Growing up in New Orleans is a dream come true for a birder. Hundreds of species of birds are waiting to be added to a life list within the city, or even just a short drive out to the swamps and marshes surrounding the busy urban environment. There’s no escaping the bird life in the area, especially if you’re growing up in uptown New Orleans. Unless you’re me.
I couldn’t have cared less. I wasn’t into nature at all, let alone birds, a far cry from what would ultimately define my adult life. Any free second I had was devoted to video games. Though I was partial to Nintendo, the lure of growing rivals on Sega systems and soon after, PCs, was also hard to ignore. Of course my video game addiction helped me escape incessant and persistent bullying that I couldn’t get a break from. Even my siblings at home participated in the seemingly universal invite. In a rare stroke of irony from the bullies, I received the nickname, Sonic, while on the high school soccer team, after the blazingly fast hedgehog. The irony was that I was the slowest person on the team because I was addicted to video games and rarely exercised other than when it was required for my growing affinity for the sport. Over two decades later, I would get the last laugh though, thru-hiking the arduous Arizona Trail, an 800 mile trek through the rugged Arizona wilderness. I managed to finish the hike in seven weeks, averaging over 16 miles each day, with my final day consisting of 31.5 miles in 12 hours. I’m getting ahead of myself though.
The point was, I wasn’t just addicted to video games; I was good too. Really good. The early foundation of Blockbuster Video held a regional Nintendo contest of varying, unannounced NES games each week. This was spread across Texas and all the way to the southeastern east coast, specifically Florida and Georgia. The winner of each contest would advance in rank to compete in a wider competition. If memory serves me, there was a weekly competition for about five or six weeks. I placed second in the final round.
When the touring advertising bonanza of the Nintendo World Championships came to New Orleans, again, I placed second. I also remember learning that the first-placed winner was from out of state.
Nature was of no concern to me. Aside from a general awareness of pelicans and egrets (which, as far as I knew, were the technical names), the only bird I specifically remember seeing while growing up in New Orleans was a Rock Pigeon (or to most, simply, pigeon), the common avian species found throughout cities. Unfortunately, this specific bird sticks out for a reason. For my tenth birthday, I was given a BB gun (you know where this is going, right?). Eager for target practice, I went into the backyard searching for something to test my untested accuracy. There were no inanimate objects immediately set up, so my eyes caught hold of a pigeon perched atop a nearby streetlight just beyond our fence line. I never expected for a second that I’d actually hit it, so I took aim and fired.
When nothing happened, I figured the stray BB was out of sight, out of mind (an entirely separate issue that should have been addressed). That is until, a lengthy second later, I saw the pigeon tilt unusually sideways. My brain slowed the scene down to slow motion to avoid reaching the conclusion of what I had actually done. It continued sliding until the now nonreactive bird fell completely lifelessly from the top of the streetlight, gravity taking over, the motionless body disappearing behind our tall wooden backyard fence.
I was heartbroken and horrified at what I had done. I ran back inside, threw the BB gun where I had unpacked it from, and never touched it again. I retreated back into video games to soothe my wounded conscience.
This memory still haunts me, and vexes me as to how folks like John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and numerous others could nonchalantly shoot as many as were needed for their studies. Of course, that thought wouldn’t arrive until much later.
Having never traveled farther west than Baton Rouge, Louisiana prior to graduating high school, I set out for a small college that accepted me in East Texas, thinking I’d finally get to see the desert. It turns out, East Texas is still the south, and the desert is still a day’s drive away.
My college career began in Computer Science in the mid-late 1990s, and stalled two years later when I failed out. My dreams of programming video games came to a screeching halt, until I realized I could work on the graphics (aka, visual) side of things by transferring to the art department. Fueling my dream of working in the video game industry, everything was looking brighter. Of course I was completely oblivious to the fact that I was both living in, and frequently visiting, some of the best birding in North America.
In 2002 I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts, and with no promising leads on moving my life forward, and with some of the best friends I had ever made, I decided to stick around a bit longer and get my Masters of Fine Art. I would build up my 3D modeling (aka, video game graphics) skill sets, and seek out a full-time job in Austin, Dallas, or Houston. My plan was firm, and Texas would remain my home. And we all know how well plans work out.
My last semester, prior to graduating in 2004, I treated myself to a Canon Digital Rebel for my birthday early in the year, a 6.4 megapixel introductory DSLR. It felt as though a puzzle piece of life had just clicked into place. I was hooked, photographing everything I could. Except birds. I have no memory or photographic evidence of ever seeing a bird in Texas.
Upon graduating, a friend and I set out for the western United States, and beyond. His sister had gotten relocated to Sitka, Alaska in the Inside Passage and requested that someone drive her car to her. Neither of us had ever seen farther west than central Texas, so he eagerly accepted, inviting me along as the backup driver.
We hit every state that included, and was west of, the Rocky Mountains, except California (nothing personal, our spontaneous route just didn’t bring us that far west until we got to Oregon). We then drove up through British Columbia to the port town of Prince Rupert, before catching the ferry to bring us to Sitka.
Though I still didn’t find any “spark” birds (birds that “spark” an interest in birding and seeking out more birds), the trip was actually where I began to have my first (healthy) memories of birds. None of them were significant rarities or even remotely unusual, which is a shame considering we were on the road for three weeks in May, which birders giddily refer to as spring migration.
The first was the Black-Billed Magpie. Ascending up toward Flagstaff, Arizona, both my friend and I were amazed by the fairly large-sized birds with a striking black and white pattern. Unfortunately, we never got close enough to one to notice the stunning blue-green iridescence on any of them.
We also saw our first Bald Eagles in Yellowstone National Park (neither of us had ever been to a national park either, but that’s another story), majestically perched on a dead tree overlooking its domain. Of course we’d see hundreds more once we got to British Columbia and the Inside Passage, and the captivating beauty of these birds kept me entertained with each one I saw. I also vividly recall seeing my first Common Raven at Flaming River Gorge National Recreation Area, awestruck by the size of what I mistook for an oversized American Crow. I photographed a variety of gulls along the Oregon and Washington coasts, never realizing that there was more than one species, and that there was no such bird as a seagull.
While I found each bird unique in its habitat, it wasn’t anything more than just an unusual novelty that I simply wasn’t used to seeing. I noticed it, and likely photographed it, because it was exotic to me. But no sparks flew over any of them.
That trip did have a larger impact on my life than I had expected though. Upon my return, I realized I needed to be out west. Texas just wouldn’t cut it after experiencing the landscapes I had seen. I settled on Phoenix, Arizona, and with the video game career not panning out, I fell back on web design, something that had come more fluid to me than the highly competitive and technical 3D graphics. And now, surrounded by mountains each and every day, my curiosity about them replaced my video game addiction, literally overnight. Within just days of residing in Phoenix, I began hiking and exploring the mountains and the wild open spaces (far outside of Phoenix) with my camera always along for the ride, leaving the video game life behind once and for all. To this day, I can count on two hands how many times I’ve played video games since November 3, 2004. (Most of the instances were Rock Band while revisiting Phoenix years later.) Again though, I was oblivious to the fact that I was in yet another birding mecca of North America.
Despite this, at the same time, some of the birds there are so unusual, it’s hard to not notice them. Take the Gambel’s Quail, for example. While I never got any great photos, I can recall numerous sightings of them, and remarking to a friend how much I loved seeing them because of how goofy they looked with their forward-facing crest dangling in front of their eyes as they darted across roads.
There was another instance where my girlfriend at the time brought us out to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum about an hour east of Phoenix. On a specific spring day, like clockwork, dozens and dozens of vultures would rise from the rocky cliffs at sunrise to begin a migration. I can only assume they were Turkey Vultures based on what I know now. And while this still wasn’t a “spark” bird moment, it did open me up to the bird world ever so slightly. It was one of those transcendental moments that grabs hold of someone not yet fully aware of themselves or their surroundings and gives them a good shaking, complete with a slap in the face, both metaphorical, of course.
Within a week of that experience, I visited a wetlands area in Mesa, Arizona (which some would simply refer to eastern Phoenix these days), and took some mediocre photos of the bird life there: Greater Roadrunners; Snowy Egrets; and more. I was shocked to see egrets in the desert, a bird I had assumed only lived in the swamps of Louisiana. However I was thoroughly disappointed in the Greater Roadrunners. Not only were they significantly smaller than the cartoon, but they were much less colorful. In addition, I never heard any of them say, “Meep meep!”
The extra alertness ultimately faded though, but from time to time, I would still catch a shot of a different looking bird when the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen when, in less than one month, I made trips to both Alaska and Hawaii.
The only birds I captured a photo of on the trips were Bald Eagles (because they were all over Homer, Alaska), a Willow Ptarmigan (because our guide in Denali pointed it out), and feral chickens in Hawaii.
My life changed, however, when I made an arbitrary road trip to Wyoming.
With nature becoming a more active part of my life, and the more dominant photographic subject, I still felt as though I was searching for something (you might assume I meant birds, but not quite yet). After three years of Phoenix life, I began to get the itch to explore Wyoming. I didn’t know why, and I tried to talk myself into other destinations, but something deep inside pushed Wyoming to the front of my thoughts. And so, having learned by this point to trust my instincts, I set out in April of 2008 to see what was there. I didn’t have any preconceptions or expectations. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity about what was around that part of the country.
Grand Teton National Park is often overlooked due to its next door neighbor, Yellowstone National Park. Despite its proximity to the world’s first national park, it offers a completely different experience than its big brother, as well as one of the most picturesque mountain ranges found anywhere in the world.
Having quickly driven through almost four years prior on our road trip from East Texas to Sitka, I was vaguely familiar with it, at best. However, during our quick trip through, the mountains were completely socked in, robbing us of any views of the defining mountains. In addition, we saw virtually no wildlife as we sped up the highway to Yellowstone, also unaware of any hiking experiences that were available. As such, we essentially missed the point of the whole park.
I arrived in the town of Jackson late one night, enamored with the scenery I had seen along the way, but still hadn’t seen anything that would make me want to leave my home in Phoenix. My plan was to drive into Grand Teton National Park, head up into Yellowstone National Park, then start cutting east across the state before swinging back down through Colorado and New Mexico. And we all know how well plans work out.
Driving north through the park, the scenery was hard to ignore, and I was happily exploring the empty, snow-covered landscapes. At the Moran Junction, I turned in to begin heading up to Yellowstone, when I noticed a sign that informed me that Yellowstone was closed for the season. “That can’t be right,” I ignorantly thought to myself. Encouraged by my signature stubbornness, I continued onward to Yellowstone, only to find that, in fact, it was closed, something it does every winter due to the amount of snow that falls in the interior of the park.
With nowhere else to go, I reluctantly turned back to begin my detour across Wyoming via a different route. After passing the iconic Oxbow Bend, however, I noticed a few cars pulled off on the side of the road. Back then, seeing a small cluster of cars and about half-a-dozen people along the roadside was highly unusual. Intrigued, I stopped and got out to see what they were looking at.
Through the nearby trees, I was pointed to a mass of brown moving around, and was told that it was a grizzly bear and her three cubs. Having never seen a grizzly bear before, wild or captive, I was in awe. The rest of the day was spent tagging along with the group, following the bear and getting photos of her at every opportunity, until she disappeared into the wilderness. They told me she had been tagged with a number, making her Grizzly Bear #399. And “they” being Tom Mangelsen and a few of his employees.
By then the sun was going down, so I decided I’d spend one more day in Grand Teton National Park after all. This turned into a pattern though. The landscape took on completely new life knowing that there were grizzlies around. I didn’t want to leave. I spent every day poking down every road I could, finding more wildlife, and discovering a new euphoria. I needed to return to Phoenix though.
At the end of my allotted time off, I drove back to Phoenix in one day, a grueling but wonderfully scenic sixteen hour drive. I visited the Tetons again later that year, then realized that that was now home. I wanted to be in those mountains and with those bears. And of course, once again, spring migration had no effect on my second life-changing road trip.
Settling into Jackson Hole, Wyoming was effortless. I found housing with a talented artist. I found a decent enough job to get my foot in the door of the local economy. And of course, I continued photographing the wildlife and wild spaces in every free moment I had. It wasn’t long after, however, that I actually started to notice a few more birds.
The Mountain Bluebird is a bright spectacle of blue plucked from the sky itself and molded into a small, adorable thrush, a small white cloud denoting its underside. Driving around Antelope Flats in Grand Teton National Park in the spring, the small cerulean bursts of color are hard to ignore. This was one of the first birds I really began to take notice of, and it would take years before I was able to get a decent photo of one.
Leaving behind my first job two years after my arrival, I freelanced web design for another couple of years before acquiring a job that would define me a little more.
The wildlife safari business thrives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I began guiding with one of the local companies and despite the rigorous, sleep-depriving schedule, thoroughly enjoyed the work. It was on one of these trips in my first season that I saw my first Western Tanager, easily the most tropical-looking bird we get in Jackson Hole. It sports a vibrantly bright yellow body with bold black wings, crowned with a fiery red head. Like the Mountain Bluebird, my interest began to grow ever so slightly, though still, neither could be considered a “spark” bird. Instead, they had the same effect as the vulture spectacle a few years prior. I was more intrigued, but while I only saw the vulture migration once, allowing the magnificence to eventually wear off, I’d see the bluebirds and tanagers each spring, summer, and fall, maintaining and fueling an interest that wouldn’t be allowed to fade.
Then came the owls. In a short period of time, I saw the first owls I had ever seen, both Great Gray Owls, as well as Great-Horned Owls. As was the case with the mammal kingdom, something about predators called to me, so much like the Bald Eagles, owls I could get excited about from the very start. Their size, silence, secrecy. Their enigmatic nature. It was all enchanting. And yet, again, neither were my “spark” bird.
Not long after, I joined two friends on a spontaneous road trip up to Vancouver, British Columbia. Apparently there was something called an irruption, sending Snowy Owls much farther south than usual, and an area known as Boundary Bay outside of Vancouver was a guaranteed hot spot. We got packed up, and darted off toward the area, driving the distance in one very long day.
The two of them were avid birders, and insisted that I’d make a great birder. Back then, however, if someone told me I should do something, I’d push back harder in the opposite direction. So the idea of becoming a birder became a bit ridiculous to me, and that wasn’t a negotiable opinion.
Birds of prey abounded on the trip, though, so I remained excited. I saw numerous new species: Snowy Owls (lots of them), Short-Eared Owl, Barred Owl, Barn Owl, and Northern Saw-Whet Owl, among many others. They saw a lot more smaller birds, but I didn’t really care about the little birds. That could potentially confuse someone into thinking I was a birder if I gave smaller birds too much, or any, attention. For me it was all about the plethora of birds of prey. And while it was a fun trip of discovery, it didn’t change my opinion about birds, nor becoming one of those absurd birders.
It was around this time, while guiding one of the many safaris I was guiding, I was told about a movie called, The Big Year. The movie stars a flock of A-list actors and tells the story of three guys trying to break the world record for the most birds seen in North America in one year. I eventually got around to seeing it, and fell in love with it. Not for the birds, of course, but for the fact that I could relate to the efforts put into trying to see one bird, or in my case, wild mammal. I enjoyed watching it, and it was one I went back to repeatedly for its fun and charming nature.
Throughout my childhood I had friends telling me how much I’d love Star Trek if I would just give it a chance. From elementary school, into college, I had friends tell me to watch it, and I continued to push it away. My conscious mind made up the conclusion that it was just stupid. My subconscious mind was pushing it away because I was already being made fun of for everything else about myself, so why give the bullies another angle of attack?
Early in college, I gave my friend the benefit of the doubt, and I sat down with him to watch a Star Trek movie of his choosing. I wasn’t impressed. His movie of choice was Star Trek V. For those not immersed in the Trek universe, Star Trek V is considered one of the worst movies of all time. He made one more attempt, this time with Star Trek: Generations, aka, a movie only slightly better than Star Trek V, but in a nutshell, all over the place with a sloppy and unfocused plot.
My judgment about the franchise was vindicated. I could continue merrily pushing it away and never giving it any mind.
Then along came J.J. Abrams. Tasked with rebooting Star Trek and “making it cool,” he produced a pretty decent movie, which I continued to avoid. Finally, a friend whom I respected, and who by all accounts, you would never expect words like “Star Trek” and “really good” to come out of her mouth at the same time, put those two phrases together when telling me about it. I held off, but ultimately curiosity got the best of me around 2011. Still refusing to pay for such a thing, I bootlegged a copy of the 2009 movie and watched it one night on my computer. When it was over, I could acknowledge that it was, in fact, an enjoyable movie. But was it really Star Trek?
The movie has numerous inside jokes that I could tell I wasn’t on the receiving end of, so to feel included in the references, I decided I’d watch just a few episodes of The Original Series, aka, the Captain Kirk years. I had better things to do than to catch up on the entire franchise, so I was adamant about sticking to just a few episodes. That was my plan. And we all know how well plans work out.
To my surprise, the writing in those first few episodes was actually quite good. Outdated effects, music, and budget aside, I reluctantly found myself enjoying those episodes. I enjoyed them so much, I figured I’d just finish out the season. Then the next. Then the next. But that was it? Only three seasons of such an iconic series? I surprised myself by wanting more, and so I continued on, chronologically.
I watched The Animated Series. Then the Original Series movies. Then The Next Generation, followed by their movies, followed by Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and finally, Enterprise. It took a few years, but I became a full-blown Trekkie, continuing my affinity for the franchise into the streaming era and beyond.
Star Trek taught me something important about myself. I came to learn that the things I’m most active about pushing away are ultimately things that I might actually enjoy. A lot. But surely that wouldn’t apply to birds.
If not handled carefully, being a full-time safari guide can wear you down fast. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I became more and more jaded, seeking more and more to become a hermit, to get away from the crowds. People were complicated. My time alone wasn’t. I enjoyed the work while I was doing it, but I needed more breaks and wasn’t getting them. I began resenting the tourists, aka, people paying my wage. I had trouble balancing my needs with work needs, and ultimately wound up finding other avenues of revenue, if only for a short time.
It was then in 2016 that I sought to validate my hermitage by thru-hiking one of the loneliest long-distance trails in the country (at the time), the Arizona Trail. The 800-mile trail weaves from the border of Mexico up to the border of Utah through numerous places seldom seen by most people, even most Arizonans themselves. There were several occasions where I’d go 48 hours without seeing another human. Loneliness is vaulted to another level with that kind of solitude. Often the only other person I’d see was another thru-hiker. Themselves in the same boat, a unique friendship was immediately struck up.
By the end of the journey, it became clear to me that I was completely misguided in my attempts to be a hermit. I definitely wanted to be around people, I just wanted to establish a healthier balance.
Nurturing a budding interest in more wild things than just mammals by this time as well, I was able to capture photos of several birds I hadn’t seen before. These included a Vermilion Flycatcher, Black-Throated Sparrow, Hooded Oriole, Painted Redstart, Western Bluebird, and more. But still, no “spark” birds.
Upon my return to Jackson Hole, I almost immediately met my future ex-wife. During the marriage, I neglected more and more of my needs as time went on, partially due to her demanding nature, partially due to my inability to consistently speak up for my needs. An unhealthy dynamic was established early on, and once that rhythm was firm, there was no breaking out of it. Photography took a back seat. My mental health deteriorated. We soon moved right outside of New York City to be closer to her family. For someone who had found a home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, New York City was the exact opposite in every way imaginable. I went back to working web design in a toxic work environment. On top of all that, my dad died while we were out there. I was able to be with him, and present for the funeral, but then upon my return, I was chewed out at work for having the gall to use my unused vacation time to stay away for a week to attend his funeral after watching him pass. (That was one of the minor instances of toxicity.)
On rare occasions, I’d take my camera on a walk along the Hudson River, since we lived within walking distance. An occasional cormorant or gull would catch my attention, but it wasn’t enough to shake me out of my despair. Not even the Downy Woodpecker I saw toward the end of our stay there would do that. It was interesting, and I got a nice photo of it, but the angst was too strong at the time.
After a year and a half of trying to make it work in New York, we headed back to Jackson Hole. I resumed guiding with the original company I worked for, the following year setting off on my own to focus more on photography-specific trips. But by this time, our own business venture had taken off and once again, I had to put photography aside, stalling the momentum I had gained, much like I had done a few years prior.
Not long after, the volatility of our relationship became too much to bear. I tried to work it out with her, but in the end, I ran out of gas and had nothing left. We separated in the fall of 2021.
The bright spot among that relationship was the birth of our daughter, a delightful bundle of joy and smiles that has continued to enrich my life.
But coming out of the divorce was hard. The enthusiasm I had felt for Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park when I first moved up was shrouded behind a cloud of emotions that rose out of the divorce. I would enjoy photographing something when I happened upon it, but I was more reluctant to go seek it out. I began hiking nearby trails a lot while trying to build back up my photography guiding business, hoping the time on the trails would help me heal as I sorted through the waves of emotions that held me back from being me. Needless to say, birds weren’t a priority at all during this time.
Spring and fall are usually the busy seasons for photography workshops in Jackson Hole. Both seasons have abundant wildlife and gorgeous landscapes that keep people coming from all around. In early May a couple of years ago, I was guiding a couple of women around, both of whom were birders. By this time, I had accepted birds as part of the landscape, I just wasn’t excited about them. And still, the only ones to catch my attention were the “pretty” ones. This came up in our conversation, as did the movie, The Big Year. One of them hadn’t seen the film yet, and the two of us insisted she should see it. At the same time, they began telling me I’d make a great birder, to which I jokingly cringed, telling them not to say such horrific things.
When I got home later that day, I realized it had been a little while since I had watched the movie. I put it on, watched it, loved it as always, and went to bed.
Upon waking up, something was different. The birds calling and singing outside weren’t just background bird noises, but songs that I was distinguishing in a way I hadn’t before. I had to know what they were. After a quick bit of research, I found an app called, Merlin, and let it do the work of interpreting the songs. Results came back quick.
A House Wren. What the hell is a House Wren? Black-Capped Chickadees! That’s what’s been making that sound that I keep hearing! Black-Headed Grosbeak? What on Earth is that? I began looking around to match the birds to their calls, slowly picking out each one from the still leafless trees by my home. I used the step-by-step process to figure out which birds I was seeing more than hearing, but I needed to see more!
I got in my car and drove up to the Moose-Wilson Road, still early in the morning, something that became a pattern until the road’s traffic increased as the summer season drew closer. All of a sudden it was as if a veil had been lifted over the whole valley, and I was seeing a completely new dimension to it. At my destination, there were Yellow Warblers, Yellow-Rumped Warblers, Song Sparrows, Fox Sparrows, Gray Catbirds (“That’s a real thing?!” I thought), and even a Hooded Warbler. Being less than a day into birding, I didn’t realize just how rare that last one was in Grand Teton National Park.
And just like that, something that I had been deliberately pushing away, at least partially due to the trauma of the BB gun incident, was now a full-blown passion of mine. So while I never did have a “spark” bird, I instead had a “spark” movie, a movie that took on a whole new enjoyment thereafter. I began scouring through all the photos that I had taken thus far, seeking out photos of birds that I had never given a second thought to. It was here that I began building my life list. I started with my first photos of birds, then built up from there, adding to it daily the new birds I was seeing around my home each day. This was where I found evidence of a few rare bird photos while living in Arizona, while thru-hiking the Arizona Trail, and any birds that caught my eye after moving to Jackson Hole.
It still took over a year before I was comfortable submitting complete lists to the eBird app, a citizen science program that tracks population increases and decreases of birds everywhere. Once I became comfortable though, I was off and running, jumping up the ranks, my hidden competitive nature propelling my desire to see unique and rare birds for the area, as well as the familiar faces. This was my kind of game.
As years passed since first moving to Jackson Hole, word began to spread, particularly on social media, that grizzlies could be easily observed from the roadsides in Grand Teton National Park. With my first grizzly encounter accompanied by only a few cars, the number of prospected onlookers would only grow. Initially, however, it was just with locals.
Each spring, dozens of locals would trek up to the northern parts of the park, primarily Oxbow Bend and up to Pilgrim Creek. There might be a handful of tourists as well, all welcome of course, but for the most part, it was primarily locals, many of them photographers.
Between bear sightings, it would be a reunion of sorts after the long winter, discussing winter happenings as well as summer plans. Rangers were relaxed in their crowd control, and visitors to the area were ecstatic to see a wild grizzly bear (often with cubs) so close to the road where binoculars weren’t even needed.
Starting in about 2012, Grizzly 399 and her ilk began making headlines, not just locally, but across the oceans. It was no longer a local’s secret after that year. People came descending into the area in greater and greater numbers in what is typically referred to as the off-season – the break between the ski season and the summer season.
Within a few years, it became expected to see cars exploring the roads in search of spring bears. With increased visitation, the rangers had to crack down on established rules to keep order. Within a decade, as the Covid pandemic began wearing down, dozens of cars would wait throughout the day for their chance to be the first to see 399 come lumbering down the meadow from her den upstream in the mountains.
While I’m always eager and overjoyed to see any grizzly, especially if I’m able to share that experience with a client, I began to have a hard time talking myself into sitting with large crowds of people as a beloved grizzly foraged nearby. With the growing crowds, tensions would rise within the onlookers, and the initial experience of seeing 399 with a handful of other people in the silence of nature was a far cry from what the scene had become.
Naturally, I don’t blame anyone for coming out to create a lasting memory with any of the bears here. These bears have a way of planting a seed that encourages that person to care more deeply for the natural world, something I will encourage every time there’s any possibility of doing so. But for someone who was essentially spoiled with their first encounter, I became increasingly put off by the immense crowds gathering around the bears. Again, I completely understand and encourage everyone to come and witness our bears in action. They are majestic animals that deserve the attention they receive, but for someone who had gone through extensive personal growth while watching the big bruins in the company of a handful of friends and acquaintances, I began looking for a different photography outlet.
This is almost immediately when birds came into my life. With the “spark” of The Big Year propelling me into new areas of Grand Teton National Park thanks to a different target, I was finding the peace and quiet that I had longed for from years past. In addition, this also came only a year after the divorce was finalized, giving me a remarkably healthy distraction from the trauma and trials of the relationship. Admittedly though, impassioned birders rarely have their passion described as “healthy.”
Regardless, I was finding myself again. I was growing in positive directions, and I finally had new outlets in peaceful settings with ample alone time to process thoughts and emotions at the forefront of my mind. Birds have helped me evolve and adapt in my home of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and have helped me cope with situations and circumstances I could have never predicted or seen coming. They’ve given me peace, solace, comfort, camaraderie, and endless new subjects and settings for my photography. In the journey of my life, it’s been one of the healthier obsessions.
