Confession: I am in Love with a Cat

I am in love with a cat. My friends will be surprised, even shocked to hear that, but it's true. She is no ordinary cat, of course. Only a truly extraordinary cat could have such an effect on me. She also would not be welcome in most households. She is by nature an outdoor cat, and, yes, she is a danger to wildlife, and that's okay. Her name is Ntombe, which comes from a river in South Africa that was the scene of a famous battle in the Anglo-Zulu war in 1879. 

Ntombe's Sweet Face

Ntombe is an Acinonyx jubatus, better known to most of us as cheetah, the fastest land animal in the world.  Her species once roamed all over Africa and much of south and southwest Asia, but is now found mostly in southern and eastern Africa, with a small population in remote parts of Iran.

Ntombe herself roams in the Tshukudu Game Reserve, a private former cattle ranch that is now devoted to caring for orphaned big cats, including lions, leopards and cheetahs. A few lions and leopards live in large breeding enclosures, but most have the run of the 12,000-acre reserve, which they share with hippos, rhinos, giraffes, wart hogs, elephants and plenty of antelopes to prey upon.

Tshukudu was the first stop on the 12-day photo safari I participated in last fall with Wild 4 Photographic Safaris. We spent two nights in Tshukudu, where we could get up close with some of the lions and leopards, as well as a rare wild dog. As we drove around the reserve, we also sighted other animals that we would see in abundance, but rarely as closely, during our 10 days in Kruger National Park.

Jaco and Ntombe

The highlight in Tshukudu, though, was Ntombe. She lives comfortably in two worlds. In her leisure, i.e., non-hunting, hours, she roams the grounds of the lodge where the staff and guests stay. 

During breakfast, she is likely to walk into the open air dining area as if she owns it, just like your house cat. She may plop herself at your feet under your table, or find a shaft of sunlight through the trees to bask in. If you take a nap in your chalet after lunch, you may find her napping at your doorstep when you awake.

 

And she loves to be petted. At least, that is the most reasonable interpretation of the purring sound she makes if you scratch the bristly fur between her ears. Cheetahs are actually the only big cats that purr.

I had my chance to pet Ntombe shortly after we arrived at Tshukudu from the small airport at Hoedspruit. We had eaten a late lunch and were about to explore the reserve by vehicle with Jaco Venter, our ranger during our stay. But Ntombe was hanging around the lodge, so we started out on foot as Jaco called Ntombe to see if she would join us. Sure enough, she did, sidling up and finally lying down on the other side of the dirt road. We fired our cameras excitedly as she posed, then Jaco invited us to pet her as we took photos of each other.

Ntombe purred softly and looked nonchalant, her eyes gazing into the distance, perhaps on the lookout for an impala or perhaps a lion that would consider her a good meal. 

She may also have been looking for her brothers, Floppy and Hunters. We also spent a lot of time looking unsuccessfully for Floppy and Hunters. They were probably out hunting. When they are not hunting, they usually hang out at the lodge, too, where they go on walks with the guests and behave similarly to Ntombe. But they don't like Ntombe, and when they come back to the lodge, she usually leaves.

Ntombe Shows Her Wild Side

On our last morning, I had wanted to record Ntombe purring, but she was not around. This gave us hope that Floppy and Hunters had come back, but there was no sign of them, either. Which could mean only that Ntombe had gotten hungry and was out in the bush looking for something to kill and eat. Because that is what she does. 

As friendly and gentle as Ntombe was with us, she remains a wild animal that responds to the hunger in her belly with the instinct of the killer that she is. Somewhere out in the bush, she would find an impala or waterbuck, creep to within 100 feet and then strike with lightning speed. Accelerating from a standstill to 60 mph in about 3 seconds, she has her prey usually in less than a minute, tripping it and then strangling it by closing her jaws over its throat. She then eats quickly before other predators and scavengers show up to claim a share.

That is the cat I was petting two days earlier, listening to her purr and wanting the moment to go on and on. To be that close and comfortable with a lethal wild animal with such power, speed and beauty is to absorb that wildness, and never want to let go.

Of course, I had to let go, and Ntombe is still at Tshukudu, being loved by the guests and feared by the impalas. That is life in the bushveldt. And I hope it goes on and on.

Ntombe and me

The Best Leopard Spotter

The Wild4 Safari Vehicle

My sole criterion for picking the photo safari outfit I used in South Africa was the vehicle. I wanted to be able to do serious wildlife photography, and it was clear that the vehicle used by Wild4Photographic Safaris was designed by a serious photographer for other serious photographers.

The Nissan diesel pick-up was customized for safari like many others in South Africa. The standard bed was converted to three tiered benches with a canvas top.

What made it special was the additional customizing owner Stu Porter had done. First, the vehicle capacity is 10 passengers -- one in the front seat by the driver, then three on each bench. But Stu puts only one passenger on each bench -- three photographers total, so that each photographer can shoot out of either side of the vehicle. The two-thirds empty bench then has loads of storage space for the photographer's gear, and serious photographers do carry a lot of gear.

That was enough to persuade me to book my trip with Stu. Well, that and seeing Stu's own photos on his Web site. He knows photography, and I inferred that he would be sensitive to photographers' needs.

I was right. And then some.

Stu Porter

Stu, who bears a striking resemblance to movie actor Matt Damon, is a deceptively shy young man with an encyclopedic knowledge of Kruger National Park, its animals, geography, geology, climate, seasons, and, of course, rules. He also has the eyes of an eagle and is the best leopard spotter in South Africa.

I came to that conclusion at the end of a day in which a particular leopard had eluded nearly everyone looking for it all day. It was in the vicinity of a pride of lions that was taking turns eating and guarding a dead hippopotamus. The lions were easy to spot; they wanted to be seen by vultures, hyenas or other scavengers that might dare to steal any of the hippo carcass. We had eaten breakfast that morning while we watched a one-eyed lioness take her turn on the hippo.

Someone driving by advised us that "someone" had seen a leopard in the vicinity, with vague directions as to where the leopard might be. We spent some time looking in that area without luck, then moved on to see what other animals we could find. A return to the lion kill and rumored leopard in mid-afternoon also yielded no leopard.

But we went back one last time as the sun began bathing the bushveldt with its golden afternoon rays. Other leopard seekers had drifted away. There was only one other vehicle in the area when Stu, who had been scanning a wide area with a few big trees and slightly dense undergrowth, said quietly, "I see him."

He gave us directions. "See the small dead tree just beyond the rocks, then there's a big tree behind that, and some bushes to the left...no, not that dead tree, the one just past the rocks, at the edge of the grass...he's in that clump of bushes, just there." I followed as well as I could with my binoculars, and sure enough, there was a small patch of pale yellow with black spots in the midst of the bushes, about 80 meters away. Very small, very well hidden, a trademark skill of leopards. How Stu found it, I have no idea, for even when I was locked on, I think I would not have seen it without Stu finding it first.

Once we all had it, we waited, watching constantly. Finally, our patience was rewarded. The leopard stood up, revealing the 95 percent of him that had been hidden in the bushes, and walked calmly to the base of the tree, maybe 5 meters away. He stopped there, and Stu said, "He's going to climb it."

The leopard lands in the tree

By this time I had put down my binoculars and picked up my camera. I got focused in just as the leopard leaped on the far side of the tree and suddenly appeared in the crotch of the first limb, about 15 feet above the ground. There he paused, fur blazing in the light of the setting sun, looked around and then moved along the limb to a narrow horizontal space, where he lay down and watched us.

I took a few more photos, and when I took my eye away from the camera, I realized that he had placed himself against a dense tangle of leafless branches, and had I not already seen him through the long telephoto lens, I doubt I would have found him with the naked eye.

But Stu Porter, I am sure, would have.

FACTS OF LIFE

Entering the South African bush veldt, you immediately become aware of the abundance of life, and in almost the same instant, you feel the powerful presence of death.

Giraffes: The Oddest of the Odd

The life forms often seem to have sprung from the imagination of a crazed animator in George Lucas's studio: elephants, hippos, rhinoceros and, to me the oddest of all, giraffes. Or it is so abundant as to become almost unnoticeable: impala by the dozens along the road, like commuters in a subway station, staring dumbly at the passing trains, birds of all shapes, sizes, hues and purposes. Or it is hidden in the sparse foliage, watching and waiting: lions, leopards and cheetahs, magnificent life that ensures the perpetuation of death.

It is easy here to see the connectedness of all these forms and the many more that can hardly be seen (it is estimated that the mass of all the termites living in the ground in Kruger National Park exceeds the mass of all the other animals combined). Grass grows and thrives in this environment, and elephants ensure that trees and grass stay in proper balance.

Elephants prefer the bark and roots of trees, so they are the forest managers who convert woodlands to grasslands and then move on until trees come back a few decades later. Grass and leaves on the trees feed the impala, kudu, steenbok, waterbuck and other antelopes. Grass is the staple for rhinos, hippos and buffalo.

And all of those animals are the staple for the lions, leopards and cheetahs, as well as the hyenas, jackals and wild dogs that roam the bush veldt. When we say that something is the staple for something else, we mean, of course that something dies so something else can live.

These are the facts of life in the veldt.

Leopard: The Midnight Rambler

There are more than 150,000 impala in Kruger National Park. There are about 1,700 lions, 1,000 leopards and 120 cheetahs. Few, if any, of the impala will die of disease or starvation. All will be food for the big cats and other predators, with vultures, beetles, mongoose and other scavengers cleaning up the mess. Hyenas' powerful jaws will crush the remaining bones for the marrow. Nothing is wasted. All of it supports ongoing life.

Hyenas, by the way, get a bad rap as scavengers living off the hard work of the big cats. Hyenas actually hunt and kill 80 percent of what they eat.

The big cats are not immune to violent death. When a young male lion succeeds in overthrowing an older male to take over a pride, the first thing he does is kill his predecessor's offspring. Young leopards and cheetahs are vulnerable to attacks by hyenas and other cats.

Stu Porter, my guide in Kruger for 10 days, put it succinctly: for any animal here, including the big cats, to survive to adulthood is a miracle.

And, if the predation of other animals is not enough of a challenge, all these animals are subject to the whims of water. The bush veldt experiences a wet season and a dry season. If they are out of balance, water in the seasonal rivers doesn't flow, and the pans and dams dry out. 

We saw two different water scenarios in our 10 days in Kruger. In the south end, around Lower Sabie Camp, the rains had come early. Spring green carpeted the veldt. The Sabie River ("River of Fear," because of the crocodiles), flowed. Herds were scattered, and life was easy.

Zebras at the Waterhole

Just over 100 kilometers to the north, the dry winter lingered on. The grass was brown. Rivers were dry. Buffalo, wildebeest and zebras gathered in large herds around the diminishing water holes. Big cats watched for the weak and sick. Elephants and rhinos walked many dusty kilometers for a drink and a bath. Giraffes nibbled at what little green they could find sprouting on the tops of trees.

Eventually the rains will come, and the land will turn green, and the herds will scatter. The ones that don't last will sustain the ones that do. Survival is not victory. It is merely the postponement of one's inevitable ultimate contribution.

Those are the facts of life in the bush veldt.

Nature Wins

Back in the 1970s, when I first lived in the South Carolina Lowcountry, I had a small boat that I liked to take out on weekends to fish for reds and trout in the creeks or sometimes Spanish mackerel and blues off the beach. But nature always seemed to conspire against me. We'd get five days of beautiful, flat calm seas that ended Friday nights when a cold front would move in from some place like Ohio and stay all weekend.

Gradually and reluctantly, I learned the wisdom of the old seafarer's saying, "I'd rather be in here wishing I was out there than out there wishing I was in here." It only took a couple of times of feeling like a cork in a washing machine to get that.

Isaac arrives in the Keys (NOAA Photo)

So when then Tropical Storm Isaac decided to pay a call on the Florida Keys at the same time that I was planning to be diving in the Dry Tortugas 70 miles west of Key West, I had only brief regrets. I always yield to that kind of weather.

Some of my friends seemed more upset by the cancellation than I was (maybe they were looking forward to me being out of town). Sure, I hate to miss a dive trip, and I haven't been blowing bubbles nearly as much as I need to lately.

There is a larger issue in this for me, though. It's all about my relationship with nature. As a nature photographer, that's obviously pretty important.

Back when the weather gods always seem to have it in for me, of course, I was also at the mercy of an employer who expected me to be in the office Monday to Friday. I am fortunate today to be able to make my own schedule. I can take advantage of the weather when it's good, hunker down and make plans to clean my apartment when it's not. Fortunately, the weather usually improves before I have to put those plans into action.

But the nice thing about having this freedom is that I can regulate my activities with the rhythms of nature, which seems more natural somehow. I have long believed that the root cause of human discontent is our separation from the natural world. We have created artificial everything to shield us from the inconveniences of nature, and I think that does something bad to our souls.

Whistling ducks on the wing

I feel more in tune with the natural world than I used to, because most of my activities depend on the time of day and the state of the weather. I am most active as a photographer early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the light is most beautiful and animals are most active. When it rains hard I seek shelter and enjoy the sounds of thunder and the flash of lightning. When it drizzles I relish the soft wetness on my skin and the sounds of the frogs in the nearby retention ponds. Of necessity, I am aware of moon and tide cycles, and I study the seasons to know migration patterns.

I'm no Thoreau. I'm writing this at 10:30 at night on a laptop computer with an electric light beside me and the air conditioner tempering the humidity. I like my comforts and my entertainment as much as anyone. But I am fortunate that the passions that consume me tie me closely to nature's schedule. It helps me feel more a part of nature rather than apart from it.

Anhinga with crappie

That enables me to be there when an anhinga swims by trying to swallow a crappie or when a pair of whistling ducks speeds by flashing their wings in time with their eerie shrieks. Those just happened to be two of the highlights on Sunday afternoon at a nearby wildlife refuge. 

Which is where I was instead of diving in the Dry Tortugas.

In The Way

I'm waiting to hear what I expect will be bad news from the Center for Birds of Prey. I took an injured Cooper's Hawk up there Sunday in hopes that the medical staff could work a miracle or two and get this beautiful bird up in the air where it belongs.

Back in June I attended a workshop and got certified to be a transporter for the renowned Raptor Center, as it is popularly known. With a well-staffed and equipped medical clinic, the center takes in injured hawks, owls, eagles, vultures, kites and ospreys to heal their wounds and release them back to the wild if at all possible.

Healthy Coopers Hawk

There's nothing terribly glamorous about being a transporter. No flashing lights or sirens on my car as I drive through the ACE Basin and  across Charleston to the Raptor Center's grounds about 19 miles north of Charleston. I don't even listen to the radio, as any noise just adds stress to a bird that is very likely in shock already.

Twice this month I've gotten calls from the Raptor Center asking me to contact someone who has collected an injured bird. I arrange to meet that person and transfer the bird to my own cardboard pet carrier, lined with towels.

The drive takes a little over two hours if traffic isn't too bad. With no NPR or music to distract me, my mind drifts recklessly from the sublime to the ridiculous. Once in a while, for a change of pace, I might whisper to the bird that we only have another 30 minutes to go. There's no response.

My first bird, a Mississippi kite with spinal trauma, occasionally scratched at the box, which I took as a positive sign; if it can move its feet, surely it can be  rehabilitated. Wrong. After five days of steroids and physical therapy, the  vets at the Raptor Center had to put that bird to sleep.

I never even saw the kite. The woman who had collected it is an experienced bird rehabilitator who contacted the Raptor Center when she could make no progress. She already had the kite in a box and had attached a letter explaining the situation. There was no need to stress the bird further by opening the box just so I could see it. I put the box in my car and drove to the Raptor Center. The vet thanked me, read the letter and shook her head sadly as she said, "It doesn't look good." And she was right.

Today, she and the staff are working on the Cooper's hawk I brought them Sunday. I did see this bird as I took it from the laundry basket where the woman who found it  in her backyard had placed it after it apparently collided with her window. The bird was awake and moved its feet feebly. It looked at me with a yellow eye that seemed more curious than afraid.

When we opened the box at the Raptor Center, the bird was in the same position, its eye still open and looking up curiously. Again the vet said, "It doesn't look good." I was expecting that.

Actually it is what all transporters are taught to expect. The majority of birds brought to the medical center don't make it, but the success rate is higher than that of humans who get CPR.

But we have to try. Trying is what makes humans humane. Just because expectations are low doesn't mean we should abandon hope. And I am confident that one day the  Raptor Center will call to tell me the bird I brought them a week earlier has just been released, alive, healthy and free.

Don't Get In the Way

I was telling a friend about my bird transporter duties the other day, and explained how they get injured. Flying into windows is common, flying into or failing to get out of the way of moving vehicles even more common. My friend said, "We humans are just in the way, aren't we?"

That reminded me of something else I had heard a few days earlier in a TED talk about our relationship with another predator, sharks. And since this is the notorious "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel, I thought I'd finish this up by linking you to that talk. This is a five minute debunking of the  most common myths about shark "attacks" and "rogue sharks." 

It won't spoil it to tell you that the last line of the talk is "We're not on the menu, we're just in the way." We need to remember that. And we have to do what we can to mitigate it. 

Sharks on Nearly Every Dive

The best moment of my recent dive trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands was something I  had to be told about later. As I was getting nose to nose with a big lobster to get an intimate portrait, a five-foot Caribbean reef shark passed behind me, circled around and was glancing over my shoulder as I snapped away at the lobster. When I finally turned around I caught a glimpse of the shark swimming away from me, and I couldn't get a picture. I wish someone had gotten a picture of the shark looking over my shoulder, but I have an image in my mind that's as vivid as if I'd seen it for real.

Underwater photography is like that. Actually diving is like that. Many are the times I've seen barracuda and turtles and sharks shadowing another diver who never knew it was there. 

We learn about these incidents back on the boat in the chaotic "debriefing" that divers conduct among themselves as they shuck their gear and peel off their wetsuits: "Did you see that hammerhead...?" "Man, that barracuda was checking you out..." "I have never seen so many Christmas tree worms in one place...." "Huh? I didn't see anything, worst dive I've ever been on..."

All you can do is shrug your shoulders and hope for better luck next time. A couple of years ago, I came up with a stock answer when I was asked if I'd seen "the shark" on the last dive. "Almost saw it," I replied. "Very close, but, no, I didn't see it."

Caribbean Reef Shark

For my fellow divers on the Turks and Caicos trip, the biggest thrill was one I knew about but didn't participate in. We had all gotten back on the boat after the fourth dive of the day and were organizing our gear when someone spotted a manta ray near the boat. Soon another one appeared, and the crew announced that the pool was open for anyone who wanted to snorkel with the mantas.

Almost everyone jumped in. I opted not to. I've got a host of reasons, none of which matter, but not least of which was I didn't think they'd stick around for long. As it turned out a third manta showed up, and the trio swam and barrel rolled around the boat for more than an hour as most of the divers followed and managed not to spook the rays. One of the crew, Lynn Greene, got a beautiful video sequence that you just have to see.

The mantas were the talk of the trip for the rest of the week, and I will admit I wished I'd gotten in with them, but it was still one of the best dive trips I've had anywhere, and certainly the best I've experienced in the Caribbean.

Hawksbill Turtle

And sharks were the main reason.

I may not have gotten that one shark, but I did see reef sharks on most of the 23 dives I did over six days, and I was able to get pretty good photos of several of them. Any dive where you see sharks is a good dive. The only places I've seen more sharks are the Galapagos and Palau in the Pacific (I'm not counting shark feeding dives, where sharks are lured into unnatural feeding behavior for the amusement of divers, a questionable practice at best).

Much of the reef around Turks and Caicos is a marine park where fishing is prohibited. Such marine protected areas have proven to be valuable for the recovery of heavily pressured fish like grouper and sharks, which then re-populate nearby areas where fishing is permitted. That value is obvious in Turks and Caicos waters. Sharks are not the only beneficiaries. We also saw fairly good numbers of large groupers, eagle rays, turtles, barracuda and lobster, and then there were those mantas, of course.

And I was pleased to see fewer specimens of one other species.

Nassau Grouper

Besides humans, the greatest threat to Caribbean reefs is the rapid spread of invasive lionfish. This native of the Indo-Pacific region has exploded throughout the tropical and temperate western Atlantic. They are prolific breeders and efficient, voracious predators of small and juvenile fish, including groupers.

The lionfish also have benefitted from the apparent absence of predators that will eat them. In the Pacific, where they belong, lionfish tend to be fairly shy ambush predators whose numbers are checked by larger predators, including groupers and sharks.

The lionfish in Turks and Caicos were not as numerous as their cousins in the Bahamas, Roatan and North Carolina in recent years, and they were not as large. I don't know if the groupers, sharks, rays and barracuda of Turks and Caicos have acquired a taste for lionfish, but that could be one reason for the healthy balance we saw there.

Most of what I read and hear -- and see with my own eyes -- about the state of the world ocean is extremely pessimistic, so the best part of the Turks and Caicos for me was seeing a reef that seems to be healthy and relatively well balanced, and the sharks were one of the major bits of evidence. It will take a lot more marine protected areas to level off the damage we are doing to the oceans and to ourselves, but this is a place that gives you hope it can happen.

The Virtues of Envy

Flag of Turks and Caicos over the marina

I like it when people say they envy me. I've been hearing that a lot lately, especially in the last week or so, since I joined old friends from Maryland on a liveaboard dive trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands. 


It was somewhat surprising to hear that on the boat, since we were all doing the same thing. To the dedicated diver, liveaboards are the best way to go. You set up your gear at the beginning of the week and spend the next seven days diving, eating and sleeping. It's the perfect way to "front the essential facts of life," as Thoreau envisioned himself doing at Walden Pond. I'm sure he would have included scuba diving as one of the essential facts along with eating and sleeping, if scuba gear had been invented back then. 


The boat we were on, the Turks and Caicos Explorer, is one of the nicest I have had the pleasure of boarding. The boat is big (124 feet), spacious, steady, sturdy, well appointed, serves great food and, at least last week, had a professional, attentive and fun-loving crew. And the diving was some of the best I've seen in the Caribbean (more about that in a near-future blog post). 


Furthermore, the weather was almost perfect, and even though we were well on the other side of the Tropic of Cancer, it was a damn sight more pleasant than the scorching temperatures of the DC area and the Midwest (two of the divers had escaped from Kansas). The constant trade winds over the water moderate the temperature, and the occasional brief tropical rain can almost make you want a sweater.

A view that inspires gratitude

Anyway, since everyone aboard was doing the same thing I was, why would any of them envy me? For some of them at least, it's easy to understand. They're still working for a living, while I and several others have passed on to the world of no deadlines, no bosses, no staff and many other things that used to dominate our lives. 


Since I returned, I've heard more understandable but equally welcome envy from non-diving friends, too, and it finally dawned on me that this sort of envy is a positive thing, not a destructive, soul-tormenting jealousy, but rather an appreciation.


I claim no virtue in having reached this state. Yes, I worked and earned most of my retirement income, but I am also incredibly lucky. Not everyone these days can even think about retirement, and that is very sad. My generation may be the last in America that can not tell our children they have a good chance of living better than we do. 


All of that contributes to the feeling of gratitude I have when I go off to the Turks and Caicos or some of the even more exotic trips I'm planning soon. I have no sense of entitlement. Indeed, when I think about it, I'm most grateful that I didn't get everything I deserved in life. 

May envy lift you high enough to see it all.

What I did get is the opportunity to do what I'm doing now, traveling, photographing places and wildlife and sharing what I see with anyone who's interested. 


If people envy that, as so many have said they do lately, well, that just confirms for me that I'm doing what I should be doing, seizing the opportunity to live the life I have dreamed of. Some people might live through me that way. I hope that more will do the same thing, no matter what their dream life is (as long as they're not hurting other people and creatures, of course). 


By the way, there are people I envy, too. Not because I want the life they have necessarily, but because they are living their own dreams, often in the face of serious challenges. They weren't given the opportunities I've had; they had to make their own, and the value of what they do is magnified many times over. 

Retired Birds

I have always been fascinated by migration. I have a map of bird migration hanging on the wall of my office. I read everything I can about it, and I marvel at the mysteries that science has unraveled about how birds and fish navigate over literally thousands of miles of ocean.

Here in the South Carolina Low Country, we know a lot about migration. Over the past few months, we have witnessed the streams of warblers passing through as they migrate toward nesting grounds full of food and safety further north. The red knots recently stopped on our beaches to feast on horseshoe crab eggs before continuing their 16,000 mile journey from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic tundra.

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

We are seeing some unusual migrants this year, too, as birds may be expanding their ranges in response to climate change. Several families of black-bellied whistling ducks seem to have settled in the Savannah Wildlife Refuge. And roseate spoonbills, while never total strangers to the area, seem to be more widespread than usual this year.

All this migratory activity, even when it is outside normal ranges, tends to satisfy the crucial need for organisms to reproduce and perpetuate themselves. But when I study the fantastic migrations of some bird species in particular, I can't help but wonder if there is some additional evolutionary force at work, a force that favors exploration as well as migration. Albatrosses, for example, cover thousands of miles of open ocean just to find food to feed their nest-bound chicks. Arctic terns fly north along the entire coast of South America and North America in spring to nest near Greenland in summer, then return south in fall via Europe and Africa.

For the past few winters a pair of highly endangered whooping cranes has been sojourning in the vast marshes of the ACE Basin estuary in South Carolina. What's unusual about these birds is that they apparently belong to a flock of hatchery-raised whoopers that scientists are training to migrate between Wisconsin and Florida. The only natural whooping crane flock, numbering less than 300 birds, travels between the Texas coast and northern Canada and has been doing so for hundreds of years.

Lowcountry Whooping Crane

The hatchery-raised flock, though, is showing some signs of independence. They have been training to migrate by following ultralight aircraft between their summer and winter grounds. Last year the whole lot of them refused to continue on to Florida after being grounded on the Alabama coast for several days by a storm.

Several years before that, two birds broke off from the main flock and diverted to South Carolina to spend the winter. They apparently go back to Wisconsin in summer with the rest of the flock, but they have decided they prefer winter in the Lowcountry rather than the Sunshine State.

I love that South Carolina pair, and not just because they choose to spend the winter in South Carolina. I love their independence, the fact that they chose a different direction. They are pioneers, and if they successfully nest and their babies follow them to the Lowcountry, they will be the reason this "artificial" flock succeeds, by expanding territory and improving the species' chances for survival.

Call them independent, call them pioneers, these birds are important, just as the whistling ducks that showed up in numbers this year, and the expanding numbers of spoonbills. I'm assuming, of course, that these are breeding birds that will raise young and eventually declare the Lowcountry home.

But could some of them be retired birds, the ones who aren't breeding any more, whose chicks have all fledged, but who still have plenty of life and perfectly good wing feathers? After all those seasons of flying over seas and coasts and mountains, stopping over in marshes and ponds and rivers, in short, after seeing some of the most beautiful parts of this big blue planet, do they just pick out a pothole or swamp and hunker down and wait to die? I think not!

Snow Geese

Hey, that's what wings are for, and I think they're using them. They've done their bit to keep the species going. Now it's their turn to travel for fun and explore new places. It's what they've been working for all their lives, all those months on the nest, regurgitating half-digested worms and fish for their squawking babies, building and rebuilding nests that just get fouled with baby bird poop, teaching the babies to hunt or forage, maybe even mourning the ones that don't make it.

All right, this is totally unscientific. I'm projecting. It's what I would do if I were a bird, because it's what I'm doing as a "retired" human. As long as the wings still work and the wind blows, I'm gonna fly, to new places and old, just because they are there. And I'll tip my hat to the birds that join me.