Flight Calls

What better way to have doors opened in your world than to come across a collection of good stories about it, that give you pithy and amusing keys to entry? West Gloucester raconteur John Nelson makes friends as he writes. He and his field companions attune themselves to the rigor and etiquette of birding quests, then share broadly over after-hours beverages. In Flight Calls John pulls under one cover a series of his published essays from literary as well as natural history magazines. The result is delightful reading both for the seasoned birders who will recognize typical characters and capers, and the armchair audience enjoying congenial, erudite adventures by the fireside.

John describes himself as "an enthusiast, but just a moderately competent birder." You might sample his chapters morsel by morsel around the demands of a busy life or, like me, read straight through in captivation. The stories take you from whimsy to science, from sunshine to frostbite, from delightful rambles to mobilizing for preservation of the natural world. You'll be motivated to sharpen your antennae for nature's wonders in your own back yard that might have gone unnoticed. 

One day I heard a whistling above me, familiar but feeble, and found a Broad-winged Hawk family. Two adults watched keenly as their single offspring tested its wings in short, wobbly flights, calling repeatedly and glancing toward its parents, like a child on a first bike ride without training wheels. These birds were placing me, deepening roots. 

John came to birding late. A collegiate track athlete, he pursued sports in the ensuing decades until he "started accumulating surgeries." There you have his taste for vigor and wit. Add to this his career as a professor of literature, plus a lifetime interest in travel, and you have the raw material for zestful essays. The book sets out to explore the length and breadth of Massachusetts through birds. It also takes you to exotic eco-destinations, and into the heart of an observant romantic.

John feeding a hummingbird in Jamaica

As his competitive nature made less and less sense in the sports arena John turned to biking for exercise. With his eyes and ears liberated from automobile confines he became more aware of birds, especially their songs and flight calls. He started bringing along binoculars. He noticed he wasn't biking very far, especially in May, because he kept stopping to look. Pretty soon he found Brookline Bird Club companions to pursue passions and quirks with good humor and desire, embracing "the world of nature with no strings attached." 

John (right) with a birding group on Plum Island

John delivers a Cape Cod hummingbird saga with all the ingredients of birdwatching lust and camaraderie that characterize his tales. 

The oddest "chases" are backyard stakeouts, like the one for a vagrant Broad-billed Hummingbird frequenting a feeder in November in South Yarmouth, as if the cape were next door to Nueva Laredo. A few of us, all strangers, were there one morning when the bird showed up. We danced about as if we'd all bet on the same long shot at the track. Sometimes word leaks out of a rarity hanging around someone's yard, but the homeowner doesn't want a horde of binocular-wearing outlanders traipsing through the neighborhood, so, to our chagrin, birders are disinvited. But the South Yarmouth folks, thrilled by rare-bird serendipity, welcomed all visitors, arranged a semi-circle of viewing chairs, and set up a heat-lamped feeder cover to keep the hummingbird cozy in their yard. One winter day another cape homeowner saw me shivering in her yard, like some lost, hopeful beggar, as I waited out a Western Tanager. She gestured me inside, gave me a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin, and set me up in front of her picture window. 

John commends Halibut Point as a productive, accessible destination among East Coast birders looking for winter sea birds forced south from frigid latitudes. The jutting promontory can also turn up great variety in the spring as a "migrant trap," a stopover in the Atlantic flyway for birds on their way to distant breeding grounds. At any time of year its particular geography might host a rarity such as the Northern Shrike he and his wife Mary were lucky enough to see here. 

A glance at his chapter titles reveals the human as well as natural landscapes that draw John's attention. "Watching Gulls with Emerson on Cape Tragabigzanda" explores our local cultural terrain. "Geezer Birding" pushes against the limits of aging. In "Death and the Rose-breasted Grosbeak" his outdoor encounters soften personal grief.

"Birds have helped me find and nourish the untamed child within...a restless, seeking child who needs to get out, gallop or hobble across a field, and explore his earthly home."

 

John Nelson

Flight Calls is available for purchase at The Bookstore, Gloucester, or from the publisher, University of Massachusetts Press.