As November is advancing and the temperatures are turning colder, I have a feeling that this little Isabella Moth caterpillar, Pyrrharctia isabella, I photographed not long ago is the last caterpillar I shall be seeing around the old homestead until next year.

Equipment:

Canon PowerShot SD 1100 IS (in macro mode)

Settings:

F-stop: f/2.8

Exposure time: 1/60 sec.

ISO speed: ISO-160

Exposure bias: 0 step

I am actually quite thankful for each opportunity I have had to answer this oft repeated question, for I think it not only gives me the opportunity to increase the general knowledge of another person through my answer, it also gives me the push to consider the matter more deeply in my own mind. With each reconsideration, made from a different place and time in my life, I find more to add into the mélange of ideas that have been used to answer it.

I took up studying birds approximately a dozen years ago. While I had fished with my father and grandfather as a boy, my interactions with wildlife between these two periods in my life had been rather scant. Bird watching led to studying butterflies and moths. This in turn led to botany. Field studies in botany led to an interest in dragonflies and damsel flies. Then came a more general study of entomology. Taking up macro-photography in order to study insects more effectively, I inadvertently became aware of a little attended corner of the botanical world: bryology (mosses, lichens, and liverworts). With each new area of interest I cultivated, I added to my awareness of the “big picture,” the infinite web of inter-relationships of one creature to another and the importance of even the small, seemingly (from a human perspective at least) insignificant forms of life to the continued functioning of the ecosystems in which they live.

So what does this have to do with the question of loving and eating birds? Well, for one thing, I have come to understand that every living thing lives upon other living things. From the bacteria living in our digestive tracts to the largest Blue Whale swimming through the ocean – everything has to eat. From an evolutionary biology perspective, human teeth betray our diet. Possessing both cutting as well as grinding teeth, we have evolved to eat both plant material as well as animal flesh. However just as we should not (in my opinion) wastefully cultivate or harvest plants, so we should try to limit our cultivation and slaughter of animals to amounts that are modest as well as limit our methods to those which are as humane as possible. In fact, there are those who advocate hunting as the most humane method for the acquisition of animal flesh; the idea being that the animals live free and wild until the very moment of their death. However as I don’t hunt (I’m a lousy shot and I don’t want to painfully wound any creature rather than kill it quickly) I try to limit my purchase of agriculturally raised animals to those which are raised locally, in a free-range and organic manner. So while I am contributing to, as a Buddhist might say, the “overall suffering in the world,” I am doing it mindfully and as a result I sometimes opt for a vegetable-based meal in lieu of a meat-based one.

We are all, each one of us, part of the over-all web of life on this planet. Whether we sustain our lives by choosing to eat only plants or eat animals as well, we are also hosts to an astonishingly vast and varied collection of other forms of life within and about our own bodies. Furthermore, when we ourselves die, our bodies will in turn become nutrients for many other creatures, many of which whose existence we are not even personally aware, with whom we share the planet. It is a grand cyclical process over a billion years in the making. I don’t claim to fully understand it or its implications, but I like to at least occasionally try.

That’s how I see it – at least for now.

Not to anyone’s surprise, my favorite podcasts mostly involve nature and natural history. While iTunes is not exactly overflowing with such subject matter, there is nevertheless plenty to keep the flow of programming coming at a level that keeps a few fresh episodes flowing into my iPod every week if not in fact every day. Should my readers be interested in trying a few out for themselves, here are a few of my favorites:

Nature’s Voice – underwritten by the RSPB and expertly produced by the good people at Podcats, this is by far the best natural history podcast in current production. Updated monthly.

Best of Natural History Radio – from BBC 4; some of the finest natural history programming produced by the BBC. Was fairly regular with updates every fortnight but has been silent since September of this year. Still, there are plenty of previous episodes available to keep a new listener’s attention for months to come.

On Six Legs – produced by the Purdue Extension and hosted by Tom Turpin, this fortnightly updated entomology podcast for the general listener is always interesting.

This Birding Life – produced by Bird Watcher’s Digest and hosted by Bill Thompson III, this is most certainly the best bird watching podcast in current production. Updated somewhat irregularly but more than worth subscribing in order not to miss an episode.

Timber Press Gardening Podcast – a new entry into the podcasting world, Timber Press has so far released one and is in the process of publishing the second series of podcast interviews with some of the world’s finest botanical writers. Updated weekly.

There are more of course, including selected episodes from the famous TEDTalks podcasts from the annual TED Conference. The best thing to do is simply open iTunes, enter a topic that interests you into the search bar, and see what’s out there. Don’t limit yourself to currently updating podcasts either; there are some excellent episodes still online of now discontinued podcasts (one of my all-time favorite series is still the superb Big Garden Birdwatch from 2007 that was hosted by Kate Humble). Just dig around a bit – you’ll likely be surprised at what you’ll find, and you can be sure it will be more intellectually and emotionally satisfying than tuning into the daily news.

Back when most of us were in school, being thought a nerd was something to be feared and avoided at all costs (something the true nerd generally did in ways that only further confirmed their nerdishness). However as some of us grew older and the fleeting importance of perceived social status fell away, some of us for whom the term was once derisive came to embrace it. We found peace and solace in our long-beloved interests. If we were lucky, our respective occupations reflected these interests and our lives moved forward more-or-less in balance. If this coming-to-terms came too late in our lives, then we made due with continuing to follow our respective passions in our spare time as hobbies, interweaving them into our larger lives in as many ways as possible.

When I first took up bird watching, it was as part of a professional assignment by my now former employer. The only non-hunter in the marketing department of a hunting product producing company, I was assigned to investigate the world of the bird watchers to learn about the types of products they used and how they used them in order that my employer might make and sell products into this “new market” as well as their existing one. The results of my investigation were extraordinary, taking twenty-seven pages to report. In the history of the company, no such market investigation had previously been so thorough, so detailed, and so comprehensively depictive of a potential consumer market. The reason I was able to achieve this was because from the first time I met with a group a bird watchers as part of my research, I realized that I had found something long since lost in my own soul. Like a lost member of a tribe who had nearly been assimilated by a people of vastly different customs and values, I had miraculously been returned to my own people.

Now, I’m not meaning bird watchers specifically in this metaphor, rather nature study enthusiasts in all their myriad forms. As a child I loved the study of not only birds, but fish, plants, rocks, and a host of other elements of the natural world. Sadly, adolescence, small-minded friends, and the desire for social acceptance got in the way and these passions of my early years were locked in a box not to be once again opened until I reached my early thirties. Among the bird watchers I was not only at ease, I was continually discovering that other people shared my interests in many things in which I erroneously thought no other person could possibly hold an other-than-professional interest. From moths to ferns to forms of life and natural phenomena I had not until that point in time even known, someone I met had devoted years, even decades of their life to studying – extracting from their subject of study not only knowledge but immense personal satisfaction all the while.

Thus, as I sit here at my desk, surrounded by the paraphernalia of my “revived life” – stack of books, magnifiers, a camera, small flashlights, a Swiss Army knife, leaves, sample containers – l lament the years I spent chasing insubstantial illusions; however I also reflect upon the importance of devoting all that much more effort into these revived passions, making up for lost time if such a thing is possible. I think we don’t spend enough time thinking and talking about these matters – the things that, despite how we think the world around us may perceive our participation in them, truly make us happy, and give additional meaning and dimensions to our lives. We let the world be too much with us and as a result end up being defined by it, often in ways we don’t think appropriate or accurate. Quite often our strongest interests held as children are the things we still hold dear and deep in our hearts as adults. Taking them out, blowing the dust off them, and seeing if they still cast the same magical spell upon us today is something I highly recommend to all.

While sorting some image files on my laptop, I found this one of two Semipalmated Plovers, Charadrius semipalmatus, that I digiscoped during a visit to the barrier islands off Chatham, Massachusetts using the first Swarovski spotting scope (a borrowed one) that I ever carried out into the field. Recalling that, I suddenly realized that I had yet to publish a reminder to Born Again Bird Watcher readers that the deadline for submitting their own digiscoped images to the Swarovski Digiscoper of the Year competition is October 31, 2009. So if you have a digiscoped image of which you are particularly proud, now’s the time to upload it on the contest’s website. With no entry fee and a first prize of fame, glory, and a Swarovski 32mm EL binocular, what have you got to lose?

Equipment:

Swarovski ATS 80 HD spotting scope

Swarovski 20-60x eyepiece

Swarovski DCB adapter

Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS

Settings:

F-stop: f/3.5

Exposure time: 1/320 sec.

ISO speed: ISO-80

Exposure bias: 0 step

The Basics

I hold three university degrees:

• A Bachelor of Arts in English and American Literature from Lewis and Clark College
• A Master of Arts in Education from George Fox University
• A Master of Business Administration from the University of Oregon

I hold a valid license to teach Language Arts to students in grades five through twelve throughout the state of Oregon.

For more than a decade I was employed by Leupold & Stevens, Inc., maker of fine sports optics such as riflescopes, binoculars, and spotting scopes. While I began my tenure there as a technical adviser, I progressed through the marketing and communications ranks finally serving as the leader of the firm’s binocular and spotting scope development activities, as well as of the company’s market expansion from solely the hunting market into the bird and wildlife watching markets. My responsibilities in these positions included product development from concept to release and ongoing life-cycle management, sales force product training, marketing communications, and both sales and consumer shows on both a national as well as an international level.

I have extensive business travel experience in North America, Europe, and Asia (particularly Japan).

For the past two years I have owned and operated Born Again Bird Watcher LLC, a communications and consulting enterprise. In addition to providing all the content for and publishing the Born Again Bird Watcher and The Well-read Naturalist websites, I also write for other online as well as print media (including two active regular columns). My particular strengths are in a wide range of natural history subjects, as well as in both book and outdoor product reviewing; however I am fully capable of producing copy on just about any topic required. As to consulting, I have provided guidance and other services to both for-profit and not-for-profit entities in such wide ranging capacities as subject matter expert, photographer, product developer, researcher, marketing communications and social media adviser, product tester, technical writer, and event coordinator (including selection, planning, and on-site show management).

So what does all this mean?

If you or someone you know is in need of assistance, be it large or small, discrete or public, in any of the areas outlined above, I would be very interested to learn more about the opportunity and heartily encourage you to contact me to discuss it in greater detail. I will be pleased to provide references as needed as well as examples of my writing as relevant to the project.

A Japanese Maple (one of many) at the Portland Japanese Garden; its autumnal red, orange, and subtle golden hued leaves set above the lush green carpet of moss simply cried out to be photographed.

Equipment:

Canon EOS 40D body

Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM lens

Settings:

F-stop: f/3.2

Exposure time: 1/40 sec.

ISO speed: ISO-100

Exposure bias: -1/3 step

I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

Suddenly an idea struck me – one that found it’s initial beginnings in my reading last year of E.O. Wilson’s eloquent The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth and further developed not long ago while reading Frans de Waal’s thought-provoking The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist. One of the most significant challenges that exists between those who hold firmly to the efficacy of science to explain all things and those who believe in a transcendent force as the creator and guide of the world is the lack of a common contextual language between them.

Without understanding the context of one another’s interpretation of the world, we risk talking past each other rather than conversing with each other. Take the passage above, for example. Most advocates of “science explains it all” whom I have ever met seem to infer that those in the “God did and does it all” camp have only the book of Genesis upon which to base their belief in an intentionally created and directed universe. Yet the above passage in Ecclesiastes clearly posits the equality of all life – both human and non-human; an idea directly counter to a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation stories.

Think of the bridge in communication that could be quickly constructed in these seemingly intractable positions if in the middle of a conversation on the subject, an advocate of science referenced the Ecclesiastes passage about the equality of life? Not only would it be a gesture of respect, it would be an acknowledgment that the idea of a Biblical interpretation of the natural world is not monolithic but multifaceted in ways not always widely understood.

It’s certainly something to think about at least.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. (Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 7)

Ten miles from where I was born and raised, and seventy-five miles from where my family and I now live, one can stand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, gaze as far off into the distance as one can possibly see, and marvel at it its sheer size and power. From the northern Oregon shoreline, it is difficult to imagine that anything so vast and demonstrating such elemental power could ever be in any way harmed by such a puny creature as man. However Chris Jordan’s recent photos of dead young albatrosses on Midway Atoll, their decaying remains clearly depicting just how much plastic garbage and other human refuse they had been eating, have given me an image more clear than any other I have previously seen that all is most certainly not well out in the ocean by the side of which I have lived all my life.

Far out beyond the beach, out of sight of all but trans-Pacific mariners, lies the Gyre, a giant island of garbage floating on and descending into the ocean. No one is exactly sure of just how large this mass is; some have estimated it to be as large as the state of Texas, some even larger than that. However what is certain is that the effect it is having upon the life of the sea is clear. Not only albatross but all other ocean-feeding birds are susceptible to either becoming entangled in it or mistakenly thinking a bit of the debris of which it is composed is edible. Below the surface, the marine life is prone to these same hazards.

Because it is out in international waters, no country is taking responsibility for causing it or cleaning it up. Because it is out of sight of all but the crews of open water ships, no outcry is widely made to address it. Yet one look at the contents of the bellies of the dead albatrosses makes it clear from whence most of its contents come.

While there are efforts underway to at least better understand how this man-made monstrosity formed and from this, perhaps what can be done to at least prevent it from becoming worse, one thing is clear: our excessive reliance upon single-use plastic bottles, bottle-tops, and other modern detritus has contributed to it. After viewing the photos I have begun to consider what I purchase far more carefully – not only for how long the thing itself will last but how it is packaged as well. Something as simple as washing and refilling a single bottle for water rather than buying three or four pre-filled bottles, or carrying your own travel mug into your local coffee shop rather than using a paper cup once then discarding it (the adult “sippy-cup” plastic lids are particularly a problem with take-out espresso drinks) is as good a place to begin as anywhere if we are to avoid being found worthy of the punishment so well depicted by Coleridge:

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.