The Critters We Don't See

August-September 2004

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Neil Schulman

Nutria, Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Portland, Oregon .

I’m standing on the edge of a grassy marsh in Southeastern Oregon. In the golden light of evening, I’ve been watching a pair of red foxes collect eggs. They’re raiding goose nests, and carefully carrying their booty into a hollow near a dike, where they’re probably feeding some growing fox kits. The parent geese honk and threaten, to no avail.

Another car pulls up. A couple gets out and quickly scans the marsh with their binoculars. Before I can say anything, they look at each other, shrug their shoulders, and get back in their car and drive away.

On the water and off, most of us miss great wildlife experiences that are right in front of us. Here’s why, and what you can do about it.

CONCENTRIC CIRCLES

Humans tend to be loud, bright and obnoxious. We no longer rely on our awareness of the natural environment to find food and avoid predators, so we tend to chat happily while we hike or paddle along. Our presence sends out waves of disturbance that move all around us, so the critters hide well before we arrive.

Every animal has an alarm call—a sound it makes to warn others of intruders or to let you know you’re coming into their territory. Some—like the slap of a beaver’s tail on the surface of the water—are obvious even to us. Others are much more subtle or even outside of our range of hearing. The winter wren, a common Northwest bird, has a well-known song that’s reminiscent of a squeaky bicycle. But the winter wren’s alarm call is a short, single click of its beak that most of us don’t even notice.

Racoon Tracks. Portland, Oregon.

Other animals have learned to recognize the alarm calls of other species. So when you round a corner happily chatting with your paddling partner, the winter wren gives its quick alarm call. Twenty yards away, a river otter hears the wren, and gives a quick chirp and ducks under some vegetation and freezes. Another twenty yards down, a fox hears the otter’s chirp and heads back in into the brush. You paddle right past the otter, five feet away, and never see it. The fox is long gone before you ever get near.

HOW TO BE UNOBTRUSIVE

Quiet down and sit still

The best thing you can do is go out to a natural area and go off by yourself for a while. Then sit down, stay quiet, and stay still. Pick a place that’s unobtrusive, like among tall grass or bushes. Stay still and quiet for a good long while—if you’re in “city mode” this will seem like ages. Eventually, you’ll hear the alarm calls die away and the longer bird songs begin again. Don’t move now. The wildlife is beginning to forget about your presence, and it’s just starting to get good.

You can do the same thing in your kayak. Pull your boat ashore near some low vegetation, or just fl oat where you might be able to fade in. Stay still and quiet, and wait and watch. This is an especially good way to see waterside mammals like otters, beaver and muskrats.

Practice Scatter Vision

Scatter vision allows you to see fl ashes of movement out of the corners of your eyes or spot the bit of brown among the trees that has a different color or shape. It’s the natural vision-mode for creatures who make a living by knowing what’s going on around them.

Let the central focus of your eyes go blank, and start to notice what’s at the corner of your vision. Hold your arms out in front of your face and wiggle your fingers. Now move them back slowly, until your arms are straight out from your sides and you’re straining to see both hands. You’ll be surprised how far back you can move your hands and still see all your fingers moving.

Train yourself to go into scatter vision mode every time you’re out in the natural world. It’s a habit that slows you down and increases your mental awareness, as well as your peripheral vision.

Leave the field guides at home

Forget about always identifying what you see. The best tools you can bring for learning about wildlife are your senses and a notebook. It’s also good if you have a comfy seat so you can stay still comfortably.

Whenever we identify something, we stop observing it. We’ll say “oh, it’s a western tanager” and stop paying attention. On the other hand, we might see a sparrow-sized yellow bird with a red head, wing bars, and an eye ring. Then we notice that it’s perching in trees on the edge of a meadow, and flying out and catching insects before returning to its perch. Suddenly we’ve learned a lot. And if we keep recording our observations over time, we may learn about patterns—that swallows return in late March and tanagers tend to feed on the edge of meadows with southern exposure.

Why not leave the field guide in your car or buried in your hatch, and just write down all your observations. Then you can identify what you saw when you’re back at your car or camp.

Needless to say, a good zoom lens on your camera will also allow you to ID your subjects later at home.

Mallard at sunrise. Mount Hood, Oregon.

Crepuscular is cool

Most animals are active at dawn and dusk, but not during the middle of the day. The major exceptions are birds of prey, which wait for the heat to form rising air currents on which to soar, and kayakers who sleep in and eat leisurely breakfasts. Make a point of being where the wildlife is, quiet and still, for these prime times.

Look for edges

You’ll see more wildlife on the edges of different habitats—where forest meets meadow, the edges of rivers, and where vegetation comes down to the sea. On the sea, look for areas with shallow rocks, spots that uncover at low tide, places where currents meet, and places with convoluted shorelines: these will attract the most sea life, all the way up the food chain.

Blend in

There are no solid colors in nature. Even the endless surface of the sea is patterned. Now look at our kayaking gear—bright and solid-colored. Some of this is for safety reasons, so that you can be spotted by ships and rescuers. But when you’re trying to be invisible, this bright gear is a hindrance to fading into the landscape. When you’re in camp, trade the bright colors for something dull and patterned.

Look small

Everyone loves ‘postcard megafauna’— wolves, bears, whales and other cuddly top-of-the-food-chain animals. But don’t overlook the fascinating lives of forest birds, squirrels, spiders, slugs, sea urchins and other creatures which are around us all the time.

Become a wildlife detective

Look for signs of what isn’t there. Notice tracks, hair, holes in branches, paths through the brush. Get down on your hands and knees, look at this stuff with a hand lens, familiarize yourself with those tracks in the mud at low tide.

READ UP

A few great reads and field guides for getting in tune with the natural world:

Tom Brown Jr.’s Field Guide to Nature Awareness and Tracking is a classic for being aware of nature, and rightly so.

James Halfpenny’s Mammal Tracking in North America is one of the best all-around guides to mammal tracking and observation.

Eugene Kozloff’s Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast and Seashore Life of Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia and the San Juan Archipelago will clue you in to the fascinating life on the edges of the ocean.

© Neil Schulman is a naturalist and environmental educator living in Portland, Oregon where he practices blending in at local breweries.