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FIELD TRIPS ARE FUN
I am always interested at the number of people who don't go on field trips,
but stay home instead. It is true that the weather may be bad, the particular
trip scheduled may be too strenuous, or transportation may be a problem, but
if you stay home you miss a good time. We try to schedule field trips in or
near Salt Lake City, as well as farther away, so there will be more
opportunity for everyone.
The only requirement on a field trip is to be there with the intention of
enjoying it. Expect to see things you don't recognize; don't stay home
because you think you'll be so much more ignorant than the others. In the
first place, it probably isn't true; in the second place, so what! One
reason for having field trips is for education; and it gives the experienced
ones a chance to show off.
The greater variety of interests you have, the more fun you can expect. If
birds are scarce, look at flowers. If flowers are scarce, look at rocks, or
insects, or tracks. Look at the landscape -- try to explain each groove and
ridge. If two neighboring hills have a different general shape, there's a
reason. What is it? If the vegetation differs, why? Sometimes the answer is
obvious; often it depends on something that happened in the past -- any time
from last season to five hundred million years ago.
Take field trips on your own, the more frequent the better. This will dispel
any feeling of ignorance more quickly. Become thoroughly familiar with some
particular area, get to know it in all seasons and weathers. With a home base
thoroughly known, then you can make knowledgeable comparisons with something
new. Going to new places introduces you to new birds, concepts, etc. Also,
you need to keep going back to the same places; suddenly you'll see something
new, or something you missed before.
If a field trip turns out to be too strenuous, you can still enjoy yourself.
Lag behind, drop out, or try to take it easier. You may see something the
others missed. I remember a special trip to see some pileated woodpeckers.
The only person to see one was a woman who couldn't walk, and had to sit in
a car. She watched one for about half an hour while the rest of us scoured
the woodland in vain.
Today I went out to the Promontory and hiked down the only section of the
railroad right-of-way in that area that I hadn't seen. (I'm referring to the
abandoned original transcontinental railroad.) I went primarily to see some
flowers, but found only Filaree in bloom. However, I found three raven nests,
saw a short confrontation between two ravens and two red-tailed hawks, found
two rock doves (common pigeons -- the first ones I've seen on the Promontory),
found a horned owl and a nest in another cave, saw two marmots,
a pygmy cottontail and two jackrabbits, and walked across the "big fill", a
large fill across a ravine. I found a couple of dozen small dugouts with
rock walls, which I learned were used by Chinese laborers. (The slope has
perhaps several hundred altogether.) Examining a group of trees on a rock
ridge to see what they were (they were hackberry), I discovered a group of
evening grosbeaks. So I didn't do too badly on birds, even though the
flowers disappointed me.
Later, in Hansel Valley, I found a salt spring I
hadn't seen before, and found a lake in the middle of the valley (a desert
alkali valley) with 200 canvasbacks. The curlews kept calling, meadowlarks
were singing, and then the sun set in a burst of color. The salt spring
positively gushed out of the clay soil, the Bonneville Lake bottom, then
spread out into a marsh of salt grass and rushes (or bulrushes). Quite a
number of birds were in the marsh, but it was too dark to identify them, so
I'll have to investigate the area some other time.
-- by Malcolm E. McDonald
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