After the lockdowns were lifted, the curfews began and I continued my scofflaw ways by studying clouds by day and stars by night. But by early June, the local wild areas were becoming more crowded with people. Fears of COVID-19 were being replaced by a ferocious case of delayed Spring Fever. Additionally, the desert lands had become hot and those who lived in cactus country were not about to tether themselves to indoor AC now that they could finally move about the state more freely.

And, so it was, when an old friend called to say that he and a few chums were coming up from the Yuma and Phoenix areas to luxuriate in the spruce-fir forests. By this time, I was craving a bit of human companionship on my camping trips and would practically have jumped at the chance to pitch tents with Typhoid Mary herself.

I met the crew at our rendezvous spot -- in a grove of tall, lime-green aspens fringed by Douglas fir, Limber pine and Engleman spruce trees. We were a group of five ensconced in “Aspen Camp,” with two other friends camped closer to a nearby lake. All of us were retirees and all of us had worked at least part of our careers as “field biologists.”

Perhaps I should define a few terms (informal terms, that I myself have given definition): Within the profession of Wildlife and/or Fisheries Biology, people tend to fall into several categories. There are the “field hounds” -- those who spend a significant amount of time outdoors studying wild species and the habitats that supports those species. These types of folks can be both entry-level personnel (getting their “foot in the door”) or rugged individuals who refuse to climb the “corporate ladder” and choose instead to stay true to their calling and remain on the ground -- in the wilds. The entry level folks are often grunts -- out for a season to gather data. The career professionals are often “organismal biologists” (focusing on an individual animal); “population biologists” (specializing in a particular species); “community biologists” (studying a group of species) or “ecologists” (encompassing the whole ball of wax).

In addition to the “field biologist” level, there are folks (sometimes having initially worked in the field for a portion of their careers) who have, for various reasons, become “desk-biologists.” These folks frequently are focused on using data gathered by the field crews and often specialize in one or more of the following: modeling, statistics: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Public Information (“outreach” personnel), laboratory biology and, last but not least, regulatory biology (maneuvering through the complexities of such things as the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act -- two critical pieces of biologically based environmental legislation).

There are other levels too, naturally -- but they tend to operate as “managers” and “executives” and sadly, they generally only get back into the field when they are allowed to take vacations. Many biologists tremble at the thought of becoming one of these types of professionals and, either by necessity or design, are happy to remain as field or desk biologists for their entire career.

Due to prior obligations, I stayed only two nights at Aspen Camp; others stayed longer. During my couple of days, I joined my comrades for early morning bird watching hikes and mid- to late day explorations of the surrounding countryside. In the evenings, we kicked back at camp discussing the projects we had worked on during our careers and what we had been doing, natural history wise, since retiring. Occasionally we would talk about current events (human pandemics being a historically exciting topic for many generations of biologists -- since at least as far back as Thomas Malthus) but mostly we focused our conversations about other biologists we had worked with and the different wildlife species we had studied. Because campfires were prohibited, our chats were by moonlight, which was just fine, as there was a big moon during our camp-out.

The weather was ideal (clear cool nights, calm warm days) so I slept on my cot and left my unpacked tent in my old “pick-em-up truck.” In the mornings, for over an hour before sunrise, I would lie on my cot and listen to the growing chorus of birds as they introduced the new day. They sang songs without words but I did recognize enough of their lyrics to pick out a few of the species: the insanely boisterous House Wren, the subdued and ethereal Hermit Thrush, the bouncy trill of the gregarious Yellow-rumped Warblers and the rising and falling short phrases of the Western Tanager -- sounding somewhat like a robin; though less sustained and hoarser.

So that I could savor my morning coffee, I was up before the others. Before too long though, we were all up and had eaten a quick granola bar or something similar and then were off by 0600 to look for birds and anything else that might turn up. One morning, we hiked through the pockets of forest and expanses of bunchgrass meadows that were accessible right from camp. The other morning, we hiked up a creek that was thick with willows along its shores but soon transitioned to grassy flats before finally giving way to steep wooded slopes.

Although I didn’t keep a tally of the birds we saw -- between the two days that I participated in the camping trip -- I would estimate that we saw over 30 different species of birds. The sightings that spring to mind from our rambles included nothing rare for the habitats we traversed but several were birds that you were not likely to find at lower elevations, such as those around Pinetop.

For example, we watched a nesting pair of American Dippers as they foraged for food along the creek’s pebble-filled bottom. Upon nabbing a juicy nymph to feed their young, we watched them bring the grub to their nest; strategically concealed underneath an old bridge. Whenever I see Dippers, I think of John Muir, who wrote a beautiful essay about them entitled “The Water Ouzel” (an old-fashioned name for the species). I read the essay as a teenager before moving from Michigan to Montana, where I attended college. Soon after settling into an older sister’s house in Missoula, I began to explore the nearby wildlands including a place called Rattlesnake Creek.

Yes, they do have rattlers in Montana but I don’t recall seeing any during my hikes along their namesake stream. What I do remember seeing were family groups of Dippers. They were fairly common and, because I had read Muir’s story about them a few years earlier, they quickly began to live up to his vivid description of their curious lives and ways. When you see your first Dipper, you will notice that the water-loving little bird is about the size of a large wren (they are, in fact, occasionally called “water wrens” though they are in an entirely different taxonomic “family”).

The Dipper is a plump, stub-tailed, slate-gray bird that is perhaps most notable for three things: when on land (usually the creek bank: First, it nearly constantly dips up and down --as though performing not-so-deep knee bends. Secondly, it frequently dives into the rushing torrents and swims/flies/runs along the creek bottom as it gobbles up various aquatic invertebrates and even small fishes. Third, if you watch the bird for even a short time, you will not only notice its bobbing behavior but you will also observe the frequent flashing of its eyelids. When I first saw the birds along Rattlesnake Creek decades ago, I thought maybe they possessed a “nictitating membrane” like many other aquatic species do but no, the Dipper simply has a speck of lighter colored plumage on its eyelids which is conspicuous every time it blinks (which is often).

After reveling in our morning birding hikes, we visited other sections of the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest. Because my Yuma friend Lin had conducted the field portions of his thesis work in this area and therefore knew the countryside well, he took us to a place where he remembered a very old stand of large aspen trees that had inscriptions dating back to the early 1900’s. Another member of our crew, Dave, had even heard from a reliable source (a Forest Service employee) that Teddy Roosevelt had carved his name into one of the aspen trees somewhere in the area we visited. Dave said that Teddy had used a ladder so that he could gouge his initials up high so as to minimize the odds that another human (or perhaps even a bear) would carve or claw over his mark.

While I generally frown upon the scarification of living trees, I have to admit that when we arrived at the grove that Lin had in mind, I was impressed by the 100-year-old “dendroglyphs.” Unfortunately, most of the old trees had been blown down (or had been felled by man) during the three-plus decades since Lin had last visited this stand but you could still see the proclamations that so-and-so had been here way back in 1905. Alas, we puny humans who, perhaps more than anything, strive for immortality, recognize the truth in old Will’s famous words:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow -- Creeps in this petty pace from day to day -- To the last syllable of recorded time; -- And all our yesterdays have lighted fools -- The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! -- Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player -- That struts and frets his hour upon the stage -- And then is heard no more. It is a tale -- Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, -- Signifying nothing.

Be that as it may be -- at this stage of life, I get all the ego-gratification I need just from being out in Nature and doing my best to learn her secretive ways. And, I generally find that the learning-curve is massively collapsed when I am able to learn from my friends, who, more often than not, have noticed something wonderful; something that, somehow, I have managed to overlook for so very, very long.