[at-l] My Amazing River Trip

[shellydhale at earthlink.net (Shelly Hale)]

Wow!  What an truly wonderful thing you did. 

Shelly Hale
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jan Leitschuh" <janl2@mindspring.com>
To: "AT-List" <at-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 5:33 PM
Subject: [at-l] My Amazing River Trip


> 
> A really awesome thing happened on the river, yesterday. I've just got 
> to tell SOMEBODY!
> 
> This weekend, we were kayaking on a Sierra club overnight on the lower 
> Lumber river, a humid, swampy, Spanish-mossy area, where the Lumber 
> crosses the North Carolina state line into South Carolina. It's a 
> great trip, large white sandbars to camp on, cypress knees, beavers, 
> catfish, the odd, adventurous northern alligator, much birdlife - 
> Great Blue Herons, owls, ahingas, pileated woodpeckers, kingfishers, 
> prothonotary warblers, egrets and more.
> 
> I was in the lead at the time, and had just drifted around a bend when 
> a Great Blue Heron on shore became startled and lifted off into 
> flight. It went only a couple feet though, and then it snapped back to 
> the ground.
> 
>   I peered against the background shadows saw the large bird was 
> attached to the tree by a line in its beak. The line was fishing line, 
> hung in a river birch limb; and it looked like the bird had swallowed 
> a fish hook down it's throat. Damn!
> 
> I was stricken, and just couldn't leave the magnificent creature. My 
> hope was the hook was just snagged on a corner of it's beak. I called 
> back for pliers.
> 
> I managed to drift quietly close without further startling the big, 
> blue bird. I just kept murmuring to it, stepping from my kayak into 
> the swamp muck and tying the bow rope from another limb.
> 
> I've worked in a zoo with a variety of species, and also caught geese 
> and chickens before, and so knew how to approach from behind to pin 
> its wings gently to its body. I got behind it as the other kayaks and 
> canoes approached, diverting it. Its eye was this startling circle of 
> primary yellow, with a black dot in the middle. Unblinking. I wasn't 
> entirely certain what I would do once I caught it, but I couldn't just 
> drift on past, oblivious.
> 
> I was a little nervous as I approached this large, wild bird, as it 
> wasn't all that much shorter than me, a chest-height adult with a 
> six-foot wingspan. I managed to encircle  and cradle it in my arms. 
> surprisingly light! As I picked it up, I saw that there was no hook at 
> all! Hooray! We could fix this.
> The twine had just wound itself tightly along the bird's upper beak, a 
> death sentence without intervention.
> 
> I also noticed that, as I lifted the creature and the tension came off 
> the twine, the bird reared it's long, blue neck back to defend itself; 
> it's long, spiky beak clacked once, making a very loud, hollow sound. 
> "careful!" said one of the women. "That beak is like scissors!"
> 
> I didn't know if that was true or not, but it sure does a number on 
> the frogs. I will say it didn't take me but a nanosecond to react! I 
> freed an arm and encircled the bird's neck behind it's head, gently, 
> using no pressure. It rested then quietly in my arm and did not 
> struggle. I learned later that these birds are hard to wrangle, and 
> experienced wildlife handlers wear goggles to protect their eyes! 
> Luckily, the twine situation I could feel its heart beat, and it not 
> unduly rapid, as one would expect. I think it was just exhausted from 
> its futile struggles, and resigned to its fate.
> 
> By now one of the guys on the trip had gotten out a knife and come up. 
> He was able to delicately saw the twine off without cutting the beak. 
> But when he removed the upper windings, the lower wad of twine stayed 
> in place - apparently these birds have some sort of "upper palate" 
> "baleen," or backwards-slanting "teeth" that help them capture and 
> swallow wriggling fish. So, wedging in a thumb, I pried the base of 
> its beak open, and he removed the foreign wad.
> 
> Finally, I released the bird which only flapped a short ways before 
> landing in a cypress grove and making it's way into the swamp tangle 
> on foot. There, it drank deeply, and then disappeared deeper into the 
> darkness of the swamp.
> 
> Here are some G.B. heron pictures:
> http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/adv/kidspage/kidquiz/wbirds/bluehero.htm
> http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i1940id.html
> http://www.nature-wildlife.com/blueh.html
> 
> It was a huge thrill to have held this large wild bird in my arms. I 
> felt so privileged. What a rare gift! It was so majorly cool. The 
> highlight of my week.
> 
> BirdShoe of Alcatraz
> -- 
> ========================================
>      AT Journal:
> http://www.trailjournals.com/Liteshoe/
> Jan Leitschuh Sporthorses Ltd.
> http://www.mindspring.com/~janl2/index.html
> 
> ========================================
> 
> 
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