WildBird

Where Secrets Places Go

Where Secret Places Go When younger, I was told not to share secrets. I knew where to find money when I needed gum, I knew the path along the railroad tracks when I needed to get home, and I knew where the catfish were when Interstate 80 filled in Overpeck Creek (Bergen County, New Jersey). Holding secrets was part of growing up. In college, knowledge was expected to be shared with others. It was great to learn new things, and to know that others were equally excited with my secrets. There was no bad price for giving it up. Later, I found that birding compromised my hold on secrets. Pressure to conform and to belong, often outweigh the cost of keeping a place private. The most important reason for not telling a bird’s secret was to preserve them and their place from hunters, developers, and yes excessive birders. In the Winter, my passion is to look and find eagle nests during those cold and windy days of January and February. Only when creeks laminate to a white-glistened hardwood freeze, will I venture out with a cell phone and life-jacket, in search of open vistas where eagles might lead me to their trees. During those cold afternoons, eagles often perch on muskrat dens, channel markers, old pilings, creek banks, or on ice where they devour a swan in angst-for-survival before nightfall. Over a few weeks of scouting, they finally lead me to a nest in a huge 60 ft. tall pine tree that faced South. What should I do? With tears welling down my frigid check, recollections from childhood haunted my decision to give up the secret. Do I tell everyone and enjoy the praise, do I put it on the birding hotline for all others to enjoy (that I do not trust), do I tell friends, or do I report it to the state as a safe haven? Lost amidst my decision, I decide to stay-put on the muskrat den and watch the eagles court. A bond with an eagle how anthropomorphic, yet it happens! This eagle nest was never found before, by anyone! If I told, I feared hunters might inadvertently scare it off during hunting season, birders would drive too close in their zest for discovery, Big Day competitors might rampage across the landscape in search of the Urner Cup, or that more programs and walks would further departmentalize their natural world. My worst fears erupted from memories of headlights scanning Jake’s Landing demanding to hear a Black rail and echos of tape players glaring across Sunset Bridge in Belleplain to uncover a Barred owl. I do not want this secret place to turn into another sacrificial site where the good-of-birding overpowers a secret. By sundown, they were safe. When I dragged myself through the door at home, I shared their secret place with my family, very few friends, and Larissa (NJ Endangered & Nongame Species Program), but not to the birding hotlines. Oddly enough, the location of the nest is on a very old private hunting preserve, where it remains to date, untethered and protected. Paul Kosten Woodbine, New Jersey

WildBird on the Fly!
Check out Editor Amy K. Hooper's random dispatches from afield and at home.

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