Bird of the Forest and Sea
ONE
MONTH BEFORE I left for the Peace Corps in
August 1992, an unexpected visitor arrived at
the Powers Ranger District office in the
Siskiyou National Forest (now Rogue
River-Siskiyou National Forest). A man visiting
the forest had found a bird unable to fly along
the paved road adjacent to the South Fork
Coquille River.
“It’s
very unusual looking,” he said before opening
the box in which he’d transported it to our
office. “Got funny feet, all black and white,
and I don’t know, it’s just a bit strange.”
As
I listened to his story, I felt a familiar
sinking feeling. People regularly brought in
birds they’d found in the forest. Maybe they
were owls or song- birds, frequently hit by cars
or, like this one, just “sitting there” along
the road. Maybe a young robin, or a young wren,
or one of the many summertime sparrows had left
the nest too soon with shaky flying abilities.
Perhaps a spotted towhee, a species that is
often in low shrubs, had made an ill-timed dash
from one side of the road to the other. No
matter the circumstances, the rescuers always
expected us to save the bird.
Much
to my surprise, the bird on this day was not a
robin or a sparrow. It also wasn’t a wren or a
Steller’s jay or a towhee. In fact, it wasn’t
any kind of a songbird. The black-and-white
youngster offering high-pitched chirps from the
bottom of the box was a marbled murrelet.
Biologist and author
Besty Howell writes about caring for a rescued
murrelet chick 30 years ago, and how so many
years on, land managers are still trying to
understand this endangered species and its
habitats.
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