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Some People Have Desk Jobs
A researcher's search for truth leads her through ice storms, forests and helicopter rides.
By the third time my stomach leapt up my esophagus and smacked around my uvula, I thought maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. When the helicopter banked a hard right and dove towards the canopy with far too much enthusiasm to be healthy, I knew it was, in fact, a mind-numbingly awful idea. I squeezed my eyes shut against the spiraling ground below me and tried to pinpoint what, exactly, could have possibly convinced me to voluntarily launch my notoriously finicky sense of equilibrium into the air.
It began with a call from my project manager while I was at the mechanic having my Amazing Exploding Oldsmobile’s head gasket replaced. While my jovial mechanic, Randy, installed free belts (mostly out of pity), Matt delivered something of an order — It was time to pick the helicopter.
In the previous year, Matt and I had conducted nest occupancy surveys from the ground. We’d sneak up close to a nest, climb an adjacent tree, and in a resoundingly ineffective attempt, try to spot an owl incubating her eggs. This generally took a lot of man power, and it never worked. This year, Matt gave the strategy an effective “screw that” and arranged for an aerial survey of the 52 owl nests installed in the Tittabawassee floodplain.
The kicker, as it turned out, was trying to actually garner a helicopter. We had been planning this survey for about a month, but the sudden appearance of the Super Bowl in Detroit commandeered the local helicopters, and we had to wait for the trouncing of the Seahawks before we could secure aerial transportation. The options were as follows:
Door Number One: A fancy little helicopter with a gyroscoping camera, a professional media photographer, a pilot and me. Approximate cost: $1800/hr.
Door Number Two: A larger helicopter with handheld camcorders, a pilot, two other spotters and me. Approximate cost: $900/hr.
I desperately wanted the footage promised by the fancy gyroscoping camera — It isn’t very often you get a good picture of an incubating great horned owl, and I was really excited for the opportunity to capture those beauties on film. But as I stood there, half listening to my mechanic and his brother make fun of my car, I shied away from the high price tag, which would only increase if I was unable to spot a nest right away. Deciding to take one for the team, I told Matt to go ahead and arrange for the cheaper helicopter. I figured that between me, Matt and Dusty, who is the only other person who climbed every nest tree, we’d have a better chance of finding the nests at all, and confirmation of occupancy was more important than pretty pictures. I figured that if I told myself that enough times, I’d start to believe it.
Before we could actually make our way into the sunny blue sky, I, along with several good-natured helpers, had the task of marking the nests from the ground. The markers would aid the spotters in the helicopter and save money. To this end, I took it upon myself to buy out Joanne’s entire stock of bright orange cotton fabric (which raised quite a few eyebrows and led to more than one convoluted explanation involving helicopters and owls, and not, in fact, an extravagantly early jump on Halloween). Armed with the orange fabric and zip-ties, we celebrated the first-ever Arts and Crafts Night at the Fieldhouse constructing large orange flags we could tie to trees.
For the most part, flag installation was a quiet affair. A week before the aerial survey, we split into pairs and began the process of walking to a nest’s vicinity, tying a flag to a tree, and marking it in a field notebook. There wasn’t much to it, and the simple task gave us a satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Despite our efforts, we were unable to complete the flagging effort in a single weekend. After some minor cajoling, I convinced Dusty to return to the area two days before the aerial survey to help complete the nest marking in the parks, refuge and nature center. When we divided the remaining flags and left for our respective destinations, we hadn’t counted on the freak flash winter thunderstorm that rose up out of the afternoon sky.
The first hail struck before we even left the field house. We looked at each other, shrugged, and grabbed raincoats from the closet. I sent Dusty and his spiffy four-wheel drive truck to the Shiawassee Refuge, which was beleaguered in snow and totally impassable for the wussy field vehicle. I, meanwhile, took off for Imerman Park, prepared to get in, mark the nests, get out, and head for the Chippewa Nature Center. I had nine flags and visions of being home by dinner time. I was also, apparently, delusional.
As I stumbled through the park, I was swiftly soaked to the bone by a chilling combination of rain, snow, and hail. Within an hour, my raincoat was useless. At one point, as I was trying to cross an iced-over stream, I fell through the ice into 6 inches of shockingly cold water. But I was already so thoroughly wet it didn’t actually make a difference or hinder me in any significant way.
I pulled myself up out of the water and onto a handy fallen tree and continued across the stream in search of my most elusive nest: IMMOWL01. I can never find this nest, and often end up walking in pointless circles while trying to maintain a professional façade that is always threatened by falling into holes or through the ice while looking into an empty canopy. I did, fortunately, finally find the nest, and began the trek to the nearby field by way of another impassable stream. This time, I didn’t try the ice, and just hopped right up to the conveniently placed fallen tree and made my way across it. Even if I had a panther-like sense of balance, the snow-covered tree would have eventually gotten the best of me. After a brief and colorful display of my lesser-utilized vocabulary, my windmill-like descent was stopped when I impaled my ribcage on a craggy branch. As I finally made my way out of that park, soaking wet, bruised and battered, and surrounded by thunder and lightening that lit up the gloomy afternoon sky, I realized: Some people have desk jobs.
Later that afternoon, as I was sliding down muddy hillsides in the Chippewa Nature Center, I received a pitiful phone call from a very frustrated, very wet and very lost Dusty. He couldn’t find the nests in the wildlife refuge and was losing patience with taking his truck down snowy paths that often turned out not to be paths at all, but dikes that come to startlingly abrupt edges before falling into watery ditches. I tried to be sympathetic, but there wasn’t much I could do from 20 miles away. He eventually hung up and left to go find the refuge office and someone who could help him get oriented.
Meanwhile, I made my way around the deserted nature center, all the while dodging branches that came crashing down from the surrounding trees that were being victimized by the relentless ice storm. Everything was covered in a sheet of ice that only became more daunting as the afternoon went on. Handholds were more treacherous, and everything was freezing to the touch. About four o’clock that afternoon, as I made my way back to my car from the river’s edge and the most recently flagged nest, I received another phone call from Dusty.
“Hey, I’m going to stop now. I’m cold, I’m soaking wet, I get hailed on when I stick my head out the window, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“How many did you get flagged?”
“Five.”
“I sent you out with nine flags.”
“Yes, and there’s no way I’ll get the other four done before the sun sets. I’m cold and wet and ready to be done.”
I glanced at the sky, which had been darkening steadily since noon despite bright flashes of lightening every few seconds, and decided we had maybe an hour before it got really dark. I then eyed my stack of flags that had yet to be hung and made a decision.
“Go ahead and pack it in. I’ll come up tomorrow and finish.”
The aftermath of Thursday’s ice storm was a veritable Winter Wonderland. The ice-covered trees were bursting with light caught from the sun. Everywhere I looked, the world was alight with its own inner radiance. The sky was a pure, unfettered blue, and not a wisp of wind came to disturb the stillness as I crunched across the landscape and attached bright orange squares to the bare branches of crystalline trees.
These conditions carried over to the next day, Helicopter Day, setting up what should have been — and according to most reports, was — a perfect day for flying. When Dusty and Matt arrived in Midland that morning, we were all in jovial spirits and ready for airborne adventure — preferably minus screaming and sudden-onset gravity syndrome. The airport, one of the many victims of the ice storm, was unlocked, but without power. While Matt entertained himself following around an exasperated maintenance crew with his camcorder, Dusty and I focused on regaining feeling in our lower extremities and psyching ourselves up for our first-ever helicopter ride.
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Sarah Coefield is a doctorial student in the zoology department at Michigan State University. This is her first appearance in EJ. Reach Sarah at coefield@msu.edu.
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