Contradictions (Ken)

It was still dark in the morning in the RV campground when I was rudely awakened by a “thump” outside our tent. I couldn’t see anything out the door, so I tried unsuccessfully to drift back to sleep. I gave up and got up when the first light blushed the eastern horizon. I stumbled over the source of the thump on the way to the bathroom – a newspaper that had been hurled from a golf cart. First time we’ve ever had a paper delivered to our tent.

I fired up the stove for morning coffee and leafed through the paper. The morning headline read “State Board Approves Teaching of Evolution.” I suppose that is progress. On page 5 there was a long, scary article about global warming. Its headline was, “Mass Extinctions Forecast if Eco-crisis isn’t Tackled.” As I read that 40% of all plant and animal species could be extinct by the end of the century because of global warming, I heard a deep rumble. A huge, silver RV (towing a golden-colored Hummer) rolled past. I could feel the heat belching out of the chrome-plated exhaust.

We’ve seen thousands of RVs & big trucks towing trailers during our journey, but a motor home towing a Hummer was over the top for me. I hope that all of us can make the changes we need so that innocent plants and animal species aren’t banished from Planet Earth forever by our relentless consumption.

A few other contradictions I’ve noticed lately:

A car parked in the Anhinga Trail parking lot with a bumper sticker that said “Piping Plovers Taste Like Chicken.” Presumably the car’s inhabitants were enjoying the birds of the Everglades, while at the same time advertising that an endangered species was expendable.

The house we are staying in today has the air-conditioning on. It also has a presto-log burning in the fire-place.

Okay, I’ve finished ranting. Time to get back on the bicycle.

The Year I Met Ken Burgener (Malkolm)

A photo of Ken Burgener's sleeping bag.

“If you guys write a book, what are you going name it?”

“I dunno. Bird Year?”

“No... call it The Year I Met Ken Burgener. Here, make sure you remember how to spell my last name- B- U-R-G-E-N-E-R. Got it?”

Ken Burgener, his wife Linda Warschauer, Ken M, Wendy and I had strolled along a boardwalk through Mahogany Hammock, a lush forest in the heart of the Everglades. Ken B brimmed with humor and off-the-wall ideas. I chuckled at another of his jokes. All the laughing erupting from our party must have scared every Flycatcher and Parula from far away.

“Hey Linda,” said Ken B. “You’re a beginning birder- have you seen an American Bittern?”

“Lots” she said.

“Now Malkolm, have you seen an American Bittern?”

“Nope. But I’ve been looking in the wrong direction twice when a supposed American Bittern has flown past.”

I marvelled at the wonders of social networking. Our friend Rachel Shephard had introduced us to Jim Meyers, who had arranged our presention on Cape Canaveral. Jim had gotten us in touch with Ken and Linda. Along with humour and fresh fruit, they had put us in touch with more of their friends: Ann Wiley and Holly and Jason Andreotta. Ann Wiley in Fort Lauderdale took us birding by bicycle while Holly and Jason had cooked up the best meal we’d had in ages. And Ann, Jason and Holly had been brainstorming about more friends to stay with further up the Florida coastline. Anyway, my goal in this blog was to write about something other than cycling, birding, camping, eating or the problems facing the planet. Something happy. Speaking of happiness- back to Ken Burgener.

“So I took a personality test. The psychologist said I was unbalalanced. He said people have happiness and sadness quotients- balancing each other out. But I’m unbalanced, I have too high of a happiness quotient.

Ken and Linda kept re-appearing along our way. After we stayed with them in south-western Florida they visited us on Sanibel Island, in the Everglades, then again at Ann Wiley’s house. And as usual Ken Burgener brought a batch of new jokes.

“So me and a bunch of nerd birders are sitting in a garbage dump, with our spotting scopes and our binoculars. And we’re looking at the masses of gulls feeding all over the piles of smelly junk. Twenty of us squinting through scopes, trying to find the rare Iceland Gull that showed up at this dump. Then some guy drives by and yells at us, “Get a life!” He was probably right.”

Later that evening Ken pulled out a DVD of footage he’d filmed of us in the Everglades. The film starred Ken and Linda and in very small print “also three nerdy birders/bikers” It was six minutes of hilarity, videos of us doing wierd stuff and half second flashes of an American Bittern. In the very last scene the film showed a nice clear view of the bittern.

“Have you seen one of those?” asked Ken Burgener

“Actually yes. On our last day in the Everglades.”

“Well have you seen one of these?” asked Ken, pulling out a photo of a long-tailed black bird with an enormously round bill. It was the 20^th time that evening that he’d pulled out the photo of the Smooth-billed Ani.

“Going to have to work on that one!”

Vulture Love (Wendy)

“Don’t you think Black Vultures have soulful eyes?” Ken asked. We were leaning over a railing at Anhinga Pond in the Everglades, looking down at a bulky black bird. It was so close I could see his chestnut brown eyes, set in the deeply wrinkled charcoal gray skin of his head and neck. When he blinked, a bluish membrane came up from below. He did have nice eyes.

I apologize that the description that follows is unashamedly anthropomorphic.

A larger vulture swooped down and landed right beside the first, so close their sides were touching. At this, the first raised his wings out to his sides. He puffed his chest, stretched and curved his neck and looked coyly towards the ground. In this position, he slowly walked in a small semicircle.

“This must be a courtship display”, I said.

I wondered if I should get my little point and shoot camera. We were so close I could have filled the full frame. I didn’t, though. It seemed impolite.

Back facing the other bird, he jumped on her back. Their tail feathers ruffled and nestled together. The male gently pecked at the female’s neck. After ten seconds or so, he moved to stand on her shoulders, and stepped around a bit. Maybe he was giving her a back rub. He held his shoulders and head high. He seemed pleased with himself.

“Maybe those were not soulful eyes, “I said. “Maybe they were bedroom eyes.”

Peeing and Alligators (Ken)

So far we have been too genteel to talk about things like peeing in our blogs. But here goes.

People ask us many things when we meet them out front of the local Albertson’s, Piggly-Wiggly or Publix grocery stores. “Where do you sleep?” “What do you eat?” “How far do you ride every day?” But they’ve never asked about our peeing adventures.

The other day I decided to count the number of alligators beside the road as we cycled eastwards across “Alligator Alley” – Florida Route 41. If you look at the map, they call I-75 by that name, but we’d been assured that we were cycling across the true, the original, the one-and-only Alligator Alley.

“Fourteen,” I yelled as I saw a 5-foot-long gator lounging across the creek. “There’s number fifteen – she’s a big one. Sixteen! I only saw the nose and the eyes, but I’m counting it as a whole alligator.”

I was riding in my usual position at the back of the Bird Year peleton. My job? To keep an eye on my rear-view-mirror and watch for dangerous traffic situations. Generally I’m pretty conscientious, but today I was too busy watching for alligators. Suddenly a transport truck materialized beside us, blaring its horn. We swerved onto the bumpy shoulder. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Seventeen! Wow, that one is huge!” As the alligator sank, I noticed that it was oddly pale. I yelled at Malkolm and Wendy to stop and we swerved across the road. A trail of bubbles rose from the murky depths of the pond, and suddenly we saw the nostrils of a manatee rise above the surface. It inhaled and sank back out of sight.

If there is one thing I’ve learned during Bird Year, it is to pee when a favorable opportunity arises. I waited until a red pick-up zoomed past, quickly pulled down my shorts and relieved myself. After we watched the manatee surface once more, we got back on our bikes and started pedalling.

“Another Manatee.” yelled Wendy. “And look at that! Those people got a nature show in more ways than one.”

I saw what she was looking at: a “swamp buggy” across the pond. Swamp buggies are long jeep-like vehicles with an elevated platform for passengers. A dozen pairs of binoculars were trained on the manatees. A couple of minutes before they were no doubt focussed on me peeing.

By the end of the two-day cycle across Alligator Alley, we’d counted 207 gators, three Snail Kites plus numerous Anhingas, cormorants, herons, egrets and hawks. We only saw the one swamp buggy, however.

Cycling Down Memory Lane (Malkolm)

Everything seems familiar at Long Pine Key in Everglades Nat’l Park. I remember every bend of that back road, the sign for a Boy Scout Camp and the marsh at the end. It seems more like the 8 months than 8 years ago that I was last here. I guess those first memories of birding and bicycling are embedded in me.

8 years ago we toured (in a van) across the states, speaking about the need to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In between shows in Key Largo and Washington D.C. we took off a week to experience the Everglades. Twice a day we’d cycle to Anhinga Pond . . . the total distance of 16 miles was the farthest I’d ever ridden in a day. I’d sweat along on my old red bike, longing for the shade of the forest around the pond.

Many of my defining birding moments occurred around the boardwalk and trails of Anhinga Pond. I remember staring at a dark ibis, wondering whether the pale gray around its face was enough to turn make it a White-faced Ibis. (Rarely found east of Mississippi) I sought a park ranger’s opinion. Instead of saying “No you idiot, that’s the common Glossy Ibis” he kindly encouraged me by saying “well it’s possible, it’s only separated by air”. I was awestruck by the amazing birds, I spotted a Limpkin camouflaged in the marsh and admired a gorgeous Purple Gallinule stalking over lily-pads. I stared into the thick reeds, hoping to spot the elusive American Bittern, but only saw egrets and herons. Missing the bittern would soon become a common thread, re-appearing whenever I birded in a southern wetland.

In a way not much has changed since then, Purple Gallinules still walk along the banks and Anhingas still swim in pursuit of fish. And just like my first time here, the American Bitterns are still hiding from me!

Loads (Wendy)

My sturdy bike had carried me 8700 miles when we arrived in Venice, Florida. We wheeled into a bicycle store with a maintenance problem.

The bike mechanic moved my bike on to a stand. He looked alarmed. “Wow!” he said,” this bike is loaded way too heavily. It can’t handle this weight. I’m serious. It will break.”

I’m glad he did not lift Malkolm or Ken’s bike. Mine is the lightest, by far. We weighed our bags once. Mine weighed a reasonable 54 pounds. Malkolm’s weighed an unreasonable 88 pounds. Ken’s topped it off at 95 pounds.

You may wonder what the heck we are carrying. The picture shows some of our gear on the picnic table. It looks like a lot. In fact, we are being careful. We need clothes for warm, cold and wet weather. We have tents and sleeping bags. We have one stove, 2 pots, a frying pan and 4 bowls. We make sacrifices. Our towels, for instance, are hand towels, not bath towels. We drink our coffee black because we don’t carry cream.

Because of our conservation project, and my cautious nature, we do have more stuff than most bike tourers.. We have a computer and a SLR camera with two heavy lenses. We have an enormous first aid kit (opened twice).

We are not always careful. For awhile we took along the seventh Harry Potter book. It weighs 2.9 pounds. Ken may choose to buy a six pack of beer instead of two cans. We may carry a large bottle of wine, because we are bargain hunters and it costs the same as a small one. Some of you will think we have rocks in our heads, others will think we are sensible.

Ken is apt to say “Yeah, our loads are ridiculously heavy” in an offhand manner. In fact, he is right.

One last cold spell (Ken)

We rode down the bike trail on Sanibel Island to J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. An Anhinga flew overhead. Reddish Egrets charged around out on the mud flats. Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons and Great Blue Herons waited patiently for fish to swim to them. Roseate Spoonbills swept their bills through the shallows. None of them looked cold.

“How are you?” Wendy asked the woman in the entrance booth.

“Cold,” she answered grumpily.

We stared at her, waiting for the punch-line that never came. It was about 70 (21 C). We were in shorts and T-shirts, soaking up the sun. Wendy and I mailed our long underwear home a week earlier, that’s how confident we were that we were done with cold.

“I didn’t come to Florida to shiver,” she added.

We didn’t tell her about the two-week cold spell that is squatting over our home in the Yukon. Last time I called home, it was 43 degrees below zero

The “cold” front came through when we stayed with our new friends Ken Burgener and Linda Warschauer in Cape Coral. I didn’t notice much change, although the humidity was a little lower and we had to pull our sleeping bags above our knees in the night. Linda has a precise internal thermostat. She told us she could tell when the front came through. Ken, who is relentlessly cheerful, was too busy laughing to notice anything. He once took a Scientology test that concluded that he was “unbalanced” because he was too happy.

One more thing about temperatures The price of campsites goes up proportionately to the mean winter temperature. Since I’m used to wilderness camping, I hate paying anything to set up a tent. Okay, okay – I don’t mind paying for a shower and a picnic table when I’m on a bicycle trip – but we were trying to find a place to camp up by Venice, Florida and the going rate was $50 (+ $5 for Malkolm). And that was for the privilege of sleeping on a concrete pad, surrounded by giant RVs. State Parks are cheaper, but they are impossible to get into unless you reserve months in advance, something that is tough to do on a bike trip.

Not that we’re complaining. Not when it is -40 back home.