Well here we are in this new fucked up normal of pandemic living with COVID-19 aka SARS-CoV-2. Rewind back to spring eeeeaaarly spring where once again my blogging fell off the precipice...
March rolled in with COVID-19 on everyone's radar despite efforts by the American government to conceal its threat to our nation. The gravity of what would eventually become a pandemic was far from tangible in those early days. For many the COVID threat felt like something our great nation would insulate us from as it had with a myriad of diseases in the past when we were led with competence...Fat chance with the Orange Clown in charge.
The morning of March 1st I had fallen once again and required a trip to urgent care. I recall feeling a heightened sense of unease about sitting among several patients who clearly had influenza-type symptoms. Whatever was happening in that waiting room, I wanted none of the droplets being dispersed. At the time I was experiencing less the COVID fears and more the influenza and seasonal cold fears. But as the week progressed the gravity of COVID 19 began to reveal itself. The rest of the population was beginning to catch on to hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette, something I have excelled at for years living as a pseudo hypochondriac. Behaviors were beginning to change...little by little.
March 9th I saw Wilco at a newer venue in Madison, WI, the Sylvee. There was a slight sense of risk felt among myself and my LongTable friends attending this concert. We shared drinks a the Vintage pre-concert. I mean we literally shared beer glasses, sampling each other's beers as we had so many times before.
I set caution to the wind as did hundreds of other fans at an incredible venue I had wished I had experienced much sooner. Jeff Tweedy half-jokingly remarked mid set, "“The CDC says you probably shouldn’t be here...just sayin’" Two days later the WHO declared a pandemic and life as we know it changed dramatically.
By mid-March the LongTable had voluntarily closed out of an abundance of caution for their staff. March 24th began the Safer at Home orders aka lock down for Wisconsin from which we are now dangerously emerging. March 2020 gave new meaning to March Madness. Panic buying of disinfectant, toilet paper, masks, meat etc was unleashed as American society descended into lock down...
When I think back to the onset of the pandemic and what I have framed as pandemic birding, I remember these owls quite fondly.
The beginning of pandemic birding was marked by my discovery of a pair of Eastern Screech-owls adjacent to Lake Monona where I was birding the eve of March 15. Lake Monona was still partially frozen. I found a spot to bird near the edge of the receding lake ice where a diverse mecca of waterfowl had gathered. I ticked off many FOYs for my 7.5 mile radius birding patch that eve.
As I was preparing to leave for home, I detected the subtle trill of a screech-owl that had landed mere feet above me in the fading light. I sighted him when he flew across the road to reveal his tree cavity, then back to his perch. Shortly after he flew to his mate and I witnessed copulation. Even cooler was the fact that the male was a gray phase and the female a red phase.
I returned to the site for looks at the tree cavity the first day schools were closed due to the pandemic. Clearly, the purpose of the school closure was lost on the inhabitants of the house adjacent to where I was birding. HELLO?! The point was to isolate and stop the spread! Yet somehow school closure had translated to a play date with two moms and children from separate family units making tons of noise while the female snoozed in the afternoon sun. The ignorance of those moms was the first of hundreds of SMH moments I've endured during this plague and my first encounter with Covidiots.
The remainder of March was anti-climactic following the owls. After all March is much about waterfowl, my least favorite class of birds. Still nature delivered her splendor in other ways, like the many icicles clinging for dear life beneath the rock out-croppings in the driftless portion of western Dane. March came after their existence just like COVID is coming after all of us. It is still out there, thriving, threatening to invade your organs and unleash an anti-coagulant nightmare, a cytokine storm, on you and all that you hold dear. You may have forgotten about COVID. But it has not forgotten about you. So go on America and throw down your masks. Your ego centrism is ugly and quite deadly.
STATS
Pandemic Life List Species: 77
Pandemic Warbler Count: 0
Pandemic Owl Count: 3
Favorite Bird Sighting: Pair of Eastern Screech-owls
Notables: Patch lifer Eurasian Collared-dove
March rolled in with COVID-19 on everyone's radar despite efforts by the American government to conceal its threat to our nation. The gravity of what would eventually become a pandemic was far from tangible in those early days. For many the COVID threat felt like something our great nation would insulate us from as it had with a myriad of diseases in the past when we were led with competence...Fat chance with the Orange Clown in charge.
The morning of March 1st I had fallen once again and required a trip to urgent care. I recall feeling a heightened sense of unease about sitting among several patients who clearly had influenza-type symptoms. Whatever was happening in that waiting room, I wanted none of the droplets being dispersed. At the time I was experiencing less the COVID fears and more the influenza and seasonal cold fears. But as the week progressed the gravity of COVID 19 began to reveal itself. The rest of the population was beginning to catch on to hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette, something I have excelled at for years living as a pseudo hypochondriac. Behaviors were beginning to change...little by little.
March 9th I saw Wilco at a newer venue in Madison, WI, the Sylvee. There was a slight sense of risk felt among myself and my LongTable friends attending this concert. We shared drinks a the Vintage pre-concert. I mean we literally shared beer glasses, sampling each other's beers as we had so many times before.
I set caution to the wind as did hundreds of other fans at an incredible venue I had wished I had experienced much sooner. Jeff Tweedy half-jokingly remarked mid set, "“The CDC says you probably shouldn’t be here...just sayin’" Two days later the WHO declared a pandemic and life as we know it changed dramatically.
By mid-March the LongTable had voluntarily closed out of an abundance of caution for their staff. March 24th began the Safer at Home orders aka lock down for Wisconsin from which we are now dangerously emerging. March 2020 gave new meaning to March Madness. Panic buying of disinfectant, toilet paper, masks, meat etc was unleashed as American society descended into lock down...
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| Eastern Screech-owl, female, Monona, WI March 2020 |
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| Eastern Screech-owl, Male, Monona, WI March 2020 |
As I was preparing to leave for home, I detected the subtle trill of a screech-owl that had landed mere feet above me in the fading light. I sighted him when he flew across the road to reveal his tree cavity, then back to his perch. Shortly after he flew to his mate and I witnessed copulation. Even cooler was the fact that the male was a gray phase and the female a red phase.
I returned to the site for looks at the tree cavity the first day schools were closed due to the pandemic. Clearly, the purpose of the school closure was lost on the inhabitants of the house adjacent to where I was birding. HELLO?! The point was to isolate and stop the spread! Yet somehow school closure had translated to a play date with two moms and children from separate family units making tons of noise while the female snoozed in the afternoon sun. The ignorance of those moms was the first of hundreds of SMH moments I've endured during this plague and my first encounter with Covidiots.
The remainder of March was anti-climactic following the owls. After all March is much about waterfowl, my least favorite class of birds. Still nature delivered her splendor in other ways, like the many icicles clinging for dear life beneath the rock out-croppings in the driftless portion of western Dane. March came after their existence just like COVID is coming after all of us. It is still out there, thriving, threatening to invade your organs and unleash an anti-coagulant nightmare, a cytokine storm, on you and all that you hold dear. You may have forgotten about COVID. But it has not forgotten about you. So go on America and throw down your masks. Your ego centrism is ugly and quite deadly.
STATS
Pandemic Life List Species: 77
Pandemic Warbler Count: 0
Pandemic Owl Count: 3
Favorite Bird Sighting: Pair of Eastern Screech-owls
Notables: Patch lifer Eurasian Collared-dove
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