Month: September 2018

I visited Hawk Ridge again. I drove up to Duluth Saturday morning and arrived at the ridge by 1045.

There was occasional sun but it was mostly cloudy. The winds blew in an unfavorable direction so the migrants were few. I did see sharp-shinned hawks, bald eagles, an osprey, and a broad-winged hawk. There were also turkey vultures, northern flickers, cedar waxwings, blue jays, white-throated sparrows, and chickadees.

The Ridge has a very unfortunate design. This Saturday was Hawk Weekend, which is a publicized event that draws crowds. Despite the crowds, the road cutting through the preserve remains open to vehicle traffic. As a result, drivers speed through the area constantly. Instead of looking up and around for birds, visitors are on guard constantly for careless, speeding drivers. There is one traffic control employee or volunteer in dayglo overalls attempting to calm the incoming vehicles and warn visitors of their approach. But the feeling for visitors is that you are camped on the side of a road instead of visiting a nature preserve. It is unpleasant. Why can’t they just close the road to vehicle traffic on weekends during the hawk migration? The road is gravel and leads only to a few residences.

I drove to Snowflake campground and set up my tent. I struggled to get a fire going. I think the wood was damp. It was from an uncovered pile outside the Holiday gas station. I finally got it going and read for a bit before going to bed.

I slept okay. There were some college-age individuals in a nearby campsite who screamed and shouted a lot instead of just talking at a normal level. There was very light intermittent drizzle in the late evening. I think this continued overnight. As a result, apparently, a mom and her daughter slept in the camp complex’s building, just feet from the door that you open to get to the water fountain and the bathroom. Of course, when i went in there to get water and wash my hands at around 2100 the mother looked absolutely terrified of me when she looked up from her blue glowing phone screen and realized i was standing there, trying to get by. She then said, “sorry.” i am tired of tiptoeing around frightened strangers, trying not to scare them further, trying to reassure them that no one is attacking or judging them. When someone says, "Sorry," and all you have done is walk by, how exactly are you supposed to respond? You have done and said nothing reproachful. Do you just ignore them? Are they trying to unbalance you, to make you feel you are intimidating, disruptive, and unwelcome? Is it their way of attacking in a passive way? Why do strangers say sorry when you walk by? Why do strangers apologize?

I was warm and comfortable the whole night. I could go 30 F colder and still be fine. I think the lowest temperature was 48 F. it was damp, but even so it did not feel cold at any time. I am more than ready for some October excursions.

For my next trip i will use a hammock. This will reduce pack weight, avoid the problem of my heavy head resting on an uncomfortable ball of jacket/clothing (with hard metal zippers and clasps), and will keep me off the ground away from slugs and earthworms (a few of which i had to pluck from my gear when I returned).

I got up at 0800, packed up my stuff, and drove home. I think I will skip Duluth next year. There are so many other great places to visit. Even Hawk Ridge has compelling rivals when it comes to birding action. There are many birding hotspots to check out instead of returning here. I still have not visited the Sax-Zim bog. I also have not visited the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge. I also need to check out the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota.

My aunt: recently deceased due to cancer. She had suffered from cancer for many years, in between remission and relapse. That was in addition to many painful spine surgeries during her last decade.

My other aunt also has cancer. She had just retired when she found it had come back. The travel plans she and her husband had made are now on hold.

My grandma is in a locked memory care unit. Her short-term memory is completely shot. She is almost 100 years old. I asked her once whether she felt she was ready to die, and she said yes. That was 8 years ago.

My uncle died in his early 50s in a diabetic coma after decades of self-abuse with alcohol.

And then there is my mom. In another cosmic joke, she developed dementia just as she entered retirement in her early 60s. Now she is between the middle and the end of the long decline. At a recent family meeting my sister teared up when she told us about how she thought often of how Mom would have been now, had she not developed Alzheimer’s. How her garden would have looked, how she would have played with her grandchildren, how she would have carried on her life’s work as a clinical social worker into retirement. Now, her world is small and dim and getting more so.

I suppose these are the good problems to have, diseases of longevity and affluence. Better to have a stroke at 60 than to have tuberculosis at 20, for example. Yet the young were not exempt. My siblings suffered when they were young, too, from mental illness that pressed hard on us their nearest kindred.

It still sucks though. It’s a reminder that disease is rampant in the world.

This is my grim and joyless post for the month. Future ones will be brighter, including one for an upcoming Hawk Ridge birding trip.