Under the familiar image of a stylized running figure, black on orange, the sign read slow down visible nudist colony ahead. Chris and I looked at each other.
“If there’s a nudist colony,” he said, “shouldn’t the sign say speed up?”
We held our speed steady, but as the road wound companionably alongside the Chilliwack River there was no sign of a nudist colony. Low mountains, some still capped with stubborn patches of snow, hemmed the river into a narrow valley that forced the road to criss-cross the river on one-lane wooden bridges. Tall grass and cottonwoods pressed close against the shoulder, a blur of early-summer green as we raced toward our site. The sign and the hypothetical nudist colony were forgotten in our excitement: we were on our way to install our first nest camera.
We parked at a pullout liberally dusted with trash: plastic bags, diapers, an entire toilet. After dividing a truly impressive amount of gear between the four of us, we started hiking. A narrow trail led steeply up the wall of the valley, with no sign of switchbacks or even a flat spot to rest. Shards of flint, exposed by the nearly vertical trail, slipped treacherously under my feet, and in places I had to use my hands to scramble up. Mel, who was fighting off a cold, struggled to keep up, and we stopped frequently to let her catch her breath. I was glad for the frequent stops: my legs were already burning, and my heavy pack made me feel like an especially ungainly turtle.
Eventually we left the trail behind. The terrain was no less steep, but now we had the added challenge of crawling through bushes and scrambling over fallen logs. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before we heard the unmistakable alarm call of the goshawks. From the nest, the female screamed kak-kak-kak-kak-kak! and her mate appeared immediately, his shriek higher and faster: kakakakakak! We’d accidentally strayed too close to the nest. Pursued by the birds’ angry voices, we hastily retreated to respectful distance to stage our gear and talk strategy.
It didn’t take long to decide how we would install the camera. Our climber, John, would climb the tree closest to the nest tree, screw in the camera mount, adjust the camera, and then get down as quickly as possible to avoid antagonizing the birds any more than we had to. Our goal was to be in and out in under an hour. What took longer was waiting for the birds to finish their lunch: as we talked, the male delivered a tree squirrel to the nest. Unwilling to disturb them while they ate, we took turns watching through the spotting scope as the female tore off bloody chunks of squirrel and doled them out to her three fluffy nestlings. She kept a few pieces for herself: I watched, fascinated, as she gnawed briefly on a tiny squirrel arm, complete with a tiny squirrel hand on the end, then tossed the whole thing down her throat.
The male left to find more fluffy forest denizens to kill, and the female settled down on top of her brood, apparently prepared for an afternoon nap. This was our cue. While Chris and I kept an eye on the nest from our vantage point—the ground was so steep that by standing a short distance upslope we were at eye-level with the nest—Mel and John scrambled down the slope to begin the climb. The female was obviously aware of us—I could see her alternately watching me and eyeing the ground beneath the nest—but she seemed more wary than worried.
After what felt like ages, I finally spotted John working his way up the tree. The process seemed agonizingly slow and breathtakingly dangerous, though logically I knew it was neither. He was clearly in the female’s blind spot: though she turned her head back and forth, listening to his progress, she made no move to leave the nest until he was almost at her eye level. Then, all at once, she flung herself into the air.
I wrote in my notebook 2:02 female off nest.
Here’s the thing. You’ve probably been dive-bombed by a crow or a jay. It can be scary. But those birds are bluffing. This bird was not bluffing. Screaming furiously, she made a couple of warning passes, close enough that I saw John throw up his arm to fend her off. Then she stopped playing nice. I saw her swift dark form flash through the branches, and John shouted in pain and surprise. She banked and came back for another pass. My heart was pounding and I could hear Mel calling up to John, but there was nothing I could do. The bird continued circling and screaming and diving, forcing John to wedge himself among a handful of dead branches as cover while he worked to get the camera in place. Stymied by the branches, or perhaps coming to realize John wasn’t as great of a threat as she’d feared, the female backed off, though she continued shrieking furiously.
Camera in place, John rappelled down the tree so quickly he seemed to teleport. Before he and Mel could even scramble back up the slope to rejoin Chris and myself, the female was back on the edge of the nest, carefully checking over her fluffy chicks as though to reassure herself they were all still there.
2:33 female back on nest I wrote. The whole thing had taken almost exactly 30 minutes.
We clustered together around our massive pile of gear, everyone grinning and congratulating each other and telling and retelling what had happened. John, of course, had pride of place: there was a cluster of ragged holes in the shoulder of his shirt and scratches underneath, though the worst part, he said, was the bruise he could already feel forming. The female had hit him twice, once on the shoulder and once on the ribs. He’d been attacked by plenty of crows during his work, but I got the impression he’d been caught off-guard by the ferocity of the goshawk’s response.
I kept peering through the scope at the newly-installed camera, which looked very small against the bulk of the tree to which it was attached. I felt like the goshawk mother, anxiously fretting over her chicks: Was it turned on? Was it angled correctly? Would it work? I wouldn’t know until September, when we took it down again, and by then it would be too late to change anything. It was nerve-wracking but also a relief: it was out of my hands now.
“How about we go in to town and get a beer?” John said. “I feel like I could use a beer.”
No one could argue with that.
Bird, Wandering 