Field Tales

Ahh, a successful and enjoyable field experience has come to an end. Well, "enjoyable" is a relative term--I could've done without the pain and exhaustion and wet, soggy feet every single day--but the company was great. Never underestimate the value of a good field partner in making any job seem bearable. This particular chap was a fellow bird geek, smart and knowledgeable (but not a know-it-all), and interested to learn the few things I was able to teach him. Also, relentlessly cheerful and able to maintain a sense of humour even as we were slogging through the dampest, dewiest chest-high vegetation. Couldn't have asked for better! I tend to worry when I'm asked to work with someone I've never met before, because I've had some...interesting luck in that department.

Exhibit A: a chap from Ontario, sent down to do stream habitat surveys with me. Buddy would not stop talking, making himself sound like an expert on every freakin' subject, not listening to anything I might have to contribute. I actually bought his know-it-all schtick for a while, until the day he commented that "You sure have a lot of sickly yellow conifers here in Nova Scotia. Something must be wrong with them." This was in November--our "sickly yellow" conifers were perfectly healthy tamarack trees. Their needles turn yellow prior to falling off in the fall. Every year. Same as they do in Ontario. Argh--nothing worse than an insufferable know-it-all who doesn't! But wait, there's....

Exhibit B: a guy from New Brunswick who was actually rather nice, but a complete and utter downer. Nothing I could say would lighten his mood. Mind you, we started on the wrong foot--thanks to some miscommunication, he had the impression we only needed him for a few days, when it was actually about 2 weeks. Okay, I couldn't begrudge him feeling a bit bummed about that. But two solid weeks of being stuck with a cheerless, mopey Eeyore? Well, I ran out of sympathy for him awfully fast, as I was using all my available pity on myself. Try maintaining a positive attitude when the only person you interact with all day long won't acknowledge the up side of anything. It ain't easy. But still, it beats the hell out of....

Exhibit C: the hired bird expert whom I was assisting. When we met for the first time, at the start of our field expedition, we started off talking about mutual friends and acquaintances in the local birdwatching community. Then, small talk: seen any good movies lately? What TV shows do you like? He expressed a dislike of Family Guy, on account of the raunchy humour...I thought to myself, "okay, he's maybe a bit of a prude, but that's fine."

Cut to that evening, over dinner. The teenagers at the next table led the birder to talk about his own puberty 35 or so years ago...and how it was especially difficult for him, because (oh jeebus, I cringe to type it) any time he'd get a boner in class, he had a hard time hiding it 'cause it was so large.

Oh, and later during that same dinner...and I have NO recollection of how the conversation went here...he told me about when he was a kid and saw his father's penis for the first time, he thought it was huge--"like an elephant's," to be exact. Of course, he was quick to add that he later learned that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Sooo, that was the first day of a two-week stint working with this person. Alone. In the woods. Cue uncontrollable shuddering....Oddly, though, I didn't have the impression that any of this talk was intended to shock (or entice) me. I honestly think something in his mind-to-mouth filter mechanism is just broken. His social interaction system seems off, as further evidenced by the time that we happened upon an oddly tied garbage bag in a stream several days into the field program.

Birder dude decided that the bag almost certainly contained a body--after all, he was quick to share, in his 30 years of field work he'd found a few human bodies. He proceeded to tell me in detail why he was so sure about the bag: "See how that rope's tied there, around what's got to be the neck? And judging by the size, I'd say it's a little kid. Or maybe a dog. And it probably just floated downstream recently, 'cause it's all bloated after a few days of putrefying." Meanwhile, while not convinced it was a body, I was at the same time freaked out and trying desperately to change the topic ("Hey, what's that call, a waterthrush?"), or at least to signal to him that I didn't need all the detail, but he was absolutely fixated.

By the way, we reported the garbage bag to the local police that afternoon. It turned out to contain...drumroll please...motherfucking GARBAGE.

Anyway, in the spirit of No Whining Wednesdays, I should point out that even these horror stories have a silver lining. I would never have these crazy-ass tales to tell my scandalized friends and office mates if I hadn't worked with these people!