By Michele Patenaude
When I mention the Marsh Bird Study that I conduct in the Sand Bar Wildlife Management Area, bird watchers will often ask me if they can help. “That sounds so interesting,” they will say. “Do you need any help? I’d love to come along.”
I am one of a cadre of volunteers who survey 16 marshes across Vermont for the Marsh Bird Monitoring Program of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife Non-Game and Natural Heritage Program. My marsh is in the Sand Bar Wildlife Management Area located at the mouth of the Lamoille River in Milton. The Sand Bar is a wild place, closed to the public except by permit. The birds are undisturbed except by the occasional bird researcher such as myself. For the last six Junes, I have spent two mornings, at least 10 days apart, in the Sand Bar with my tape player broadcasting marsh bird calls at my survey “points.” Points are located 275 yards or more apart in emergent marsh habitat. My survey route has five points. The target species are “obligate marsh birds”: American Bittern, Least Bittern, Pied-billed Grebe, Common Moorhen, American Coot, Virginia Rail, Sora and Black Tern. At each point I spend about 10 minutes. I broadcast, listen and hope for a response. I record the species I see and hear. I go alone.
It’s not that I couldn’t use the help. I could. But I am sure those who offer have no idea what they would be getting into. I assume they harbor romantic illusions about this bird survey business. I understand. I had the same notions when I was first asked to do the survey. But now I know that I will be grumbling when my alarm clock goes off at 3:00 a.m. and I fumble to the kitchen to make the strong coffee I will need to get me through this ordeal. I pull on old pants, sneakers and socks, all apparel that I will throw away when the survey is completed. Swamps are muddy, smelly places — hard on clothes and shoes. (I find waders too constraining, and they give me blisters.)
No matter how warm the temperature, I will cover my body in two layers of clothing to keep the mosquitoes and deer flies from biting. One layer will never do. I apply DEET to my face and neck and hands, and even put some on my clothing. I wear a good mosquito net over my head, face and neck. Still, they will find a way to penetrate my shirt and pants and socks, to get under my netting, to foil the DEET.
If the lake level is high, the Sand Bar will be flooded, and I will be wading though leech-infested waters. During the study I will walk about four miles. My walking stick will be essential to probe the waters, to help me lift myself over the barbed wire fence I need to scale, and to help me balance on the huge fallen tree that I use as a bridge to get to one of my “points”.
After a few hours of marsh bird surveying at the Sand Bar, the mosquitoes can make me question my will to live — or at least my will to complete the survey. The tiniest piece of exposed skin will be ferociously attacked. This is not the kind of volunteer work for those who fear West Nile Virus.
And then there’s the barbed wire fence. Because the main gate to the Sand Bar is not opened by the refuge manager until later in the morning, I must climb the fence to get in. I park in the lot at the Lamoille River boat launch and put on my netting and apply my DEET before I step out of the car. Then I don my pack, grab my walking stick and get my trusty foot stool out of the trunk. I am not as limber as I used to be and scaling the fence is no small feat. I need the help of my footstool to climb up and over. The fence is topped with a single, but effective, strand of barbed wire.
Oh, the stories I could tell. About the big water snakes, the drowned tape recorders, the dense tall grasses that obstruct my path and rain pollen down on me as I push through them. About the time I got lost for several hours.
But then I remember walking along a path flanked by Ostrich Ferns that tower over my head and shaded by great Swamp White Oaks and Silver Maples so wide and tall I am humbled beneath them. I remember the pair of nesting osprey, and the female who always spots me first and loudly announces her alarm to the entire marsh. I remember the symphony of bird song: orioles, vireos, peewees, waterthrushes, veeries, redstarts, titmice, wrens, sparrows, blackbirds and snipes. Everywhere there are birds that sing from every tree, flooding the swamp with their songs.
There are the salmon sunrises over the wild rice paddies. There is the wild laughter of the Pied-billed Grebe which can be heard throughout the marsh. There are the Virginia Rails who seem to be present at every point and who readily respond to all the taped calls no matter what the species. Oh, the stories I could tell about ravens, about bald eagles, about bull frogs as big as my foot. There was the morning when I came over the crest of a hill to see coyote pups playing on the path and I froze still as a tree and they did not notice me. For the next 20 minutes as the mosquitoes and deerflies tested my self control, I watched the little pups jump and wrestle with each other until one of them finally noticed me and they all ran away.
These are the pictures that inspire the romantic illusions that people have about bird research. These are the pictures that dance in the heads of the people who offer to help me with my marsh bird survey.
This winter when I sit and think about next year’s Sand Bar survey, these are the pictures that will dance in my head, too. I will forget about wading through cold marsh waters and about soaked tape players. I will forget about the mosquitoes and the deerflies. I will forget about the barbed wire fence and the poison ivy. It’s the romance that I will remember — and that will have me day dreaming about next year’s survey.
