{"id":20704,"date":"2024-04-03T00:31:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T06:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=20704"},"modified":"2024-04-01T15:34:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T21:34:43","slug":"the-little-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/the-little-things\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>BY HARRY WEEKES<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nIn the beginning of March, I spent five days on Bainbridge Island, Washington, visiting a school. Going from snow-covered, cold and clear Idaho to a sodden, drizzly Pacific Northwest in the span of four hours of traveling had its own kind of disorientation. I don\u2019t know that I am ever going to get accustomed to how quickly and completely we can change environments.<br \/>\nThe big differences, of course, are one thing. Everything on Bainbridge was SO green. And the trees? First of all, the entire place is a forest, and they let this forest grow right up to the edge of the road. Navigating this tunnel of trees in the fading light made me realize how this almost never happens to me in Idaho, where we keep our trees at a proper distance from the highway. Then, add a volcano. I simply cannot believe everyone in and around Seattle isn\u2019t constantly looking at Mount Rainier and saying, \u201cThat\u2019s a volcano!\u201d Finally, throw in the cold saltwater of the Pacific as it has crept into Puget Sound, and fill it with things like Orcas, a mammal so matched to its environment that they seem obvious, and pretty quickly Country Mouse Harry is oohing and aahing.<br \/>\nBut the big differences are just that\u2014the big differences. The obvious ones. The ones that don\u2019t sneak up on you and don\u2019t trigger any kind of major shift in attention or perception. They are the ones that pretty quickly fade into the background.<br \/>\nIt is the little differences that do something else to your mind.<br \/>\nIn the spring, my students and I turn our attention to ornithology, spending 11 weeks \u201cgetting our bird on.\u201d<br \/>\nNicely, getting your bird on in March in the Wood River Valley is about familiarizing yourself with a small group of birds \u2014 magpies, chickadees, crows, various ducks \u2014 in anticipation of the coming migrants.<br \/>\nWe warm up to birds, learning the big differences \u2014 size and shape, habitat, which birds walk along the edge of the pond, and which flit about the willow branches. The little things are present, too \u2014 the shape of the bill, the markings on the head, the incessant and incomprehensible chatter that tells us spring is coming.<br \/>\nIt is this chatter \u2014 the voices of birds, their songs, their conversations \u2014 that perks my ears the most on Bainbridge. Something is just a little bit different. Like hearing a \u201cy\u2019all\u201d from someone, or that suite of sounds that makes you realize a person is from the Midwest. Like people, the dialects of birds are different, too.<br \/>\nThe sounds are similar enough that they force a question, even as I am looking at one of the most familiar and common birds around. \u201cThat\u2019s a robin, right?\u201d And it is the same for the other birds \u2014 the juncos, the crows, and the towhees. They all sound the same\u2026 just a little bit different. Just subtle enough to draw out a very different kind of attention.<br \/>\nI imagine this to be some kind of evolutionary thing. You walk into the long grass and the fact that there are no trees, that there is a volcano in the background, that the big things remain consistent, well, you just keep on walking. But that little flash of something in the grass? That very slightly different pattern of something in the bushes? That little creak of noise? Maybe stop walking. Pay attention to those little things.<br \/>\nSo there I am, paying attention to those little things, looking at and listening to a woodpecker that I confirm to passersby, \u201cIt\u2019s a flicker!\u201d<br \/>\nThey pull their raincoats a little closer and walk a little faster. I think that\u2019s because of the rain.<\/p>\n<p><em>Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 52nd year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and one of their three baby adults\u2014Simon. The other members of the flock are Georgia and Penelope (Georgia recently fledged from Davidson College in North Carolina and Penelope is at Middlebury College in Vermont).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY HARRY WEEKES In the beginning of March, I spent five days on Bainbridge Island, Washington, visiting a school. Going from snow-covered, cold and clear Idaho to a sodden, drizzly Pacific Northwest in the span of four hours of traveling had its own kind of disorientation. I don\u2019t know that I am ever going to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-science-place"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20704","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=20704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20706,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20704\/revisions\/20706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}