Spring Migrations

Springtime is advancing rapidly here in Ish River country, with Red Currants and Indian Plum in full bloom, bringing in the hummingbirds from the south. The arrival of migrating birds is, to me, the surest sign of the seasonal shifting. My daily commute through the Skagit Valley reveals a few Trumpeter swans still mucking about in the muddy farm fields, but their numbers are diminished, and the snow geese don't seem to be around anymore -- maybe they are somewhere over British Columbia, flying northward to the Aleutian Islands where they nest and raise their young in what must be one cacophonous assembly of life.

This year, I've been loving a new technological advance that is helping me to more fully realize the miracle of bird migration. Several researchers have attached satellite-based receivers to specific species, which is nothing new, but the birds' movements are being tracked via Google Earth, which is. I am a huge fan of Google Earth, and have spent many hours visiting locales all over the planet, from Jackson Hole to Costa Rica to Tibet. I think it an excellent tool to help one get a better sense of place for where they live, and to better visualize the breadth and diversity of the planet's geographies and ecosystems. It gives one a bird's eye view of the land, and let's one explore and better appreciate how things fit together: mountain ranges, valleys, rivers, watersheds, plains, deltas, the patterns of human settlements and the wild, empty places that still exist.

Anyways, I know of three websites where you can download .kmz files, which open in Google Earth, and show the daily movements of migrating birds. Bud Anderson, Ish River's premier hawk guru, and the Falcon Research Group are tracking peregrine falcons of Chile -- you read an overview of the Southern Cross Peregrine Project and download the .kmz files to follow seven specific birds at their website and follow their ongoing discoveries blog..

Another similar project is tracking Bar-tailed godwits as they leave New Zealand and head north through Asia. You can download the .kmz file and follow their daily movements at this USGS website.

If you know of any other similar projects where animals are being tracked via Google Earth, email me and let me know!

Birding
Migration
Google Earth

Dark Days in a Dank Place

Ish River Itinerate offers this report from a correspondent up in the north fork of the Nooksack, Mr. Trail Rat. We're reprinting his submitted field report verbatim. Dark days, indeed.
-- the editor

Dark Days in a Dank Place
Police “crack-down,” tragic blaze mar 22nd Annual Legendary
Banked Slalom

by Trail Rat

What should have been a joyous weekend-long festival of snowboarding and celebration in the upper North Fork Valley was, instead, inexplicably dampered by a bungling, overzealous detachment of local law-enforcers and the devastating loss of one of Whatcom County's most unique and historically significant "pioneer-era" structures.

Citing a need to prevent everything from large, unruly parties, open drug use, reckless/drunken driving and snowboard theft, Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo unleashed a small army of several dozen deputies, State Troopers, K-9 units and undercover officers to secure the eastern foothills from droves of raving, out-of-control snowboarders during Banked Slalom
weekend (Feb. 9-11).

Along with issuing 108 traffic citations, these so-called "peace officers" hassled and intimidated scores of innocent pedestrians walking along Mt. Baker highway, crashed through the gate at Mt. Baker Rim (twice!), ticketed a skateboarder and tasered a dog. Scores of locals and visitors alike (including film crews, journalists and professional snowboarders from all over the globe) reported being harassed without probable cause and business owners received complaints of intimidating police behavior from customers
throughout the weekend.

Sadly, even as the hills fairly swarmed with pistol-toting, ticket-happy law men, the Powers That Be could not prevent a tragic, Friday night blaze that
reduced the historic Bourn-Anderson cabin to little more than a pile of smoldering ash by Saturday afternoon.

This legendary (and much-cherished) log cabin, built in the 1930s by local prospector Charlie Anderson with the help of Jerry Bourn, represented Whatcom County's last remaining ties (historically and architecturally) to the historic Mt. Baker Mining District and, ironically, had recently been identified as one of the “Most Endangered Historic Properties” in the state
by the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.

Jerry Bourn, the colorful, misanthropic "Mountain Man" who occupied the cabin from the time of Charlie Anderson’s death in the 1940s until his own demise (by car accident) in 1980, single-handedly battled the Forest Service for decades to maintain his “squatter's right” to occupy the unpatented mining claim on which the cabin sat.

While losing the cabin deals a devastating blow to the fledgling preservation efforts of our community's rich and illustrious pioneering heritage, it hardly comes as a shock. Despite many calls to better preserve this unique, last-of-its-kind "historic resource" in the years since Mr. Bourn’s passing, the cabin was left to deteriorate -- suffering a “slow but gradual death” at the destructive hands of vandals, punishing mountain snows and a near-criminal lack of restoration funding.

All of which leads one to ponder: is the current post 9-11/Homeland Security trend of accelerated, near-unimpeded law enforcement spending (locally and nationally) actually making our communities any safer? For roughly the same cost of employing a deputy and a trooper for a year, an invaluable historic landmark could have been secured, re-built and properly managed for this (and all future generations) to contemplate, explore and enjoy.

But instead, what do we get? Our history reduced to a pile of scorched beer bottles and the bitter, highly unsavory aftertaste of yet another quasi-fascist
police-action in our mouths. No, folks. That big, roiling mist-cloud blowing down the North Fork isn’t rain (or even bong smoke), its the grim, ever-darkening shadow of authoritarianism blotting out the once wide-open, bluebird skies of our mountainous "frontier".

Even with the Pro Men's Golden Duct Tape now safely back in the hands of a local rider for the first time since the Craig Kelly era (thank you Lucas Debari!), it appears that The Age Of The Mountain Crusties is about to slip away from us forever virtually unmarked and largely unsung. Meanwhile, the Sirens of Fear are blaring, the hounds are baying and good old-fashioned
independence (not to mention personal integrity and social responsibility) are on the run.

Jerry Bourn AND Craig Kelly must be turning in their graves.

Ish River Itinerate on Flickr

Here's a show from my personal stash of favorite images from in and around Ish River Country. They are posted on FLICKR with some caption information here.