Job Motivations and Inspirations
THIS JOB IS FOR THE BIRDS My first day out on the water I watched helplessly as a four foot wake from a cruise liner destroyed an American Oystercatcher nest. Rich Paul somberly said, "That nest just failed." I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had never heard that term used before, but I was pretty sure I knew what it meant. "Surely that didn't just happen. Maybe it was high enough up the beach to be safe," I thought hopefully to myself. We had just previously located the nest on the west side of "2D," confirmed two eggs, and logged it into the field book. The adult oystercatcher had been scared away by the huge wave and now we were just waiting to see if it was going to return. I turned to watch the ship and all its happy vacationers slowly cruise away, unaware of the destruction in their wake. The parent bird soon returned and appeared frantic as it tried to locate its nest. It, like me, didn't quite comprehend what had just happened. After watching from a distance we decided to go look for ourselves. We found the eggs, about six feet away from the original nest site. They were both crushed. This, before I even knew if I had the job as Seasonal Warden for the Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries, under the jurisdiction of the National Audubon Society. You see, this day was really just my "interview." I had learned of the job opening by sheer fate, and had spoken to Rich, the Sanctuary Manager, once on the phone about it. A few days later, I decided to call back and offer to drive over to meet him and the Assistant Manager, Ann (who also happens to be his wife), because I wanted to find out what the job was really like. They said sure, come on over. It was Easter Sunday, and it was one of the best days of my life. Over the phone, Rich told me to wear a hat and sunscreen, bring water and binoculars if I had them. So I did what he said, and I met them at the boat ramp Sunday morning. We launched the boat and headed out the Alafia River and into Hillsborough Bay. The first thing I saw out the mouth of the river was the Alafia Bank Bird Sanctuary, two small spoil islands that were created by dredging the river. Bird Island and Sunken Island were made long enough ago that they looked completely natural to me. I soon learned that over the years they have become a virtual haven for thousands of nesting birds, thus making them a birder's paradise. The first birds I saw were huge White Pelicans hanging out on the sand bar on the East side of Bird Island. I had always thought of them as "Snowbirds" because I'd only ever seen them during the winter. I guessed these birds were too lazy to fly up to the Midwest for nesting, or maybe they were just young birds not ready to settle down. Next, my guides pointed out a solitary American Oystercatcher, most recognizable by its quite large, bright orange bill. There were Brown Pelicans nesting everywhere in the trees. The continuous trill of the nesting White Ibises could be heard coming from the hidden interior of the island. Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets were stalking prey under the mangroves. Birds of all kinds were flying overhead. Pointing at one of them, Rich asked me, "What is that bird?" "Uh... some kind of heron," was my reply. "A Reddish Egret," he said. He was testing me. There were also Roseate Spoonbills, a bird I definitely know, and do not mistake for flamingos as some people do. There were more than I had ever seen before. The sheer abundance of wildlife amazed and captivated me. I thought to myself, this is something I definitely could get used to. But why would they want to hire me? I'm not a wildlife biologist, not even a student biologist, and I didn't know much at all about boats. When Rich called me later the next week and said they wanted me to be the Seasonal Warden, I was ecstatic... and terrified. "What have I gotten myself into now?" They said I would have to be comfortable working alone... in a boat... in Hillsborough Bay... every weekend... for the whole summer. So I said, "Okay," to Rich, and to myself I said, "I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I am going to do this!" There's something about others having confidence in you that gives you more confidence in yourself. So I learned how to haul the boat, back the trailer, launch the boat, and navigate the boat in the river, the channel, around the islands, low tide, high tide, calm water, and rough water. Docking with a strong current after heavy rains was a particular challenge. I got sunburned, wind burned, yelled at by angry boaters, splinters from the pilings, scraped knees from the dock, sore muscles from hauling up the anchor, and headaches from the heat. Some days the water would be so rough, I would still feel like I was on board for about an hour after I got home. But I wouldn't have changed a thing! The rewards were well worth the efforts. Every day was new. Interesting. Special. Different. The water was different, the tide, or the sky. It was dead calm or it was windy. It was perfectly clear or it was completely overcast. I had to run from thunderstorms, even a waterspout. Some days were too rough to navigate the chop on the water and still be able to look through the glasses to count birds. Some days the sun beat down relentlessly until I gave in and put up the canopy. Some days were too beautiful to even try to describe. You just have to see it for yourself. The bird life was constantly changing as well. At first the adult Brown Pelicans were all I could see on their nests. Then the little fuzzy white babies could be seen, and they grew and grew, and they started turning browner and browner, and got so big I don't know how they even still fit in the nest. Then they were on the ground and in the water, everywhere. What a sight it was when the baby spoonbills fledged, all pastel pink under the mangroves. "Try to count the ones with leg bands," Rich said. Yeah right. I could barely see the bands and they wouldn't stand still long enough. They were always milling about! One afternoon the scientists who had helped with the banding, Jerry and Rob, came back with some high-powered scopes. They wanted to try to read the bands. Earlier in the season, when the young spoonbills were still in the nests, they had caught and banded a certain number of them and had documented their nest locations. Now they wanted to see if they would be able to read the bands to track the spoonbills' movement from place to place once they matured. I had been out on the water that day, as usual, and the arrangement was to bring the boat back to the ramp at four o'clock. Then I could call it a day if I wanted or hang around for the band reading. I wasn't about to miss out on that. Plus, Ann and Rich had stopped on the way and picked up fried chicken. Do you know how hungry you get when you've been on the water all day? So off we went around to the cove of Sunken Island. We anchored and had our little picnic, then Jerry and Rob got into their kayaks to try to get closer to the birds. Have you ever seen a very large man try to get into a very small kayak? Anyway, we eventually just set one of the tripods up in the water. It was only about knee deep from low tide, and we just stood there reading the numbers and letters off the young birds' leg bands until evening came and it got too dark. As we were heading in, I was wondering where all those spoonbills would be headed someday. When the baby White Ibises fledged, which are brown by the way, the mangroves and the beaches were just swarming with them. They were everywhere! Thousands of them for sure. "Count the baby Ibis," Rich said. Okay... somewhere in the neighborhood of "a whole lot," plus or minus a few hundred. I had no idea. I tried, counting in groups of tens, but was never too confident of my numbers. It seemed impossible to get an accurate count. How do these biologists do this with any certainty? Disappointingly, I saw oystercatcher nest after nest fail. It was heartbreaking. One weekend I would find two or three new babies, so cute, little fluff balls on stick legs (technically referred to as a small/downy), only for them to be gone by the next weekend. But the parents would try again, stalwarts that they are. And they kept on trying until it just got to be too late in the season. They're a peculiar bird, very territorial, not nesting in colonies like the terns or the gulls. I'm no ornithologist but I'm sure this has to contribute to their lack of nesting success. It made me wonder why God made all these creatures so differently. Why do these birds nest alone right on the beach? Vulnerable to tides and waves, and sun and heat, and predators and humans. "Safety in numbers" is what I'd always learned. I learned that the way to spot an oystercatcher nest is that when you see one of the birds on the beach (it's called the sentinel), look back toward the rack line and a few yards to one side, and you might spot the mate sitting on a nest. It is usually in the opposite direction of the way the sentinel bird starts walking. My theory is that he - I always call the sentinel bird "he"- is trying to lure you, the predator, away from her. (I always call the nest sitter "her," even though this is not always the case). You can't tell the male from the female by appearance, and they share the nesting and the lookout duties. I know because I've watched them switch before. I started calling it "shift change." If I was far enough away for the sentinel bird to not feel threatened, "he" would walk up to "her" on the nest, they would converse for a bit, maybe deciding who would make dinner, then "she" would jump up and run down to the water's edge, get a drink and take up guard duty. "He" would stare at the nest for a bit, maybe wondering what to name the kids, then sit. At this point she becomes he and he becomes she, at least in my eyes that are a bit stereotypical from our human society. Whenever a nest fails, Ann is convinced you can tell which bird is the female by her "dish rag" appearance. She says it's like they're depressed or maybe their body is going through some kind of hormonal recharge thing. I don't know anything about that but I know they're peculiar birds for sure. Another one of the ways we tried to help protect the oystercatchers, besides keeping people off the islands, was to try to eradicate the raccoon population from the islands. This was an unfortunate task, but the raccoons can be very destructive to the bird population by eating the eggs. The justification for getting rid of them, I guess, was the fact that they should've never been there in the first place. How could a raccoon get onto the islands naturally? It seemed too far for them to swim. I don't know how they got there, but Rich and Ann didn't want them to stay, so we trapped them. I was with Ann one day when we had trapped a couple of raccoons and I could tell it was a job she didn't enjoy. Being a nature lover, you never want to take a life. But I guess she felt it was worth sacrificing one animal that is plentiful, and a predator, and an intruder, for another that is not. Still, she sadly said that day, "I don't like doing this. They're such neat animals." And I could tell she meant it. "The tern colony is in!" Ann said excitedly one day. And there they were. Hundreds of Royal Terns and Sandwich Terns, all nesting together near the beach in the grass and the vines. Rich said, "Count the Royal Terns and the Sandwich Terns." I thought, you've got to be kidding me! But he wasn't. So I tried my best to tell the difference between the Royals, larger with orange bills, and the Sandwich, smaller with black bills. All this while they were bunched up in one huge mass so close together they were practically on top of each other. I don't know how they could stand it. Or maybe that was what was supposed to be happening. It was a breeding colony after all. Anyway, I was attempting to do this from a boat, that I was trying not to run aground, in choppy water, while looking through binoculars, from about, oh I don't know, twenty yards maybe. Then when the chicks hatched, good grief! Babies everywhere. And Rich said, "Count the baby terns." But he was gracious and said, "Just get a total count if you can't tell the difference between the Royals and the Sandwich." What a relief. But soon enough it was actually easy to tell the difference. They grow so fast. The Royals got bigger faster and the orange bill was unmistakable. The Caspian Terns are even larger and more regal looking than the Royal Terns and I guess they are the snobs of the tern family, because they nested apart from the others, up on the hill. I suppose so they could look down their larger, redder bills at the lesser terns. Their numbers were not as many and their nest sites, like manors, were nicely spaced, making them much easier to count. Not a problem at all. I was fairly confident of my count of a hundred Caspian Terns as opposed to my count of more than three hundred of the Royals and Sandwich. Once the Caspian chicks hatched, the parents became very protective and aggressive. If I got too close with the boat, they would come at me, circling and swooping overhead, sounding like mad pirates screaming, "Get Away! Get Away!" I actually believe they would have attacked if I hadn't heeded their warnings. On one of the rare occasions that I had the privilege of being accompanied by Rich, we went by to check the Caspians and count the chicks. Rich suddenly saw something that he didn't like. A couple of babies appeared to be trapped behind some plastic sheeting that was apparently used to shore up the edge of the berm and prevent erosion. Rich was in a dilemma. "Do we go in to rescue those two chicks and risk upsetting the whole colony?" he asked, but I think he was just thinking out loud, not actually asking my opinion. We sat offshore for a minute, watching. We could see the little babies behind the plastic. They looked hot, maybe suffocating. Their little bills open, as if crying, "Save us." He couldn't stand it. Decision made. Rich suddenly said to me seriously, "Okay, we're going to do this in thirty seconds, motor up to the shore slowly." He got onto the bow of the boat, pocketknife in hand. I started motoring slowly up to the shore. The Caspians started their pirate screaming and flying all around. They were freaking out. Rich jumped from the boat, slit the plastic sheeting enough for the chicks to escape and jumped back in. I backed away from the shore. Mission accomplished. The babies were saved. The irate, ungrateful parents calmed down once we distanced ourselves to their supreme satisfaction. The Caspian chicks grew up fast and started trying their wings. One weekend Rich said, "You won't have to count the Caspians anymore. They're probably all gone by now." And they were. I don't know how it compared to years past, but to me the tern season was a success! One day Rich said, "Look for the Black Skimmers to come in on the Southwest corner of "3D." And sure enough, there they were. "Are the Skimmers nesting yet?" he asked me another day. I replied, "I don't know, they look like they're just hanging out to me. What do they look like when they nest?" Then sure enough, they were nesting. It was obvious. Instead of the whole flock hanging out at the beach, as I had seen before, half of them were near the water's edge and the other half of them were a little further away from the beach, sitting on nests. "You mean they're not nesting up on top of the berm?" he asked. "No," I said. "It looks like they're nesting near the beach to me." "That's not good," he said, sounding concerned. And sure enough, one weekend some bad weather blew through and wiped out the whole nest site. I'm not sure what happened to the birds. I never saw them again after that, and I never got to see what a baby Black Skimmer looks like. They sure picked a bad spot. A really good spot to see a large variety of birds was on the back side of Sunken Island in the cove. It was one of my favorite places to hang out, and where I would often try to take my lunch break. There was a long sand bar at low tide that formed the cove, and it was a great place for birds to congregate. I started calling it "the Single's Bar," because of all the un-paired oystercatchers that hung out there. It was also a great place to see Reddish Egrets, which is a fairly rare bird. They came to the Single's Bar to dance. At least that was what it looked like they were doing to me. When they would feed in the shallows, they'd chase the fish by jumping and spinning all around, wings outstretched, their head feathers all teased up giving them the "big hair" look like the girls at bars. It's a sight to see. I also saw a lot of the slender, Tri-colored Heron, with that white stripe down the front of their neck that somehow made them look even thinner. In addition to the birds I knew, such as the White Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, Cattle Egret, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Osprey, Black-necked Stilt, Magnificent Frigatebird, Little Blue Heron, Great Blue Heron, and Vulture, (to name a few), I also saw many birds that I didn't know and learned to identify. There were birds such as the Yellow-crowned and the Black-crowned Night Heron, Marbled Godwit, Dowitcher, Willet, Whimbrel, Black-bellied Plover, and the Long-billed Curlew, that I had either never seen before or at least didn't know what they were if I had. There are still a lot of the smaller shorebirds that I have a hard time identifying. They all look the same to the untrained eye, but I'm going to work on that. I had never seen a manatee in the wild before either, but was fortunate to be visited by them a couple of times while anchored near the cove. It was definitely one of my favorite places. It was usually very quiet, with not too many people around. Unless you count the visits by the Bay Spirit, the Florida Aquarium's huge guided tour boat that brought hundreds of visitors around to the cove and the rest of Alafia Bank to see the teeming wildlife. One particular day I saw a couple of guys checking a bunch of new crab traps that I had just noticed the day before. They didn't look like crabbers to me. I don't really know what crabbers look like, but they didn't look like them to me, so I went over to check them out. Not crabbers at all, they turned out to be biologists from the University of North Florida doing a study on the Diamondback Terrapin by surveying the numbers of turtles that get stuck in crab traps, and whether or not they would survive if not found and released quickly enough. The men were extremely nice and went out of their way to take the time to explain their study to me, even showing me one of the turtles that had been trapped but unfortunately, had not survived. I was surprised at how small it was; only about five inches long. I guess I had been thinking of a sea turtle more like a Loggerhead, but then again a Loggerhead wouldn't get stuck in a crab trap, would it? Anyway, I think the turtle biologists were trying to determine if it might be necessary to get a rule passed to change the design of crab traps. Sort of like the TED's required on shrimpers' nets. Even though I'm all for saving the turtles, I think it'll probably end up being a big fight and there'll be just one more segment of the population mad at environmentalists. A lot of recreational boaters are mad at the environmentalists who want to protect manatees by creating slow speed zones. They think they should just be able to zoom around wherever they want. Too bad for anything that gets in their way. They like to take it out on anyone who has anything at all to do with nature. I had some people express their opinions to me about that, and got plenty of dirty looks from boaters who obviously didn't want to obey the new speed zones that had just been posted. Like I had anything to do with it. I wanted to say, "Hey, I'm birds, not manatees." But it probably wouldn't have done any good anyway. I've found that if people are ignorant about one important issue, they're usually ignorant about a lot of things. They're the ones who will speed through a manatee zone, trespass in a bird sanctuary, cheat on the season, size, and bag limit laws, litter, pollute, be destructive to natural habitat, be rude to the Audubon Seasonal Warden, or generally just be a nuisance to society. Thankfully, there are law enforcement officers out there to take care of them, even though I think the officers are seriously out numbered. The waters are patrolled by the Tampa Police, Marine Patrol, Hillsborough County Sheriffs, and the FWC. During the summer I had the privilege of meeting several FWC officers and saw them on a regular basis. One day some of them were at the boat ramp as I was coming in for the day. They were enforcing the no wake rule and checking boats for required safety equipment. I'm not sure of the range of their authority, but I know it's a lot. One of them, named Rick, helped me tie up to the dock and started talking to me, commenting that he had seen us a few weeks earlier putting up a new sign on the Alafia Bank. I said 'yes we had,' but I was thinking to myself that I didn't remember having seen anyone around that day. He then went on to say, in that cocky way that law enforcement usually has, that he had been up in the observation deck on top of the Cargill stack with a high-powered scope. I wondered where he was going with this. Is it how he gets his kicks? Then he explained, "Yeah, we like to watch people trespass on the island. We read the registration number off their vessel, call it in to get their information, then we wait for 'em to come back to the ramp, where we start questioning them and let 'em start lying. Then we bust 'em!" Yeah, he seemed real proud of his little sting operation, and I was glad to see that someone else cared enough about the Sanctuary to help us out. We, fortunately or not, don't have any authority for enforcement. We mostly try to rely on diplomacy and education. But still the same, I was glad to have the officers out there on the water with me. It made me feel a lot safer. Fortunately, most of the people I had to deal with were nice enough. They'd usually apologize and politely leave the islands that they knew better than to be on in the first place. They always had some excuse. "Oh, I thought it was okay to be in front of the sign." Or "I had to pee." Or "My dog had to pee." Or "My raft wouldn't float." Or "I've been coming here for years." Or "I'm not hurting anything." Or "My boat is broke down." Occasionally it was even true. Like one particular time when I was out with Rich and we came upon a jet skier on the west bank of Sunken Island, right where there is usually a pair of oystercatchers trying to nest. "What's he doing on my island?" Rich asked. So off we went to "apprehend" the perpetrator. It was a young guy, and he was sitting on his jet ski in about a foot of water. He wasn't actually on the island, but close enough to be a disturbance. We slowly approached, as Rich likes to do because he says, "it gives them time to think about what we're going to do to them." When we got to him, the young man explained he had broken down, had called friends, and was waiting to be picked up. Rich looked at me, thought for a minute, and in a low voice said, "I want him off my island, so we're going to tow him in." He got out a length of rope and fashioned a gadget off the stern for towing. I think he called it a bridle or something. He threw the loose end to the guy and told him to tie it onto his jet ski. The guy hesitated and I noticed he was acting like he didn't want to move. He finally said, a little uneasily, "The water is full of jellyfish. I don't want to get stung." Rich looked down at the water, looked back up and said, in his calm, self- assured manner, "First of all, they're not jellyfish, and second, they won't sting you." The kid was obviously nervous but Rich had such an authoritative way about him that he complied anyway. Rich then went on to explain what the creatures were, but used some long scientific sounding name that I don't remember. We towed the guy all the way back up the river, but Rich made sure we went real slow. "So all his friends can get a good look at him being towed," he said mischievously. Now I'm not sure, but I think Rich has a real humorous side to him. Another time we found a couple of guys lounging, I mean literally lounging in their lounge chairs, iced drinks in hand, on the beach at "2D." They were only about ten feet away from a sign that clearly states, "Tampa Port Authority - Restricted Area - No Trespassing," and there was not another soul in sight. I mean, come on, did they think they were the only ones to have discovered this little bit of paradise, or what? So we slowly approached the island, Rich slowly got out of the boat, and slowly said, "Hello there. Beautiful place for a picnic," and then patiently waited for their response. When they agreed that it was, he said, "Unfortunately, I can't let you stay here. You see this is a posted island..." and went on to explain the why's and what for's. He just does it in such a nice way. He really is a master at it. I'm thinking maybe Psych was his minor. Whatever the case, he and Ann both were just wonderful to work for, and to work with. I learned so much from them both. I learned a lot about bird observation, identification, and behavior, as well as human behavior. I learned a lot about boats, operating and maintaining them. I learned a lot about the water and the weather and the habitat of the bay. There was just never a time I was around them that I didn't learn something. Overall, it was very rewarding and satisfying. You see in twenty-three years of working different jobs, I've never really had job satisfaction. Until now. Oh, I've had jobs I liked okay, but didn't care much for my boss or co-workers. I've had bosses that were great, but the job lacked purpose or fulfillment. I even had a job making a whole lot of money but it left me feeling empty. But this was it! This was what I had dreamed of. Hoped for. Prayed about. It actually does exist! This job was meaningful, interesting, fun, and challenging. It was outdoors. In nature. About nature. For nature! And I was getting paid to do it. But best of all, to top it all off, was Rich and Ann Paul. They gave me back some of the hope that others in the world had stolen away. Not only do they truly love what they do and remain totally dedicated to it, they're just good people. Nice and balanced, caring and compassionate. Very giving. There was not a single day I worked that Ann or Rich, or both, didn't tell me how much they appreciated what I was doing, or that I was doing a great job. Even when they weren't around to see me, they would usually leave me a little note telling me "count the terns..." or "the boat is all gassed up..." and always a "Thanks for all you're doing!" On one of the many times that Rich personally told me how much he appreciated what I was doing, I responded by admitting that I felt a little guilty. He asked why, and I said, "Well, I feel like I'm taking the job away from some biology student who desperately needs it." He said to me, "I don't want some biology student who desperately needs it. I want someone with a good head on their shoulders who can deal with drunk boaters, and be responsible." "Oh. Okay," I said. Sometimes I just didn't know what else to say. I admire both Rich and Ann so much for what they do and what they know, I feel like it was an honor and a privilege to work for them and for Audubon. The opportunity to do something that hopefully made a difference. The opportunity to feel even just a little bit more like the people that I had always read about. Aldo Leopold, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. The wonderful opportunity of a lifetime. Even though I realized that the same number of birds were going to be there whether I was there to count them or not, and I couldn't will them to build their nests in a safer place, and I couldn't control when a predator ate the young ones, and I couldn't change the course of the weather or the waves. These things are all left up to a higher power than me. But maybe, just maybe, my being there around the islands made someone think twice about going ashore, and hopefully, the people that I had to confront will have a better understanding of the vulnerability of the nesting birds, and luckily, the fishing line that I plucked out of the mangroves and the plastic bags that I scooped out of the water won't bring harm to any wildlife, and finally, I just may have realized what I've been called to do. Some people might not think it's such a big deal, but they're missing something as far as I'm concerned. Because if you don't love God's creation, and find the beauty in it all, and become inspired and filled with wonder by it, and want to preserve and protect it, from pollution and development, from people - innocent and ignorant, from foreign invaders and from cruise liners, then you just don't get it. God made it all wonderful and mysterious. From the majestic Bald Eagle, to the lowly Vulture. From the raucous gulls that were so numerous that their "laughing" was incessant, to the plucky Oystercatchers that sadly seemed to be struggling to survive. From the shocking, bleached blue jean look of the immature Little Blue Heron, to the dull drab, mottled camouflage of the immature Night Heron. From the Brown Pelican that is born white, to the White Ibis that is born brown. From the cutest, softest, cuddliest looking tern chick, to the prehistoric looking hard armor of the horseshoe crab. From the swift, recklessly diving, tiny Least Tern, to the huge, slow, gracefully swimming manatee. From the all business-all the time, stately look of the Great Blue Heron, to the comical under-bite look of the Black Skimmer, that lazily lays flat out on the beach, making him look like road kill to me. From the wind that threatened me, and the sun that burned me, and the water that scared me, to the dolphins that I watched playfully seeming to enjoy it all.
If all this doesn't move you in some way, then you might be lost somewhere.
But if you can talk Rich and Ann into taking you on a field trip out to the
Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries, it may just help you find yourself.
It helped me. That was my summer with Audubon, and it was for the birds.
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