Finding the Way

Saturday, January 5, 2008

I left home at 9:30 in the morning. It’s a bit harder to get an early start on these winter days. It was 29 degrees, calm and clear. A few wisps and puffs of cloud were in the blue sky, offering just the kind of light I love when I’m in the woods. I cut through the train station and took the new bridge over Beaver Brook and hiked on the road just long enough to get to the Hobbs Hill trail. I climbed through the pine plantation before breaking out into the more open natural oak-pine forest. The crunching of my footsteps in the thawed and re-frozen snow precluded sneaking up on anything.

I stopped on Hobbs Hill for breakfast. I just sat in the sun and listened to the quiet. There were human sounds off in the distance, but the woods around me were silent. It was so quiet, the only nearby sound was the ringing in my ears. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s too many hours listening to power tools, but I prefer to thinks it’s just caused by everyday stress and if I could only sit here long enough it would go away.

As I sat daydreaming, the sun rose enough to shine through the space between the trunks of a double-stemmed hickory and warm my face. It shined through the naked oaks and hickories to illuminate the patient pines below, their soft deep green needles glistening in the clean light, shining all the brighter on the background of white snow.

I wanted to linger and allow friendly thoughts from the forest to creep into my mind, but I had a plan. As part of my (no doubt temporary) New Years ambition to clean up and de-clutter, I was organizing a box of bike-related maps and such when I found a misplaced topographic map a friend gave me some time ago (Thanks, George!).

Moose Hill is in the northwest corner of the Brockton, Massachusetts 7.5 x 15 minute metric quadrangle. (I’ve always wondered how mapmakers always manage to put every item of interest in the corner of a map so you have to buy four maps to cover the area you want to explore.) One thing that caught my eye on this map was the indication of a trail running from Moose Hill Parkway, over Hobbs Hill, across one of the headwater streams of Beaver Brook, over another hill, and then on to Moose Hill Street. The first part of this trail was well known to me as part of the Hobbs Hill Loop, but as far as I know, the rest of the trail may be abandoned. It was my plan to use map and compass to find this new hilltop and look for remnants of this trail.

In my youth, I spent a fair amount of time hiking and bushwhacking in the Catskill Mountains of New York with map and compass, but with the exception of one fun attempt at orienteering with my son a few years ago, it had been quite a while since I’d navigated in the woods this way. Of course, map and compass is so old school. Everybody has GPS these days, but I’m nothing if not behind the times.

Using my old Silva Ranger forester’s compass, I oriented the map and took a bearing from Hobbs Hill to this new hill and set off through the woods. Sighting through the notch in the compass cover while peeking in the mirror at the needle, I would look ahead and pick a rock or tree as my destination. All I had to do was pay attention long enough as I meandered through the landscape to allow me to get to my landmark where I would take a new sighting. My path kept intersecting deer trails and I was tempted to follow them, but I wasn’t convinced the deer were following the old hiking trail so I resisted the urge.

As I knew it would, my course took me to a brook, but what I failed to notice was that this part of the brook formed a small swamp. I thought it had been cold enough that I could cross on ice, but I was mistaken and promptly broke through, soaking my feet with black muck. This got me thinking about a Jack London story where a trapper gets wet in the arctic and has to kill his dog to cut it open so he can warm his hands inside long enough to start a life-saving fire with his only match only to have the incipient fire warm the snow on an over-hanging pine bough causing the snow to fall, snuffing out the fire. In my case, it was a dry sunny day and the temperature was on the way up and I was no more than a half mile from a road, but my imagination is like that.

My mishap did cause me to abandon my course and head upstream, looking for a place to cross where the stream was narrower. Misfortune turned to luck when I found a place to cross that was well used by deer and looked like the old trail I had been seeking. This was soon confirmed when I saw some old painted tin can lids nailed to trees. I’d seen this method of marking another old trail in town – the Massapoag Trail – and I wondered if these markers had been placed by the same person decades ago.

I saw the hill I was seeking rising through the trees, but cold feet and a late hour prompted me to save conquering it for another day. I decided to follow the creek up to the road and head for home.

Exploring with map and compass brought back many fond memories. I thought back on those days when I was young and optimistic and I had my whole life in front of me. A good chunk of that life is behind me now, but on that bright sunny January day, it felt good to have a whole new year in front of me. A tough 2007 was behind me, and I had a chance to make a fresh start in 2008. I could see good things on the trail ahead, and I had a feeling a few hours of quiet reflection on Moose Hill might just help me find the way.

Clean Light

I listened to the bird calls as I sleepily pedaled the bike up Moose Hill on Saturday morning. I heard the usual characters – cardinal, chipping sparrow, titmouse, chickadee – but I was opening my ears for new sounds from the woods. I heard a towhee; I knew they were back. But wait, was that an oriole? Was that a catbird? I was hopeful that I would see several recent arrivals from mysterious journeys.

I had a time limit, so I tried to get out of the house early and stay close to home. That usually means Hobbs Hill. I like this spot because it’s only half way up the hill and I can get there quickly. Because it’s removed from the sanctuary parking lot by a half mile or so, I’m less likely to see other people there. I find the hill itself comfortable in an innate sort of way. Its flat top with short ash and hickory trees and open understory (Thanks in large part to hungry deer.) feels a bit like an island in a sea of trees. The steep sides offer great places to sit and look down on the forest below.

As soon as I arrived at the top of the hill I caught a brief look at a thrush that reminded me of one I’d watched there last year. I hadn’t heard any wood thrush yet, so I thought this might be a hermit thrush. Another movement caught my eye, and I was treated to the sight of a pair of chickadees working to hollow out a cavity in a small ash stump. The entrance was only about three feet off the ground and the birds took turns flying into their new home and picking punky wood from the bottom of the cavity. There seemed to be a delicate balance between a tree that is rotten enough for these tiny birds to excavate and one that is strong enough to remain upright until the babies fledge.

I went to my usual rock, but the rising sun was in my face making it difficult to see small birds in tall trees, so I looked for a new spot. This was alternative rock in the Moose Hill sense, I guess, and it turned out to be a good choice. I felt like a raptor, perched on my rock and, between sips of coffee, scanning the forest below for any movement. Lifting my binoculars so my vision would be more like a hawk and less like an ageing human, I watched as a chipmunk emerged from under an old stump to shuffle the dry oak leaves.

Maybe I missed the dawn chorus, perhaps my timing was off by a few days, or maybe there are simply fewer birds around, but the woods seemed quiet. A few birds were going quietly about their business, such as the downy woodpecker and myrtle warbler that came by, but they seemed quiet and subdued; their calls more like whispers than the exuberant springtime singing I was hoping for.

It was another cool, calm, clear morning, so visibility was excellent. That made it all the more maddening to hear a few forgotten or unfamiliar bird songs but only catch fleeting glimpses as the birds move about. I’m not very good a craning my neck to study the undersides of tiny, hyperactive creatures.

With my sandwich gone and coffee intake sufficient, I decided to head back to the bike while taking time to identify just one or two interesting birds. I knew I didn’t have the time to chase after every tweet and twitter I heard, so I would try to focus on just a few. Just as I made that decision I was hearing a repetitive song, almost but not quite like the caroling of a robin. Just above where the chickadees were busy laboring, I saw a flash of brilliant red. A scarlet tanager!

With his scarlet body and starkly contrasting black wings, I can’t imagine a more exotic-looking bird in these woods. Because I was on the hill and the trees he was working in were rooted down below, he was just over my head. This was no fleeting glimpse. He sat, moved about examining tree buds and sang, offering one perfect view after the other. I worried about the challenges he and his kind faced as they migrated and wintered in the tropics.

Just then, a few yards below my feet working among the rocks of the craggy hillside I spotted one – and then another- hermit thrush. One was carrying a short, thin twig! I guess I wasn’t imagining the thrush I saw just as I arrived. This pair also offered wonderful views as they pumped their reddish tails and walked and hopped from twig to rock as if house-hunting. This spot struck me as perfect for a hermit. I imagined a cozy nest in a crack or crevice with a sheltering fern frond overhead. These two seemed united in their task and it seemed that even a hermit likes a little company once in a while.

Yet again, I was moved by the magic of Moose Hill. All I had to do was think about finding two good birds before heading for home, and I didn’t even have to leave my seat. Maybe it was the birds, maybe it was the caffeine, but as walked slowly along the trail through the sweet, fresh air back to my bike I was on a high. The sunlight filtering through the trees to illuminate the forest floor was so pure and clear that the eyes tricked the mind into thinking the thoughts were clear as well.

The flute-like song of a thrush lured me off the trail. At first I thought I was hearing my first wood thrush of the year, but the song was not quite right. I moved toward the bird and he moved toward me. I thought I saw the tail-pumping of another hermit thrush before he flew off. I knew the pleasant task of learning more about the thrushes of Moose Hill lay ahead of me.

As I arrived at my bike and prepared to head home, I wondered what it was about this place that so often makes my mind and senses feel so relaxed and alert at the same time. Part of the comfort I find in these woods comes from familiarity. By visiting many of the same places repeatedly over the past year, I find that each spot offers a history that links one visit to the next. Individual trees, rocks and even birds have stories to tell if I visit them often enough. At least, I think I hear this land telling tales. My hope is that the clear light will allow my mind to eventually understand the mysteries Moose Hill has to share.