{"id":10450,"date":"2019-02-01T17:32:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=10450"},"modified":"2019-02-01T17:32:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:32:47","slug":"a-surprise-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/01\/a-surprise-rail\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surprise Rail"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Virginia rail (Rallus limicola) is a small waterbird, fairly common despite continuing loss of habitat. Public domain photo, accessed via Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the record, I am not a birder. On one hand, this is not true. I am deeply fascinated by birds. They are an ongoing and seemingly endless wellspring of curiosity. And they do incredible things, like fly, annually, from Antarctica to the North Pole and back. On the other hand, I am not a birder\u2019s birder. I don\u2019t schedule special birding trips. My almost immediate answer to any bird ID question is \u201cI have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have working familiarity with about 50 birds, most of which are species like magpies, geese and robins. Despite all of this, I love birds because, amongst other things, they have all of the mystery associated with something wild and alive that we can get close to, even if we can\u2019t fully understand them. And they surprise me.<\/p>\n

So it was on Sunday, January 13, that I found myself walking along Indian Creek. You might remember this day, too, because it was as close to perfect as it gets. We had snow that week. There was no wind and there were no clouds. The sky was pure blue, and whatever atmospheric condition there is that makes contrails disappear was in full effect.<\/p>\n

I was standing next to my favorite bend in the stream\u2014a place where the water carves out a little pool, where watercress creeps out from the bank in a mat, and where a break in the willows allows the sun to ignite the open stretch as though highlighting something quintessential. Add to this a bird\u2014in this case, a Virginia rail, in full adult health and plumage.<\/p>\n

I knew right away this was a rail, even though I have never seen one. It was unmistakable\u2014in body shape, in behavior, in habitat, in markings. The bird was working the duckweed and cress and moving in and out of the shallows, all the while lit up by the sun as though it wanted to be painted. Then, I stood up and scared the bird enough that it moved into the protection of the willows and disappeared. And because it was a wild bird, it was gone.<\/p>\n

No amount of staring, standing or hoping brought it back. It left something behind, though\u2014a residue of awe and wonder. And a thousand questions, the first of which was, \u201cWhat in tarnation was that bird doing here, now?\u201d It was like seeing a duck in your living room\u2014all of the parts of the scene make sense independently, but seeing them together is weird. There was something else, too\u2014a feeling.<\/p>\n

Arthur C. Clarke said, \u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\u201d Birds have been around for over 100 million years, roughly 1,000 times as long as humans. There is a refined simplicity in them\u2014in all of nature\u2014that is indistinguishable from magic. For me, it is possible to believe in this magic. What makes this so powerful is precisely the fact that, ultimately, it is not understandable. This is incomprehensibility on the other side of complexity. It is neither science, nor religion, although it has elements of both.<\/p>\n

Right now I call this \u201cThe World I Can Never Know.\u201d For me, it emerges invariably and almost always in the little things. A willow leaf bud. A tiny insect crawling across the snow. A mourning cloak butterfly in the end of winter. And in this case, a Virginia rail eating duckweed on a Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey.\u00a0 <\/span>This is his 47th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with his wife Hilary and their three kids\u2014Georgia, Penelope and Simon\u2014a nice little flock.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY HARRY WEEKES For the record, I am not a birder. On one hand, this is not true. I am deeply fascinated by birds. They are an ongoing and seemingly endless wellspring of curiosity. And they do incredible things, like fly, annually, from Antarctica to the North Pole and back. On the other hand, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-science-place","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}