Author: Tim Gels

I love it when the story comes to me.  As in, physically comes to me. Well, by me, I suppose, in this case.

Earlier this afternoon on the way home from school, I turned into my neighborhood and waited while a school bus and car drove past before pulling into my driveway.  

“What to write about?” I muttered to myself.  I had been thinking about a topic over the course of the day, but just wasn’t feeling it.  I was, however, apparently talking to myself about it.

Spending the day inventorying equipment wasn’t exactly inspirational, the day’s drives were uneventful (okay, I’m normally good with that), and I was at a loss.

As I turned the engine off, my phone gave a quiet ding, letting me know an email had arrived.  This afternoon in my part of north Alabama was absolutely beautiful–upper 60s, not a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze–and I wasn’t about to sit in my little truck reading an email. I opened the car door, stood up in the driveway, and turned my head down to my phone.

I read the short note, and the thought crossed my mind that I still didn’t have a story.  It wasn’t that kind of email.

As I slowly brought my head up, though, I was surprised to see a black streak cross my line of vision just a few feet ahead of me.  Within the span of just a few seconds, there was another, yet another, and then more, many more. Suddenly, hundreds more.  

Without trying, I had gotten out of my truck, stood motionless, and placed myself in the flight path of a large flock of grackles that were making their way through the neighborhood to land in my side and back yards, many of them less than a few dozen feet from me.

Their bullet-shaped bodies with fixed wings came gliding in for a landing, silent except for the occasional call, graceful and beautiful as the sun glinted off of black and deep purple feathers.  I was stunned, and only the clipped beginning of a laugh came from my mouth as I did my best to remain unthreatening to the flock.

Once the birds were on the ground, the air erupted with the cacophony of hundreds of individual voices all calling out in unison.  My dumbfounded disbelief turned to awe, and I silently revelled in the glory of what was going on all around me.

Inevitably, after just a few seconds an unseen neighbor slammed a car door, and I knew in that instant what was about to happen.  Hundreds of wings beat the air in unison, each pair of them lifting the body of a bird into the sky. The sound reminded me of countless flags battered by the winds of a gale, or the raucous applause of innumerable gloved hands.  

And it was over.  They were gone, over the treeline and into parts unknown and out of my sight.

After a few seconds, I was able to breathe.

“Thank you.”  

“Thank you,” I whispered and turned back to the truck for my book bag. 

 

As an itinerant science coach, observational skills, keen intuition, and a practiced execution are musts if I’m going to go through my day avoiding what is the bane of the early-childhood classroom teacher: The dreaded hug avalanche.

Preparation is key.  I know I’m about to leave the classroom, but it’s crucial the students don’t.  They’re watching for a sign, any kind of sign. Me saying, “See ya later” to the classroom teacher, a hurried glance at the clock followed by a flinch, and even a contented sigh as I end a lesson: All of these and more can trigger the event. Five-, six-, and even seven-year old students are sitting on the carpet or at their desk, living coiled springs ready to slip the bounds that normally hold them in place.

A smooth exit is also important.  A forgotten coffee cup or phone? All could be lost.  No hesitation: start to move and don’t look back. Don’t forget the follow through, because a door left open is an invitation for disaster.

During my last class of the day, today, I failed miserably.

The students knew it was time.  The lesson had clearly ended when iPads were collected, but not all was yet lost.  The classroom teacher had launched into the next activity with perfect timing, and the situation was still under control.  It was me. It was my fault. I paused at the door, giving a glance back into the room as if to silently say goodbye.

The first student–a smallish girl who sat by the door–seized upon the opportunity, jumped from her chair, and pushed past my iPad cart to hug my leg.  

“Good bye, Mr. Gels!” she cried.

No, not that.  Anything but that.  In the name of all that’s good and orderly, please don’t verbalize a good bye.  But, she did.

From the back of the room, the second student sprung.  The classroom teacher’s gaze momentarily off of him, he knew it was now or never.  Pushing classmates aside, he lunged through the room to grab my other leg.  

“Good bye!”

I know that fear was starting to show in my eyes.  Weakness. Those kids ate it up. The veneer of conformity was breaking down before me.  A third student, followed by a fourth and a fifth, made a move in my direction as I was peeling the first two from the lower half of my body.  

With a panicked expression, the classroom teacher did her best to make up for my shortcomings.  

“Boys and girls, please take your seats!  Mr. Gels needs to go to another classroom!”

Oh, all was lost, and it was all my fault.  One glance, just one glance, and the world was collapsing around me.

Nearly every student was on his or her feet, flowing toward the door, mindless in their desire to be a part of what was going on.

“Boys and girls!  Guys and Gals! Please, go ahead and take a seat!” I blurted, hoping to stem the tide.

And.  

And it did, just a bit. The tumult started to calm, and some of the students paused, unsure of their next move.  

To paraphrase the ancient rock philosophers of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, that was the break I was looking for.  

Peeling the last student from my waist and (carefully) pushing the door closed behind me, I was free, standing in the now-quiet hallway, the teacher’s voice ringing through the heavy wooden barrier.

What’s that noise?  Oh no, another class has just rounded the corner and I think they saw me!

 

Time–technology time, at least–is moving incredibly fast.  

I’m closer to 60 than 50, though just barely.  Like everyone else my age, I grew up with a single telephone on the wall, although I was still fairly young when we had a second line installed.  Phones with cords, of course.

In my mid-30s I got a pager, and I think I still have, somewhere in a drawer, the first cell phone I bought nearly 20 years ago.  300 minutes of talk time, and I usually used all of them without even trying. My watch today has many times the amount of memory my first few computers had, and I’m amazed at the capabilities of my “phone.” 

I laughed at all of this today when a student asked me if I have to take a computer with me when I move from school to school.  I’m a STEM coach, and I work in four different schools in the district.

“Yes,” I told him.  “I’ve got a few with me.”

“A few? How many do you carry?”

As I gave him my answer, I thought about what my chiropractor would say.

“Well, I’ve got my laptop.  That’s my main computer. I’ve also got an older iPad.  I use it to teach my coding lessons (K-5). Plus, I’ve also got my new iPad.”  I still haven’t transferred all of the files from the old one, but I’ll do it soon.  Sure I will.

“Wow, you’ve got three computers?”

“Well, I’ve also got an Android tablet that I’m using for a class I’m taking.”

“Four computers!”

I thought about it for a second.  “And, I suppose, my phone counts, and technically my watch does too.”

“Whoa.”

Okay, really–I don’t need all of those, but I do use most of them on a daily basis.

I decided not to tell him about the third iPad in my bag that I was delivering to a teacher.  That one really doesn’t count.

Truth be told, sometimes I miss a simpler life, one that’s lived on the end of a curly cord.

 

Marcescence

It’s kind of a fun word to say: mahr ses ense 

Marcescence: The quality of being marcescent, and marcescent means withering, but not falling off.  It’s a biology–botany, I suppose–word, and it’s usually used to describe deciduous trees that don’t lose their leaves until late in the winter, oftentimes not until the beginning of spring.

The leaf withers and turns brown, but doesn’t fall off the tree. Why doesn’t it? Because the very base of the leaf’s stem–the petiole–doesn’t actually die when the rest of the leaf does. I learned that just two days ago.

Over the last few days, I attended an environmental education conference in my home state of Alabama.  It was a gathering of formal (classroom) and informal (camps, science centers, etc) educators who share a passion for teaching others about the natural world around them.  There’s something wonderful about being with one’s tribe, and doing so while meandering down a trail through the woods makes it even better.  

Find a tribe–more than one is even better–and let yourself grow. 

 

I don’t want to be an enabler.

I really don’t.

My wife and I were sitting in the living room the other day when our doorbell rang.  I wish this wasn’t the case, but our doorbell ringing without warning is rarely a good thing.  We don’t have that many neighbors, and most of our family and friends just come on in.

But, ring it did, and as I opened the door I was surprised to see the couple from two doors down.  They’re new to the neighborhood, and we don’t know them well yet.  Their kids turn their bikes around in our driveway, and we wave when one of us drives by, but that’s about the extent of our relationship.

After we exchanged pleasantries, the couple got down to business:  “(Our neighbor in between our houses) said you’d be able to tell us about your chickens.  We’re thinking about getting some ourselves.”

I don’t know the direction that I expected our conversation to go, but that wasn’t it.  My mind was racing…was I willing to be partly responsible for a decision that could lead this young couple down a path that’s hard to come back from?

What if the habit stuck?  What if they found themselves with something like rabbits or ducks?  Miniature goats?  Would I be able to live with myself?

Heaven forbid they find themselves involved with bee keeping or permaculture.  All because of a conversation that started innocently.  What should we do?

“Sure, we can help you with that!” I replied.

…What the heck…you only live once.

 

As I’m thinking through this narrative, I suppose there’s value in starting by telling you a couple of things about myself.

First of all, I’m a geek. A nerd, even. If given the choice, however, I prefer “life-long learner.” I love to learn and explore new things. (One point of clarification, though: I’m not really a “fantasy” geek. You’re probably not going to see me in a costume outside of an elementary school, and I don’t watch or read a lot of sci-fi.)

Secondly, I’m unabashedly in awe of the natural world. While I’m blown away by the “big miracles” of things like birth, I’m also entranced by the tiniest natural processes: a flower in the lawn, a gust of wind, or the formation of a snowflake. Just wow.

Okay, enough about me.

Recently, I needed to leave the school I was working at to run over to another building and pick up some supplies. As I walked out the door into the early-afternoon sunshine, I realized I was about to walk into what I can only describe as a small swarm of birds.

There were probably 25 birds circling back and forth over the wide sidewalk in front of me. They flew almost silently, with only the occasional low chirp. I stood and watched, trying to figure out what type of bird they were, but I’m more of an orthographer than ornithographer. Their slightly forked tail and a flash of what appeared to be blue told me that I was looking at some type of swallow. I didn’t know at the time, but it turns out they were purple martins.

But why were they flying in circles over the sidewalk in front of the school? I stood a bit longer, thinking that it must have been food. I knew that swallows were insect eaters, but I just wasn’t seeing anything for them to eat.

And then I did.

Tiny insects, barely visible to me in the overhead light, were rising from the shrubs surrounding the sidewalk. They would fly in a nearly vertical, slightly zig-zagging path, emerging individually from the low junipers. I’d love to say that I tried to figure out what type of insects they were, but I’m more of an etymologist than entomologist.

“Snap.” “Snap.” Barely discernible, the sounds of bird beaks coming together started to make their way to my ears. Now that I knew what to look for, I watched as insects would rise from the ground only to be grabbed by one of the circling martins. At each confluence, I would see an insect disappear and hear a faint snapping sound.

As I said before, Just Wow. This went on and on as the insects kept coming. I knew what was happening, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it for myself. It was incredible. I marveled at the birds as they maneuvered within a tiny fraction of a second, wheeling at the outside of their orbit and adjusting their course to intercept a rising insect during their pass back over the sidewalk.

I have a rudimentary understanding of the science, but in my mind it was a miracle. One of the many all around us.

.

My story does have a coda. Despite it bumming me out, I’ll still share it.

After standing there for close to 10 minutes, I started to think about the school receptionist who must be wondering why I’m frozen just outside the door watching birds flying by. I had to share, so I turned, reentered the building, and approached her as she was talking to a parent. I waited for their conversation to finish, and with the enthusiasm of so many of the little people one finds within an elementary school, I quickly spilled the gist of what I had been observing outside. My excitement unabated, I was nearly giddy as I told my tale.

After listening politely, the receptionist went back to her computer and the parent walked toward the door, her visit to the school concluded.

As the parent made it to the door and exited, her eyes went down to the phone in her hand and never left it as she traversed the sidewalk. Even knowing it was there, she totally missed the miracle.

Two brothers, one older and one much younger

Or one younger, and one much older

— That’s probably closer to the mark

Their quiet voices barely carried

through the pre-show murmur of the crowd

 

The younger: How do you think he does it? Is it really

magic?

Nah, it’s just a trick. There’s no such thing as magic.

I don’t believe in it.

 

The crowd started to quiet as the magician–if there is

such a person–walked through the parents on chairs ringing

the assembled children, so many children, who sat, faces upturned, looking

as if they believed

 

And with a swirl of long-practiced hands over a few bottle caps

placed

on the floor in the style of a street performance, the show began

 

There’s no such thing as magic?

 

I believe in magic

I’ve watched those young upturned faces and

the older as well

as their eyes went wide

when balls disappeared and reappeared or

playing cards changed their colors

How could I not believe?

 

I believe in magic

I’ve heard the gasps and breaths drawn sharply

I’ve heard the rapid, whispered, questioning voices

as keys were bent or

torn objects became whole again

How could I not believe?

 

I believe in magic

I’ve felt from the crowd around me

the excitement, the joy, the awe

as reality is suspended and

the cares of the world are set aside

if only for the length of the show

How could I not believe?

 

I’ll reassume the cares of the world

tomorrow or the next day or maybe not ever

But for now

for today

I believe in magic.

How could I not believe?

“I’ve heard…”

Ah, the things we’ve heard, believed, and passed on.  Sometimes, just sometimes, I pine for the simplicity of the urban myths of yesteryear.  What we’ve today come to call “fake news” or “alternative facts” were, well, simpler then.  Innocent.  Relatively harmless.  (Well, many were, anyway.)

Okay, this isn’t a political post.  It’s safe to keep reading.  I’m talking about commonly held beliefs from the natural world.

I’ve heard there are alligators in the sewers of (insert city name here, usually New York City).  They live off of pets and rats they can catch.  Some, because of how long they’ve lived underground, have hatched blind, albino offspring.

Or

The daddy longlegs is the most venomous spider in the world.  The only reason they don’t kill people is their fangs are too short to penetrate our skin.

These myths have been passed along and grown because they seem plausible.  It seems like an alligator could live in the sewer.  Maybe those spiders are dangerous…they’ve always kind of creeped me out, and their heads are really small.

A little bit of thought, or, Heaven forbid, a little bit of reading, though, and those stories sort of fall apart.  Before I go any further, I need to say I’m not throwing stones.  While I’m working to dismantle that particular glass house, it’s still way too beautiful for that!

Last night, I had an “I’ve heard” experience.  Like I did a few days ago, I was helping a friend of mine conduct a raptor presentation.   I was able to present Max, a male Eurasian eagle owl, to a youth scouting group at a local church.  Standing on the grass beside the building, we went through the standard presentation, took some questions, and then stood by as the kids were taken inside.  A few parents hung back, and one gentleman walked over to me, clearly eager to have a close-up look at the owl.

We talked for a few minutes as he asked questions about Max’s age, weight, natural habitat, and diet.  Then he paused as if he was reluctant to ask his next question.  After a moment, he said, “I’ve heard that birds of prey can eat their weight in food in a single day.  Is that true?”

We’d already talked about how the bird I was holding weighed around four pounds, so, in essence, he was asking if it could eat four pounds of food in a single day.  I respected his question, but all the more so because he already sounded a bit skeptical himself.

Now, honestly, I didn’t know how much a raptor can eat in a single day.  I wasn’t going to pull out my phone to look it up, but I did do a bit of the thinking I mentioned earlier.  I knew most birds are typically already at about their weight limit for flight.  If they were much heavier, they just couldn’t fly.  I also knew, though, that raptors do, indeed, have a big appetite.

So we talked it out as we thought through it together.  We decided that a four-pound bird could probably eat about one pound of food.  We also decided that a bird (or any other animal larger than an insect) couldn’t possibly eat its weight in food.  Mosquitos, probably, but that’s about it.

After a few more minutes we said goodbye and he walked off to go find his kid.  It was good–fun, even–to think through a problem like that and come up with an educated guess.  It was a lot better than me just rattling off an answer; that’s what I think, anyway.

As a closing note, I did look it up.  A raptor will sometimes eat between 1/4 and 1/3 of its weight, but then not need to eat again for a while.  Wow…that’s an appetite.

 

I think that showing an owl is a lot of work.  Oh so rewarding, but a lot of work.  Over the past 24 hours, I’ve spent nearly 10 hours with one on my hand, so–while I’m not an expert–I’ve at least got a clue.

Bringing one to a show involves preparing them for the experience.

They have to be fed appropriately.  Not “filled up,” but not hungry enough to be ornery.

Their anklets need to be checked for comfort and security, and their jesses need to be inspected as well.  The equipment cannot fail.

Their jesses must have a swivel attached; that, too, needs to be checked for security.

A leash is attached to the swivel, typically before transporting the bird.  Once on site, the owl must be secure.

(Keeping the owl secure is a really big deal.)

Food, normally in the form of mice, must be thawed and packaged for the day.

The owl is placed in its travel cage.  It’s not uncommon for these to look exactly like a large dog crate covered with a fabric drape.

As it leaves the cage, the leash is secured by passing it and the jesses between the thumb and forefinger of your gloved hand from the back, across the palm, and back out between the middle and ring fingers.  The leash is wrapped several times around the first two fingers.  In addition to the leash, the swivel is clipped to a strap attached to the glove.

The owl is held with a roughly horizontal hand.  He or she will adjust position until comfortable.

That’s it–that’s all there is to it.

Thanks, Max, for a great few days.  You were a champ!

Max is a male Eurasian eagle owl.