Pat Bean's blog

“Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.” — Henry David Thoreau

My travels these days often turn up wild turkeys. It’s one of the birds, thanks to us humans, that have made a comeback since the 1950s. — Photo by Pat Bean

Bookish Monday

I’m reading “Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent’s Natural Soul” by Scott Weidensaul, who retraced the 30,000-mile,1953 journey of two legendary ornithologists, American Roger Tory Peterson and Englishman James Fisher.

Egret populations are also healthy once again — after women stopped decorating their hats with egret plumes. — Photo by Pat Bean

I read the original book, “Wild America,” which described the pair’s journey and the birds they saw along the way, many years ago. I read it slowly, envisioning the rookeries, the forests, the vast King Ranch in Texas, and the seashores on both sides of the continent that they encountered along the way.

I’m reading Weidensaul’s book the same way, tracing his route across a different America. As is life, it’s a story about loss and gain, the latter which of course I was pleased to see.

It’s a book worth reading.

In all, Tory and Peterson identified 532 of the approximately 925 bird species that can be found in North America. The ivory-billed woodpecker, which may or may not be extinct, was not one of them.

“Wild America” by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher is still in print after over 50 years.

Their record number of birds seen — before the event of better transportation, Internet birding hotlines and an interest in tracking birds became popular — gave them the Big Year record.

The record was quickly broken, most recently in 1998, when three men went all out in competing for the honor. All three broke the then current record. You can read all about their wild chase back and forth across the continent in “The Big Year” by Mark Obmascik.

It’s a great read, too.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: The Chrysalis of Change http://tinyurl.com/m7e9u9d Yet another good one from one of my favorite bloggers.

   “We do not make friends. We recognize then.”

I Got It Wrong

Sometimes a soul mate isn’t even human. Pepper knew we belonged together the first time she saw me, and said with her eyes that she was going home with me.

I was too young, too naïve and too needy when I married. I almost immediately knew I had got it wrong, but was too chicken for too many years to end it. I’m not whining. Life is what you make it — and my reward were five children, the loves of my life.

But when, at 40, I found myself a free woman, I longed with all my heart and body to find my soul mate. I was sure he was out there somewhere.

Well, if he was, we never met.

Instead, at some point along my pot-hole filled life, I discovered that a soul mate wasn’t always, or only, a companion and lover. A soul mate could simply be a “friend.”

I had soul mates before I recognized them, like the much older woman who was the first to know I wanted to be a writer and who encouraged me.

I thought about her this morning. Her name was Lorraine Bright, and while she is now somewhere out there in that great beyond, the influence this woman had on my life still lives within my soul. We were friends for many years, always picking up right where we had left off even if we hadn’t seen each other for half a dozen years.

I have a few other friends like that –younger and older, male and female, religious and atheists – among my many acquaintances.  They include a male wordsmith colleague who shares my idea of what being a journalist means; and a woman young enough to be my daughter with whom I’ve shared many an escapade and adventure. We’ve joked that we will always be friends because we each know where the skeletons of the other are buried.

There are others, each recognized because some part of them connected with some part of me. Perhaps it was that we shared a love of reading, or an understanding of writer demons, or a thirst for knowledge, or that we both had a true zest for life that didn’t involve material things.

I’ve connected on just such levels recently with a few fellow bloggers.

Like the people whose faces I can physically touch, these soul mates are ageless and sexless, as age and gender play no role in who is a soul mate and who is not.

Each of them is a reason for me to daily count my blessings – and I do.

Bean’s Pat: Blackbird or Meadowlark?  http://tinyurl.com/kt2fxnf  This one’s for the birders among my readers. Or for anyone who just likes to look at awesome birds.

            A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.  ~Edward P. Morgan

What Kind of a Reader are You?

The Heron, one of the Nazca Lines, which is a geoglyph. — Wikipedia Photo

            When I read fiction, I want good writing, and the characters, the setting, and the plot to engage me fully – and if I come across a word whose meaning stumps me, I usually just give it my guess and move on.

            But when I read non-fiction, I savor the words, and quickly turn to a dictionary – albeit these days an online one instead of the thick book I always had at the ready before the days of the Internet – when an unfamiliar word or name pops up.

            Two popped up this morning, the first – geoglyphs – as I was reading Sara Wheeler’s “Travels in a Thin Country: A journey through Chile.”

             Now I know what petroglyphs are but I had never heard the term geoglyphs, which I found in this sentence: “We passed geoglyphs of men and animals, carved into the hillsides by some wandering tribe, centuries before the accursed Spaniards appeared on the continent.”

The sentence itself gave me a clue about the meaning, but I wanted more specifics. And here’s what I found: Geoglyphs are large works of art made from stones or dirt that are arranged in a landscape. Examples given of geoglyphs were the Nazca Lines in Peru and the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, which I recently blogged about for American Profile’s online presence —  http://blogs.americanprofile.com/big-horn-medicine-wheel/ — without using the term.

            My wondering-wandering mind was satisfied with the answer and went back to reading the travel book.

            Later in the morning, as I catching up on my e-mail and reading one of the blogs to which I’m subscribed, I came across an unknown name. The author mentioned the artist Naum Gabo. I had never heard of him, and so I again turned to the Internet — Honesty, I don’t know how I survived before this information highway came into being.

            Naum Gabo, I learned, was born Naum Neemia Pevsner in Russia in 1890. He changed his name to Gabo, and is best known as a sculpture involved in the constructivism movement and as a pioneer in kinetic art. Perhaps you’ve heard of him – but I hadn’t. And I found the Wikipedia short biography of his life fascinating.

            So what stops you in your tracks when you’re reading?

            Bean’s Pat: Failure is not an option http://tinyurl.com/lhltoea Something to keep in mind.

            “I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.” E.M. Forster

When these elephants got out of the water, the mother faced off with us. Our Tanzania guide had parked our land rover too close, the mother had decided, and was warning us not to harm her babies. — Photo by Pat Bean

Understaffed Weekend Emergency Room 

            A child in pain is something mothers all over the world dread, regardless the age of their child. But life is not fair, and facing such a situation happens to most mothers at one time or another.

            As a reporter covering the medical beat, I’ve watched, without blinking, an open-heart surgery and a brain surgery. Yet, watching a doctor put stitches in one of my sons after an accident had me passing out. I would have fallen on the floor if the doctor hadn’t noticed and told the nurse to catch me.

            This past Saturday, I found myself standing by my youngest daughter, who was in the most pain I’ve even seen a human suffer. And the emergency room’s understaffed personnel were dinking around – until finally I turned into a screaming demon.

            It was the right time and I have no regrets.

            It had been well over three hours, and they still hadn’t given my daughter something to ease the pain, or read her charts (or even listened to her husband) to know that she had been suffering for over three weeks and couldn’t even hold a sip of water down.         

            After my tantrum, they finally gave her something to ease the pain and admitted her to the hospital where she got the attention she deserved.

            While her neurologist is still trying to put all the pieces together to find out the cause of her problem, she is being kept as comfortable as possible.

             A blood test showed that one result of her not being able to eat was that her body was starving itself to death – which makes me wish I had screamed even louder at the emergency room doctor, who initially saw her for a couple of minutes, suggested prescribing some pain pills and sending her home – and then disappeared and didn’t’ appear again until I turned into a demon. 

            Having been to an emergency room a time or two myself, and personally knowing what these doctors charge for seeing a patient for two minutes (a charge which is separate from whatever the hospital charges) infuriates me even more.

            While we’ve made tremendous medical advances in the ability to treat patients, doctors seem to have taken backward steps. Even my own personal doctor of 30 years disappointed me a couple of years ago when I went to him with neck and shoulder pain. He said it was just old age creeping up on me, and I would have to live with it.

            My oldest daughter suggested I visit her doctor for a second opinion. I did and he prescribed physical therapy, which eliminated 90 percent of the problem within two weeks, and which is now 100 percent better.

            So I’m not lumping all doctors in the same box. Some have kept up with the times and some do truly care. It’s just that I’ve come into contact with too many lately who seem to care more about money then people.  

            I ask myself the question, why was there only one doctor on call in a big city emergency room? Was it because the hospital was cheap or because the doctor wanted all the patients – and money – for himself?

            Whichever, I’m perfecting my Demon Mother act in case an encore performance is needed.  

            Bean’s Pat:  Let’s Dance http://tinyurl.com/m3bsp3k  I needed a bit of Mother Nature to get my blood pressure back down where it belongs. This helped.

    “Just when you’re beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across someone who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes.” – Will Cuppy

I Was Determined to Identify the Culprits 

Plain gray and white juveniles. — Photo by Pat Bean

           I hung a nectar feeder for hummingbirds from the roof of my third-floor balcony. The hummingbirds came, but then so did a flock of birds that clearly weren’t hummers.

I’ve had orioles drink from my hummingbird feeders, but these clearly weren’t orioles. They were tiny things, which from inside my living room, through a glass door and a screen, appeared non-descript.

I suspected they were some species of warbler, but didn’t know which one.

Yesterday, I decided to find out. Going outside and watching through my binoculars, I saw several of the gray and white birds gather around the feeder, and then a slightly larger one landed. It was an adult with a yellow head and a rust-colored splotch on its shoulder that immediately let me know I was looking at a verdin.

But when a more colorful adult landed, I finally knew my nectar thief was a verdin. — Photo by Pat Bean

I had only seen one other, and that was during a guided bird tour just south of Tucson. According to the range map, their North American habitat only extends to the southern portions of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Neither my guidebook, nor the Cornell Univesity bird website, mentioned anything about verdins, which are a member of the tit family, drinking from human nectar feeders. Wikipedia, however, mentioned that they sometimes go for the dried sugar crusted on a feeder.

Well I want to tell you, that my verdins are drinking the sugar water just like the hummingbirds. And they scrabble with both their own species and hummers for a choice spot on the feeder.

Have I discovered a new bird behavior?

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Birding in Peru http://tinyurl.com/q2hwe5g More birds for those of us who are crazy about these fantastic winged creatures.