On the Prowl for Owls

When I was a kid I wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Leonardo, in fact. I wanted to be witty and athletic and be able to fight bad guys with swords. I also sometimes wanted to be Spiderman, to climb walls and shoot webs and stop evildoers.

Turtles and spiders are unlikely heroes; when I tell school kids that turtles crawl into mud and hibernate in a controlled state of hypothermia, they don’t really know what to think. Turtles aren’t particularly captivating. And spiders… well… I’d like to tell them arachnid hibernation, but they are too busy screaming and running. I try to convince them that spiders are awesome, but I rarely succeed.

But there are some animals that truly seem like superheroes, complete with super powers precisely honed to defy reality. They are mystical creatures from the other side of the wardrobe. Kindergarteners (and I!) dream about having their powers.

I wish I could fly!
I wish I had super-incredible vision!
I wish I were invisible!

I am starstruck by a celebrity that I rarely see. She lives in a world of shadow and starlight, a world that demands cunning, and perhaps madness. The true owner of the night does not yip or growl, and has no need for running or pouncing. She spends 90% of her time in silence, waiting listening. When she spots her prey, she makes not a sound in the whole transaction, and none but the mouse ever know she exists. She is the ultimate bandit.

But who is she?
Who, hoo-hoo?



In the forest, many animals take advantage of darkness for protection. Mice venture from their snow tunnels in search of grass, protected by shadow. Snowshoe hares cross great distances at night, hopping through a landscape of snow and stars. But the owl uses that same darkness for her own means. We might never see this feathery shadow, but we might see signs of her presence, like wing marks in the snow after they have snatched up a mouse, or owl pellets they have spit up under their favorite roosts where they sit to digest. We might look for them peering back at us from the trees, but we won’t hear them if they fly by…

Special fringed feathers on her wings disrupt airflow, making her completely silent in flight. Her ears are specially placed- one higher than the other- so that she can locate prey precisely just by hearing it. Her huge eyes have special retinas to see in the dark. They are so specialized, they are not even eyeballs, but rather elongated tubes, which channel images and essentially work as a telescope. Since the eyes are such a unique shape, they can’t turn or roll, so the owl has to move its whole head to look around.

Right now, she’s out there somewhere, silent as a ghost, unmoving as a gargoyle.
But this season, the owls of the Eagle Valley can be more than just figments of your imagination or ghosts of the night. With a warm jacket and a bit of planning, you can actually encounter these dark angels. This valley is home to several owl species, including the small Western Screech-Owl, the round-faced Boreal, and the cunning giant known as the Great Horned Owl. January is the time when Great Horned owls are establishing territory and finding a mate, so they will be vocal and active this month. If you go out at night into the woods, into farm fields, or even in your neighborhood, you can hear them hooting, or even call one in.

So go out to where you think owls might be, and just listen. Maybe you could read Jane Yolen’s “Owl Moon” to your kids, and go out under a full moon. Breathe softly. Listen to the wind in the pines and the sound of snow grains on the willows. Wait longer than you think you should. Then, call out into the night like the shadowy ghost you are seeking, “Hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo.”

Once you hear an owl, cup your hands behind your ears and rotate your hands. You’ll be surprised at how well this helps you locate where the sound is coming from. Or do what an owl does, and move around silently, listening to the sound and triangulating it’s location by listening from a few different places.

Of course, like in anything worth doing, there is no guarantee of encountering an owl. But if you open your ears to the sky, let the starlight fill your eyes, and feel the beauty of the night, there is a 100% guarantee of “success.”

Gore Range Natural Science School offers an owl program once a month as part of our Nature at Night series at the Nature Discovery Center on Vail Mountain. We seek to evoke a sense of wonder and inspire environmental stewardship through natural science education. See more at gorerange.org.
The Breeding Bird Atlas is a volunteer-driven effort to catalog local birds. If you would like to volunteer, or for more information, visit http://www.cobreedingbirdatlasii.org/.

How many hearts

She has my heart. She stole it. I gave it away. Will she ever give it back?

She's hiding it in a Harlem flat. She's climbing with it in Spain. She's hauling it in her ski patrol jacket. Lo tiene en Buenos Aires, na chapada diamantina, and in Minturn. She has it when she's riding that bike, or when she's teaching that dance class, or when she makes those turns in borrowed gear.

She's had it now for so many years, and I wonder if she even knows she still has it.

I just met her last night, and already she holds a cord.

I don't even know her name, but the way she looked at me in the starlight made me throw it all away.

From time to time, place to place, I scratch my head and wonder if I even still exist. Because if you break something in half enough times, it just disappears. She took a piece and hid it up in her red hair, behind her black eyes, in blond curls, in those caramel hands. How can I ask for it back? I think I might need it back someday. Get back JoJo.

"How many hearts do you have?" my friend asked.

"Infinite," I lied.

Riparian

On the last residential, I questioned what the word “riparian” meant.

Did it have to do with streams and rivers?

Or maybe is the bank of a lake considered riparian?

Or even the sea shore?

Where can we apply this word?

“Riparian” comes from the latin ripa which mean stream bank. Interestingly, French still has a verb Riper, which means to slip, to slip away, to go away, to take off. Now THAT’s cool.

Ooo ooo… there is also a potential connection to the Greek ereipein, meaning to tear down. (thought: weathering/erosion?)

Looking at these linguistic connections, we see that they have a common theme of movement. River, go away, tear down. So this makes me associate the word more with moving water.

But Merriam-Webster gives us “relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater” (even a tidewater??)

And wiki tells us that a wetland is a type of riparian area. An area is termed a wetland if the water is standing for longer than a season, causing saturation of the riparian bank in what is termed “hydric soil.”

That’s my thought for the night. Conclusive? Maybe not. Fascinating? Of course. Ok, I’m gonna riper.

The Samaipata Backlash

A friend of mine says that when the going gets tough, the tough drink hot cocoa. There are places on this earth where the going is tough. There are houses built on slews, and cinderblocks and tin roofing, and streams for landfills and drinking water source. There are dead-end jobs and places that feel like prisons. There are prisons too. And there is greed and oppression and marginalization and censorship and under all of these forces there are people living and feeling the pain of all this.

And also there is "Middle Earth," where life is not a daily struggle against dragons, but where the sunshine still burns the skin. This is a world where there are holes in some socks. Dishes don't match. A dinner party involves sitting on the floor. Friends give each other discounts from their respective places of employment. The library trumps the bookstore. "Going to a show" means watching your friend play original songs in a bar that has bins of free pretzels.

And then, there is the Vail Athletic Club.

To be continued...

Empire State of Mind

We're in the perfect setting.
We are in the perfect moment.
Are you very, very ready?

If you agree that this is the perfect moment, then follow me. This is my kingdom, my empire. A glass castle-shiny and white-and quiet like I want it to be. People don't cheer when I pass, they don't notice. I don't need them to. I'm in a hurry, plunging unavoidably in a single direction. Everyone else is on their way, heading somewhere, anywhere, pulled by the forces that pull all of us. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and strain myself against the ground, against the air and the sky. I have to be strong.

If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.
It's up to me...

My aspirations are held in my chest, wrapped warmly in my head, but it's up to me to make it happen. I have to choose every turn, avoid every obstacle, and trust myself completely. This is what dreams are made of: letting the in-crowd go bad wherever they are, letting go of each breath and letting it float into the air, letting worries be as irrelevant as they really are. When the going gets tough, worry doesn't help at all, only determination can see me through.

And so I fly down through my glass castle, an empire made of shining crystal snow, releasing into the air when cliffs drop out from under me, and absorbing back into the ground as if gravity pulled me there. I'm not without fear, in fact it helps drive me.

And elation.

Cus I'm in New York!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do!
Now you're in New York!
These streets will make me feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you!
Hear it for New York!

Shirts off, Ice in

compendiums building momentum and mai-tais in the fridge,
if you wanna party, end of week, oops it's empty bottles.
and by slow I mean bon-fuego, and by now I mean luego,
but slow down and stretch a hammie and switch to sunshine yoga.
pull-up to handlebars and ice in pickle jars,
and I'm flipping the light switch while GaGa's under limbo.
It's a pants party and no you don't need sweaters,
there's not a thing to rival the bunkhouse swing.
a dozen friends baking dozens in a room
the coldest winter on record but warm inside the glass
point the boom at the circle and the pow to the mountians
you've got it, i've got it, we've got it, got it
It's love and it's power so let it shine and radiate.

Memories of the Night

A friend of mine once sent me a children's story called "A Walk in the City." After seeing
people,
and fast,
and tall,
and up, up, up,
and it all,
our characters go home, to hike in the mountians.

This morning, scraping ice from the windshield of the silver bullet, i giggle with memories of the night. Colored lights on the dancefloor, rythmic movement and freedom from reality. Time is gone, along with the responsibilities that it demands. Only timing remains, and body and energy.

And in the morning, the alarm sounds, and it takes a few minutes to brown the french toast, and the car takes a few moments to warm up for the trip to work.

tick, tick, tick.
sun on shining white.
giggle.
memories of the night.

Memories of the Morning

A friend of mine once asked me about my favorite food memory. She wrote the note on the inside of what she called a "coffee snuggler." I consider coffee itself a snuggler.

I remember the morning that the Laughing Goat coffeeshop opened, a flower on each table and sunlight pouring in, the memory of love sitting across the table.

I remember black coffee out of a sock in Lençois, Bahia, the memory of a tile floor and Elis Regina on the musicbox, and infatuation sitting across the thatch floormat.

I remember early-morning campfires in a subalpine hunting camp, black coffee from an old steel pot, with my dad standing across the fire, stomping our feet to fight the sub-freezing mountain air.

Memories are like dreams of the future, as the loose reality in their perfection. Aspirations for what life could be like. Hot coffee and love.

The Thought Train

Today a friend asked me to "join the thought train," which is a project to write down a thought every day in the month of December. "31 days. 31 thoughts until a whole new year," she said.

My, this sounds familiar. I made a goal to write 365 thoughts, and I fell a titch short. But my friend feels the same need: to somehow make concrete this ephemeral existence. We live, and we think and we struggle and we love, but then the moment passes and it´s simply gone and over. It seems like we were robbed, that nothing comes from it. We don´t have anything to show for this life!

So I´ll jump on the train. I´ll put digital ink to pixels, and thus put "rubber to the road" on this information superhighway.

This morning I tightened the straps on my tele boots and dropped into the dips and falls of Beaver Creek ski resort, letting my tips fly into new, soft snow, and letting my fingers drag on the snow in the inside of my arc. I left the ground, flying off a knoll, and came back to earth in a gliding turn, as trees and snow and mountains flew away behind me.

I hooted in joy from the bottom, shared high-fives with my friends/coworkers, and loaded on the chairlift to do it again.

I am lucky to live in a beautiful place. I am thankful for the wonderful people that I live and work with. I miss friends that are far away, and I am thankful that my parents are now quite close. I am thankful for a strong body, keen eyesight, and soft snow.

Winter- and life in the cold- a wonderful world.