Hi all,
I was out on Baskett Slough NWR today, partly to finish a couple of
loose ends from a recent survey, and partly in the hopes of locating a
15-year-old Swedish "brick" phone that has some nostalgic value, but
which fell out of my shoulder bag while I was crawling through
poison-oak between point counts a few days ago.
It doesn't work on North American cellular networks so no, the trick of
having someone dial up the number and then listening for the ring
wouldn't work. I was just using it as a digital clock for timing counts.
Fortunately I didn't lose in much terms of cash value, since the phone
itself is fully depreciated and the Telia (Swedish national phone
company) chip was down to just 26 crowns, which is less than the cost of
a cup of coffee. It could be an interesting artifact for future
archaeologists to find.
I also checked back on the GRASSHOPPER SPARROW that was there in May,
but didn't find him. WESTERN MEADOWLARKS, SAVANNAH SPARROWS, and one
WILLOW FLYCATCHER were singing nearby along with other regular species.
So then -- as it began to drizzle as I hiked back down -- I went back to
ruminating about my loss of the cell phone, which had some sentimental
value. This was the same phone that I used in early 2002 to talk to a
Wall Street Journal reporter by the name of Jeffrey Zaslow, while I was
working on a field site in Sweden. He was interested in my opinions
about the then-pending Iraq War, since somehow he'd picked up on me as
an opponent of the war.
I'd been enjoying a "schnapps sampler" with a Swedish colleague after a
long day of walking out on the Baltic ice to check the geology of
offshore islets. I was tired and did not hold back on my opinions. So
that came out sort of interesting when it was published.
In a follow-up piece on the day that U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad,
Mr. Zaslow (who passed away three years ago) was kind enough to call
back and let me do a bit of "editing" of my initial remarks, before he
sent the story to press. The result was that I went on record as saying
something that sounded a little wiser than my initial remarks. Something
about how we'd need to wait five years to assess the outcome.
Well, I was off by at least a factor of three but who's counting now?
Anyway with those thoughts on my mind, I headed back down the trail to
where I'd left the van. I'd been in a hurry on my way up, but I thought
something looked different.
Sure enough, there are some new signs in memory of the guy whom the
trail is named after, former refuge manager Rich Guadagno who died on
Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The signs, and the
welded supports for the posts, are very well done.
Whoever worked on these signs did a very good job of integrating the
conservation goals that were so important to Rich in his life, with how
he died. You can read about the 140,000 trees that have been planted in
the Pennsylvania field where Flight 93 went down, but also about the
Fender's Blue butterflies and Western Meadowlarks that live on Baskett
Butte today, thanks in large part to Rich's work.
So I was left feeling a little better about the loss of my
15-year-old-old cell phone, even with all of the memories that were
attached. When its aging battery runs out, it will be under the canopy
of an oak woodland that exists thanks to the work of Rich and his
colleagues. I feel bad about the various unhealthy metals that will
leach into the soil, but hopefully there aren't too many other cell
phones rusting away out there.
Good birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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