Bird's-Eye View

by J. F. Freedman

  My small boat is wide-bottomed, good for navigating in shallow waters. I pole out from where I tie it up at the back of the house and fire up the outboard. I let the little engine run for a minute to warm up, then choke down the idle and point downstream.

  This section is the most wild of all our land. To be more specific, it is located in one of the northernmost cypress swamps in the United States. Bald cypresses grow all along the river edges, their kneelike roots jutting out of the water. There’s other vegetation, water lilies, sweet gum, various evergreens. It’s very dense in here, not so dissimilar in feel to a South American rainforest. You can get away from civilization real fast in these small streams and tributaries.

  For the past several months I’ve been coming to one particular area—a group of small, marshy islands at the southernmost part of our family’s property that lies at the tip of a remote, narrow inlet that opens up out of the swamp. It takes me less than twenty minutes of easy putt-putting to get there. I cut my engine. The boat bobs in the water. The canopy of trees obscures the view into the perimeter unless you’re right on top of it, as I am now.

  There’s no way to get here except the route I’ve taken. The waterway here, for miles in either direction, is a narrow channel—a larger boat wouldn’t make it past all the twists and turns and shoals. Since I’ve been coming out here, I haven’t seen a soul. Nobody’s going to get to this place unless they’re invited, and I’m not inviting anyone.

  My family’s always been very protective of our privacy. We’ve never allowed hunting or other trespass on our property. I don’t hunt. My father wasn’t a hunter, either, we never shared that particular male-bonding blood experience so common in these parts. That’s an anomaly around here—bird hunting is a ritual of manhood, passed on down the generations. My father was a tough businessman and a tough man in general, but killing for sport did nothing but disgust him. Our land has always been off-limits to hunters; when Horace Tullis would catch a trespasser he would come down hard, marching down to the sheriff, pressing charges. It’s been known in the county for decades that you don’t hunt on Tullis land. Which doesn’t make us popular with some of the locals, not that we give a shit.

  I tie up my boat. Grabbing my duffel bag, tripod, the jug of water, and the grain sack, I wade ashore in bathtub-warm water, and walk inland.

  The birds, dozens of varieties, are thick on the ground. They’ve come to expect me, because of the grain. It’s like pigeon-feeding time in Central Park as I traverse the area, dropping piles of it here and there. They fly in and out, darting for position, crying and screeching their own particular bird cries. They’re loud, they raise a hell of a racket.

  An orthodox birder would decry my feeding these birds. You don’t want to make a wild animal dependent on man, it softens them up, dulls their survival instincts. I know this, but my feeling is, it’s not that big a deal. They were doing fine before I got here, and they’ll be doing fine, too, when I don’t feed them, which will be in the fall, when the migratory birds come back down here. That would be criminal, because it would leave them prey to hunters. It’s illegal to seed flyover areas for that very reason.

  I finish dumping my load, take my camera gear out of my bag, and wade through about a hundred yards of shallow water to another small knob of land. Although bird-watching is a huge leisure time activity—I read somewhere there may be as many as fifty million bird-watchers in this country—I am not one of them, in any traditional sense. I do not belong to the Audubon Society, I don’t keep count of the different kinds of birds that I’ve seen, or catalog them, or take part in any organized activities regarding birds. I shy away from groups except in my work and normal social situations, like going to an Orioles game. I’m not a team player.

  Until I moved back here I wasn’t into birds at all. Except for working on my house and abusing myself with recreational drugs and alcohol I had nothing else to do and plenty of time to do it in. I’ve always been interested in photography, it’s been a favorite hobby since I was a teenager; one day late last winter, sitting on my work-in-progress front porch with a Beck’s in my paw and a half-eaten salami and Swiss-cheese sandwich in the other, I looked skyward and saw a great flock of Canadian geese flying in formation overhead, coming toward me. I hadn’t been shooting much color, but luckily I had it in my camera that day. I grabbed the camera out of my bag, pointed it at the sky, and shot off the rest of the roll, about a dozen frames.

  I’d been shooting black and white almost exclusively, knockoff Walker Evans kind of stuff, old houses and interesting-looking faces, rusted-out cars up on blocks, Amish women at the farmers’ market, esoteric shit like that. I had never been interested in action stuff or pictures about nature. I appreciated them, I used to envy the photographers who did the spreads in magazines like National Geographic. But I didn’t see the artistry in it.

  These birds got to me, though, seeing them up close, so many of them, the enormous range of colors, the wonderful aerodynamic shapes, the great variety of types. I had stumbled into a new world.

  Overhead I hear a loud birdsong, almost like a bugle call. Smiling, I look up. A small flock of extremely large birds is circling high in the air. They’re stretched full-length, their long necks extended fully forward, their legs strung out behind them. As I watch, they come swooping in, a cloud of feathers landing in one of the shallow water marshy areas some distance from the other birds, at the edge of the little plot on which I’m standing.

  These birds are sandhill cranes, Grus canadensis, a large, elegant species of bird. They roost in nearby shallow water at night, then spend their day here. They stay apart from the other birds—they’re territorial, they don’t like to share.

  By rights, these birds shouldn’t be here, they aren’t native to the region. Occasionally, though, Mother Nature will throw a curveball, and a flock will go off course and wind up on the Eastern Seaboard.

  These sandhill cranes are not why I’m here, though. I’m here to see Ollie.

  Ollie is a whooping crane. Grus americana.

  Whooping cranes are extremely rare, and highly endangered. There are only about two hundred of them in the wild; including captive birds, there are only four hundred in the world. They are beautiful birds, the tallest in North America, five feet in height, almost as tall as a man. In flight, their wingspan reaches nearly eight feet.

  What makes this particular bird so extraordinary, beyond his exoticness, is that whooping cranes are never found in this area, not even close. Their natural breeding grounds are in the Canadian Northwest Territories, near the Alberta border. When winter’s setting in they migrate south 2,500 miles, an incredible journey, to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, on the Texas coast, the only place they live in the wild.

  Ollie is a lost bird. By fifteen hundred miles.

  How he wound up on a small, isolated island in southern Maryland is a mystery. The most likely guess—which is only a guess, since I’ve kept him my personal secret—is that he lost touch with his flock and hooked up with this flock of sandhills, who are his close cousins. There are only two species of cranes in North America; I’ve done a bit of research on them. These are immature birds, less than two years old. They become independent in the spring following their birth, when parents cut them loose and they drift and explore and begin to flock together until they breed at about three to five years.

  My best hypothesis as to what happened is that this flock of sandhills, plus the whooper, must have been driven off course, probably by a severe storm, and the adult sandhill that was guiding them to their breeding area was killed in flight (either accidentally, or by a jerkoff hunter). Leaderless, the flock drifted further off course until they found this isolated area, which is a perfect habitat for them—it’s similar, in many ways, to the area in the Aransas Refuge. There are crabs, clams, other small mollusks for them to feed upon, as well as ample vegetation, and the predatory animals that live in these parts—bobcat, fox, other preying animals—can’t get to the
m, because they stay out in the shallow water. So they’re safe, and well-fed.

  When I first saw Ollie I was in awe of his size and splendor and general regalness, and I still am; every time I see him my throat tightens, I feel a shortness of breath, like being in the presence of a power greater than the ordinary—the first time I saw Michelangelo’s David invoked the same response in me; except that was a statue, this is a living creature. As I’m not a birder, however, I didn’t know what a rare jewel I had on my hands. I didn’t even know they were cranes, I thought they were great blue herons, Ardea herodias, another large, similar-looking fowl that is seen often around here. I shot several rolls of pictures of him and his mates, developed them, studied them. When I saw what he was, after looking him up in my Petersons Field Guide and comparing his characteristics to those of the sandhills, I didn’t believe it—how could I? It would be like finding a unicorn grazing among a herd of zebras.

  Ollie isn’t a sandhill crane. He’s a genuine whooping crane. He looks like a whooping crane and flies like a whooping crane. And most tellingly, he sounds like a whooping crane. Sandhill cranes have a shrill, rolling call: Garooo-a-a-a. Ollie’s voice is different, a loud, brassy, trumpet call, a whoop!: Ker-loo! Ker-lee-oo! On some days, I can hear his whoop from over a mile away, it’s that loud and piercing. It’s like no other birdcall, or sound for that matter, that I’ve ever heard.

  Once I understood what kind of bird Ollie is, and how rare, I had to figure out what to do. By lucky coincidence, there is a captive breeding program for whooping cranes at the U.S. Biological Service’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center near Laurel, Maryland, which is about a hundred miles north of here. I went up there and spent a day nosing around, chatting up experts and gathering information on whooping cranes, without revealing what I’d found. My initial thinking, of course, was that he was a stray from their program. If that had been the case I’d have turned him in, no second thoughts. But none of their birds had gone missing.

  My next step was to get in touch, via the Web, with The International Crane Foundation and with a group called Operation Migration, which is spearheaded by some of the people who became famous in the 1980s, when they led an orphan flock of young sandhill cranes to their new home by disguising an ultra-light airplane as a mature sandhill crane, an incredible feat documented in the movie Fly Away Home. They’re about to try the same unorthodox approach to teach new migration routes to whooping cranes; right now, there’s only one migration path for whooping cranes, from Canada to Texas, and ornithologists are very concerned that if alternate routes aren’t established, the tiny flock could be wiped out if a disease hit their population.

  They were very helpful; but incredibly they, too, weren’t missing any cranes.

  So I’ve kept quiet about Ollie.

  I have my reasons for doing this. They’re selfish, but they’re genuine and necessary. I need peace, quiet, serenity—I had my head handed to me in the not-distant past, I’m still in the recovery stage. If Ollie was discovered by the outside world he would become a cause célèbre, a national object of intense curiosity and scrutiny. Thousands of avid birders and scientists would flock to my private little corner. That would be disastrous for me—I can’t handle invasion on that level. Privacy and space are my two most important needs right now.

  So I kept quiet about my exotic discovery, although that’s not a decision I take lightly. If I was a real birder, I would have sacrificed my own needs and turned him in, but I’m not, so I didn’t. At some point soon, though, I will alert the proper authorities, because Ollie’s too valuable to be left to nature’s random capriciousness for long, particularly once hunting season starts around here—it would be catastrophic if a hunter shot him while he was flying over this small area. For the near future, however, I’m leaving him alone. It may be selfish in the infinite scheme of the universe, but he seems to be happy. I value happiness highly—I know from my own recent experience how fragile it can be, and how easily lost.

  Observing Ollie, I’ve come to believe he has a sixth sense that this area is a safe haven for him, that the sandhills provide him cover, and protection. I know that Ollie can’t stay here forever. He has to be returned to his flock. The survival of his species could depend on him. I’m just not ready to let him go yet.

  I load a fresh roll of film in my camera and take some pictures of my pride and joy. With the ultralong lens I get vivid shots of his eye, his beak, the curve of his wings. He isn’t afraid of me, we’ve gotten accustomed to each other over these past months, but I keep my distance from him anyway. I don’t want him thinking of me as part of his extended family—when he is, ultimately, united with his own kind, he can’t be dependent on man. Which is why I never feed him or the sandhills, as I do the other birds.

  The drone of an airplane brings me out of my reverie. I look up. It’s a jet, I don’t know what kind. Not commercial. I watch as it flies low across the water and lands on a private strip a half-mile away, on the other side of the lagoon, taxiing to a stop on the tarmac.

  The land that airstrip is on used to be part of our family holdings. It’s changed hands a few times since we originally sold it thirty years ago. It’s the only piece of real estate that’s within five miles of my shack, which means it’s the only property remotely near this area. The runway was built last year, shortly before I came back home, so I assume the property is under new ownership. I don’t know who the present owner is—I’ve never seen anyone land here before. I suppose my mother knows—she knows everything that goes on in the county, nothing escapes her.

  Back to the work at hand. I shoot some more stills of Ollie. If he misses other whooping cranes it doesn’t show, he doesn’t look like he’s moping around and pining for like companionship—the sandhills provide that.

  The sound of voices cuts through the air. Noises carry great distances out here—the water acts like an echo board, although specific words are indistinct. I glance at my waterproof Timex. It’s still early, well before seven. I turn and look again at the airfield across the channel, where the voices are coming from.

  The airplane is parked on the runway. The entrance door is open, the steps extended to the tarmac. Three men are standing in front of the nose.

  I swing my camera in their direction and stare through the lens, using it as a telescope, to get a better look. There’s some coarse bunchgrass growing at the sides of the runway—through the distortion of the long lens it looks like a sea of grass, flowing in the wind like waves on the ocean.

  One of the men I’m spying on appears to be a pilot, complete with epaulet shirt and MacArthur-style pilot’s hat and shades. Of the other two, one is dressed casually, wearing a long-billed baseball-style cap and sunglasses, while the third man, who is smaller, is dressed more formally, in a coat and tie. He’s bareheaded and is without glasses. Those two seem to be in animated, angry conversation—the smaller man paces back and forth, gesturing with his arms. The pilot-type is standing to the side, looking off into the distance.

  I’m snooping on them; I shouldn’t be, but I am. A private plane landing on a secluded airstrip at dawn’s first light, a heated argument, who wouldn’t? They don’t know I’m here, they can’t see me hidden on my island, nor can they espy my boat, tucked in amongst the reeds.

  That used to be our property. I have the right to look.

  I have them in full figure through the ultralong lens. I can’t make out features—their faces are backlit, because the sun is rising directly behind them, silhouetting them against the milk-white sky—but I snap off a couple of pictures anyway. It’s reflex—I see it, I shoot it. Besides, I’m almost finished with the roll. Might as well expose it.

  I wonder who they are and what they’re arguing about. My mind conjures up the most lurid possibility—criminal activity. That’s not solely paranoia talking, although I’ve been accused of that. It’s known that there is a lot of drug-running taking place here. This region, with its multitude of hidden waterways, has become an
important drop-and-distribution point. It’s commonly believed that some of the large farms in the area, including pieces of our old property, have been bought by international drug syndicates, using fictitious owners as fronts, and are being used as embarkation points. It’s a good setup—this is a rural area, you can pretty much come and go without being noticed, via the Bay, and you’re within a few hours of all the major Eastern cities, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York. Large ships can go in and out of these waterways virtually undetected; they could be transporting hundreds of millions of dollars of drugs, guns, any kind of contraband you can imagine. There’s over a thousand miles of shoreline in the southern Chesapeake Bay, and it’s impossible to patrol and control it all. The Coast Guard’s lucky if they interdict ten percent of the illegal stuff.

  Which is not to say that the people I’m looking at are criminals. My imagination tends to run amok these days. Nevertheless, the owner of that property is my neighbor. I’d like to find out who it is who has his own airstrip, his own private airplane. One of these days, when I foray into town, I’ll check county records and see what name is on the deed. Whether he’s one of these men I’m looking at I have no idea.

  The sun is scorching the morning like a hot fist. I’m feeling the aftereffects of last night. I don’t want to be out here when the sun is high, which will be soon. I turn away from them and go back to my own business.

  The gunshot is not loud—a pop that echoes across the water. I turn back.

  The pilot is nowhere to be seen. The taller of the other two is now standing over the smaller one, who lies motionless at his feet. The standing man, the one wearing the long-billed cap and sunglasses, has a pistol in his hand. He extends his arm and delivers the coup de grâce. Through my lens I see the body on the ground jerk from the impact of the bullet as it hits him in the head.