Posted by David on September 24, 2003 at 15:32:54:
In Reply to: UHBM makes the News! posted by David LaPuma on September 22, 2003 at 10:38:41:
Tales of the Underground Holistic Birding Movement
Out There
by Mark Hedden
Brennan Mulrooney, a nice Irish boy from San Diego, stood up amongst the
oiled, half-clad sunbathers on the back of the Fast Cat II to the Dry Tortugas and
said loud enough for most to hear, "I've got a pair of Brown Boobies."
It's possible the sunbathers stole a look at his chest, but I was paying
attention to the birders, thinking somebody might crack wise, but no one did.
Brown Booby, Masked Booby, Great Tit, and Dickcissel jokes were apparently worn
out long ago in the birding world. Instead everyone did the smartest thing you
can do when Brennan's around — figured out where his binoculars were pointed
and trained their own binoculars on the same spot.
It wasn't a great look at the birds — they were moving fast in the opposite
direction — but it was solid enough to put a checkmark next to them on the trip
list.
This was my first experience at what I would call group birding. It was a
Tropical Audubon Society trip under the auspices of the Underground Holistic
Birding Movement, though it's possible I've confused things and the auspices were
reversed. Brennan and I, members of neither group, were tagging along on the
twin theories that more eyes would see more birds and any excuse to go bird the
Tortugas is a good excuse. Counting us, there were about 20 people on the
trip.
Tropical Audubon is easy to explain — it's the Miami chapter of the National
Audubon Society. They have a large, well-heeled, well-informed, mostly
gray-haired membership and they organize a lot of field trips.
Defining the Underground Holistic Birding Movement is trickier. It may be a
daring new paradigm in the world of hard-core bird watching. It may just be a
running joke.
In its simplest terms the UHBM is young guy named David LaPuma and whoever
happens to be out birding with him. LaPuma works a forty-hour-a-week job at
Everglades National Park and spends the rest of his time scouring the bushes,
fields and hammocks of South Florida for birds, though he does take the occasional
break to surf, drink exotic Belgian beer, see his girlfriend, and/or sleep.
I've run into LaPuma and his entourage a half-dozen times in recent years.
I'll be standing somewhere out of the way, say on the service road next to the
Marathon airport, staring through the chain link fence at a puddle full of
shorebirds. Two or three cars will screech to a halt behind me and a half-dozen
neo-hippies and slackers will pour out, set up scopes, and tick off every bird
in the puddle, as well as a couple birds I hadn't noticed before. They'll ask ab
out cheap places to eat, how much the youth hostel costs a night, and how
likely the cops are to roust you if you sleep on the beach. Then they'll get back
in the cars and move on.
So the combined Tropical Audubon Society/Underground Holistic Birding
Movement Tortugas trip promised to be interesting.
The group broke down on oddly demarcated gender lines — guys who were
thirtyish, give or take five years, and women who were sixtyish, give or take five
years. There was one older gentleman as well as one couple from Tallahassee
whose ages seemed to straddle the zone between the two demographics.
The day before they'd counted 42 species of birds between Miami and Boca
Chica. The highlight of the day had been on the Sombrero Beach golf course when
the woman from Tallahassee asked a pair of red-eyed drunks in a golf cart,
possibly flirtatiously, where the Burrowing Owls were. The passenger drunk said
"I'll show you," dragged her into the cart, and told his friend to hit it. She
told them she didn't want a ride, but they kept going. She told them she was
married, but to no avail. She told them her husband was a rugby player with a
temper and they dropped her off.
The Tortugas trip did prove to be interesting. The combined groups did what
any mixed up group of birders does when they're in the same place — they looked
for birds.
As soon as the boat landed everyone made for the interior courtyard, where
the highlights were a Swainson's Thrush, a Baltimore Oriole, and a pair of
Orchard Orioles. On top of the fort, riding the steady updrafts, were Barn
Swallows, Cliff Swallows, and Bank Swallows. In the seagrapes by the
possibly-soon-to-be-reopened campground were Ovenbirds, Prothonotary Warblers and a
Blackburnian Warbler. And in the plant-covered brick pile on the way to the coaling docks
the yellow plumage of a male Kentucky Warbler seemed to glow against the
undergrowth.
At sunrise the next day the group hit Indigenous Park and the Key West Garden
Club. As the morning wore on people began to peel off and head home. At the
end eight of us were left, and we went back into Indigenous Park and searched
until we found a suspected, rarely-seen-in-these-parts Mourning Warbler. We all
stood there, clumped on a small hump of sand, holding up our binoculars and
staring into the same bush until the blood ran out of our arms.
: David