded way of thinking, which I like to think is one of my better traits.” I was certainly broadening my thinking now I thought as I numbly handed the stick to the person on my left.

And that’s how the black-billed magpie, pica hudsonia, became my animal totem. True story.

This New Year’s eve found me and my dog, Maggie, escaping rain and fog at Lake Bob Sandlin State Park. Located 10 miles south of Mount Pleasant. It’s a great place for some gentle hikes, my favorite being one that winds through the woods to a small pond where catfish and trout keep fishermen happy.

New Year's Eve at Lake Bob Sandlin ... Photo by Pat Bean

This day, however, I was lucky to find a few moments between downpour episodes for Maggie and I to take a quick walk around the paved Cherokee Trace camping loop where my RV was hooked up. I had chosen a spot right on the lake, a premium site that in less inclement weather would already have been taken when I arrived. It’s availability was the silver lining that always accommodates a storm, as were the raft of ducks that ignored the rain as they swam past my view near the lake’s shore, and the blue jays, mockingbirds, tufted titmice and fat squirrels that played in the trees outside my window when the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Instead of bemoaning my alone-ness on this celebratory night of the year, I found myself rejoicing in it. Maggie and I crawled into our above the cab bed early, but I set my alarm so as to be up to watch as 2009 would dissolve at the magic moment into 2010. It’s always been an exciting time in my life, a sheaf of 365 blank pages on which to write.

I awoke without the help of the alarm, fixed myself a hot chocolate, added a dash of Jack, and listened to fireworks off in the distance. I’m not sure exactly when Father Time whisked past my RV, but when I knew he had, I crawled back into bed. As usual, I had to scoot Maggie over. She had slept through the change of years. The warmth her body had imprinted on my side of the bed felt good, and helped push me back into the world of dreams.

 I awoke at 5 a.m. to a blaze of light streaming in the window by my head. By turning on by stomach, I could see it’s source. A full moon. And not just any moon, but a rare New Year’s Eve Blue Moon. The last time we had one of those was 1990.

 I got up and sat on the couch, wrapped in a bright red, gold, turquoise and black furry blanket a granddaughter had given me, and watched this glowing miracle melt into a morning sky. It just seemed the right thing to do on this first day of the year.

Afterward, I fixed myself some coffee and sat at my table. The ducks, blue jays, mockingbirds and titmice, joined by a couple of bright red cardinals, were back, but this time playing and singing beneath the rays of a golden sun that came with the dawn.

It wasn’t until I finished my second cup of coffee that I decided it was time for me to stop watching 2010 begin its 584 million-mile trek around our solar system and begin inking my own exploratory journey on those marvelous blank pages. And with that Dr. Seuss’ words rang through my head:

 “Oh the places you’ll go and the things you’ll see … Will you succeed? Yes you will indeed.”

Western sandpiper ... photo courtesy Wikimedia

I was sitting with my binoculars atop a canyon overlook of the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park watching a western sandpiper make its way along the river’s shore. It would occasionally disappear behind a rock but soon appear on the other side as it slowly made a steady trek up the river’s edge.

 As I delighted in watching this small creature, a car pulled up near me and I became aware that a woman was eagerly scanning the direction I was looking. After awhile, she got out of her vehicle and came over to where I was sitting.

 “OK. I give up. What are you looking at,” she impatiently asked. ”

A sandpiper there on the shore.” I pointed in its direction, expecting her to take a look. I would even have shared my binoculars with her if she had showed some interest. To my surprise, however, she was annoyed.

 “Oh poo! she said. “I was looking for real animals. Like a moose, or an elk.”

She then got back in her car and sped off. The truth is I’ve seen more of what this woman considered “real” creatures since becoming an avid birder than ever before. For one thing, I’m in the outdoors more often, thereby increasing my chances to see elk, rabbits, antelope, squirrels, beavers, marmots and foxes. And while looking through binoculars or a scope for a tiny bird off in the distance there is no way I’m going to miss the five deer feeding on a hillside, or the porcupine curled among tree branches in a a tree that’s hosting a dozen red-winged blackbirds.

 My late-blooming passion for birds has been Mother’s Nature’s special gift to me. My wish to each of you for the new year is that you find your own special passions in life – and be wise enough to know that birds are “real creatures,” as well.