I was bitten on my right index finger
by the exquisite& rare Twin Spot
Rattlesnake when I was 13 years old
in the Chiricahua Mountains of
southeastern Arizona while attending
a camp called Prairie Trek Expeditions
based in Thoreau (pronounced thru)
New Mexico. My favorite hobby as
an obsessive nature boy was to
gently capture & photograph rattlers
in their natural surroundings & then
release them safely. They are wonderful
mysterious creatures & don't like
people so they have bells on their tails to tell
us to go away. A kid from Brooklyn
named Jeff Zalusky got all freaked ou while
I was about to bag this particular herp
because he noticed another one about
two feet away & made me flinch. She got
me twice real fast with one fang while
I was holding her but I bagged her
nonetheless & began a 3 hour hike
back to camp. I was actually quite
calm & elated in some science geek
kind of way to study the effects.
Little did I know my lifelong devotion
to alterity was underway. Talk about
pain, it's still as clear as yesterday ,the
burning electrical splinters shooting
through my arm to what I later learned
was my phrenic nerve, which controls
the diaphragm. By the time I reached
camp I was tripping hard but had no
idea what that state was so I just
thought everything was really interesting
& intense but not at all scary. The counselors
were wigging bigtime & we started driving
to the nearest town Portal, Arizona.
By the time we got to Portal things were
getting scary, maybe it was the car ride.
At the gas station , which is all Portal was,
I passed out & had my first big out of body
near death time dialation experience
where I spent what seemed like years
& years in a gently swirling softly lit
circular room with incredibly lovely
colored lights & luminous piping. When I
came to, five minutes later I'm told, I was
lying on my back looking up at the
desert sky very upset to be back.
Dr Findley Russell, a neurologist
at UCLA had just arrived in Portal
to begin his summer collecting of small
rare neurotoxic rattlesnakes that live
only in the mountains of these parts.
After he revived me with an ice cube
in my mouth he asked if I knew what bit me.
Yes & I still had the specimen alive.
I remember he was very happy I was fellow
herpetologist & said there were only two other
recorded bites form Crotalus pricei.
On the way to the hospital in Douglas
Arizona we stopped because Dr Russell
spotted a Sonoran Coral Snake on the
road. He jumped out & bagged it & I
will never forget how its red & yellow
& black rings we're spinning & moving
up & down it's body. Dr Russell published
the account, from the dull medical point
of view, in his opus on neurotoxic
envenomation, still the standard in the field.
There was no specific anitivenin at the
time & I tested allergic to genral Crotalid
horse serum so I got to ride it out for
five days in the Cochise County Hospital
in a ward with twelve beds seperated
by white curtains. A guy next to me
died from some horrible accident.
Suffice to say, 13 year old Frank was
on his way. It's been a big day people.
All life is sacred. These clowns that get in
sleeping bags with rattlesnakes first freeze them
half to death. It's cruelty to animals.
All god's children deserve a better deal.
Goodnight.
right on amigo!!!
So true. When I was thirteen, I was bitten by my pet Tarantula, which was milder than a bee sting. The spider had a worse time, spending years in a glass box. I wouldn't discourage kids from catching bugs and lizards and such; it brings them closer to nature, but it always ends up teaching some serious lessons about life, death, freedom, etc. Maybe that's what "close to nature" means. Now I just spy on other life forms. I did help rescue a misguided warbler that got into the office building recently, but by and large we just see each other in passing. Then again, there's this (it's the sneakers that get me).
What warbler? In one eyeshot today
two Goldfinches, one Rosy Finch & a
Pine Siskin at the feeder with a pair
of Mountain Bluebirds busy at the box
all leery of some young magpies
buzzing Sister my mutt collie when Kris
pointed out a pair of Sandhill Cranes
way up & out there headed north.No
Warblers though. Where are they now
the warblers of my youth? That a man
could be so sad knowing he will never hear
those songs again. I mean we're talking
a serious sap for birds here.
It was a male Common Yellowthroat. Must have entered through an open door, then ended up flitting against the top level of a two story wall of windows, where I saw it and called the building management. Since it's a migratory songbird, and thus protected by US law and international treaty, you'd think the federal bldg staff would get on it, but their circus operation took a good three hours to get it down. They were using a platform riser, which hadn't been properly charged up, and got stuck halfway between bird and floor. Finally a ladder was summoned, and the passerine was eventually corralled. There was a nice young woman who had had some experience with distressed birds, and we put it in a paper bag and walked it over to a park on the Hudson. It flew into a tree, without so much as a wit-tit-tee of thanks. The next day I saw scads of them in Central Park, but couldn't say that any one was "mine".
That's about a close as I come to keeping pets these days. If you come to NY in May you can hear and see plenty of Warblers. I had 28 this time around, though I didn't hear all of them sing. I learned a little more about the songs, but it's tough. Unless you really live it, and can travel to the right places, the window of opportunity is too short. You need to be immersed in the song, which is best done on the breeding grounds. Recordings just ain't the same. There's a bit of info mixed up in this old thread. I'm sure there's some warbler in your vicinity, and if you go north far enough you'll find lots of them breeding in Canadian forests. The best of the migration is in the east, though.
The migrants have passed through, but it's surprising how many birds you can find in the city, if you look. I'm following a pair of Kestrels that I see near my subway stop on the way to work each morning. They should be nesting, but I haven't seen any proof yet. No question once I get to work, where I can see into a House Finch nest full of chicks on a light fixture right outside my window. At lunch I walk over to another skyscraper with one of several Peregrine Falcon nests around town. They have the birds on a video monitor in the lobby, but it's always better to see them with your own eyes, which can be done from along the East River. Five fledglings are just about ready to start flying. And that's without even mentioning the Park.
Here's a Peregrine webcam, and lots of bird links from Barbolink.
|
by the exquisite& rare Twin Spot
Rattlesnake when I was 13 years old
in the Chiricahua Mountains of
southeastern Arizona while attending
a camp called Prairie Trek Expeditions
based in Thoreau (pronounced thru)
New Mexico. My favorite hobby as
an obsessive nature boy was to
gently capture & photograph rattlers
in their natural surroundings & then
release them safely. They are wonderful
mysterious creatures & don't like
people so they have bells on their tails to tell
us to go away. A kid from Brooklyn
named Jeff Zalusky got all freaked ou while
I was about to bag this particular herp
because he noticed another one about
two feet away & made me flinch. She got
me twice real fast with one fang while
I was holding her but I bagged her
nonetheless & began a 3 hour hike
back to camp. I was actually quite
calm & elated in some science geek
kind of way to study the effects.
Little did I know my lifelong devotion
to alterity was underway. Talk about
pain, it's still as clear as yesterday ,the
burning electrical splinters shooting
through my arm to what I later learned
was my phrenic nerve, which controls
the diaphragm. By the time I reached
camp I was tripping hard but had no
idea what that state was so I just
thought everything was really interesting
& intense but not at all scary. The counselors
were wigging bigtime & we started driving
to the nearest town Portal, Arizona.
By the time we got to Portal things were
getting scary, maybe it was the car ride.
At the gas station , which is all Portal was,
I passed out & had my first big out of body
near death time dialation experience
where I spent what seemed like years
& years in a gently swirling softly lit
circular room with incredibly lovely
colored lights & luminous piping. When I
came to, five minutes later I'm told, I was
lying on my back looking up at the
desert sky very upset to be back.
Dr Findley Russell, a neurologist
at UCLA had just arrived in Portal
to begin his summer collecting of small
rare neurotoxic rattlesnakes that live
only in the mountains of these parts.
After he revived me with an ice cube
in my mouth he asked if I knew what bit me.
Yes & I still had the specimen alive.
I remember he was very happy I was fellow
herpetologist & said there were only two other
recorded bites form Crotalus pricei.
On the way to the hospital in Douglas
Arizona we stopped because Dr Russell
spotted a Sonoran Coral Snake on the
road. He jumped out & bagged it & I
will never forget how its red & yellow
& black rings we're spinning & moving
up & down it's body. Dr Russell published
the account, from the dull medical point
of view, in his opus on neurotoxic
envenomation, still the standard in the field.
There was no specific anitivenin at the
time & I tested allergic to genral Crotalid
horse serum so I got to ride it out for
five days in the Cochise County Hospital
in a ward with twelve beds seperated
by white curtains. A guy next to me
died from some horrible accident.
Suffice to say, 13 year old Frank was
on his way. It's been a big day people.
All life is sacred. These clowns that get in
sleeping bags with rattlesnakes first freeze them
half to death. It's cruelty to animals.
All god's children deserve a better deal.
Goodnight.
- frank 6-12-2001 6:01 am
right on amigo!!!
- Skinny 6-13-2001 6:24 am [add a comment]
So true. When I was thirteen, I was bitten by my pet Tarantula, which was milder than a bee sting. The spider had a worse time, spending years in a glass box. I wouldn't discourage kids from catching bugs and lizards and such; it brings them closer to nature, but it always ends up teaching some serious lessons about life, death, freedom, etc. Maybe that's what "close to nature" means. Now I just spy on other life forms. I did help rescue a misguided warbler that got into the office building recently, but by and large we just see each other in passing. Then again, there's this (it's the sneakers that get me).
- alex 6-13-2001 6:20 pm [add a comment]
What warbler? In one eyeshot today
two Goldfinches, one Rosy Finch & a
Pine Siskin at the feeder with a pair
of Mountain Bluebirds busy at the box
all leery of some young magpies
buzzing Sister my mutt collie when Kris
pointed out a pair of Sandhill Cranes
way up & out there headed north.No
Warblers though. Where are they now
the warblers of my youth? That a man
could be so sad knowing he will never hear
those songs again. I mean we're talking
a serious sap for birds here.
- frank 6-15-2001 7:12 am [add a comment]
It was a male Common Yellowthroat. Must have entered through an open door, then ended up flitting against the top level of a two story wall of windows, where I saw it and called the building management. Since it's a migratory songbird, and thus protected by US law and international treaty, you'd think the federal bldg staff would get on it, but their circus operation took a good three hours to get it down. They were using a platform riser, which hadn't been properly charged up, and got stuck halfway between bird and floor. Finally a ladder was summoned, and the passerine was eventually corralled. There was a nice young woman who had had some experience with distressed birds, and we put it in a paper bag and walked it over to a park on the Hudson. It flew into a tree, without so much as a wit-tit-tee of thanks. The next day I saw scads of them in Central Park, but couldn't say that any one was "mine".
That's about a close as I come to keeping pets these days. If you come to NY in May you can hear and see plenty of Warblers. I had 28 this time around, though I didn't hear all of them sing. I learned a little more about the songs, but it's tough. Unless you really live it, and can travel to the right places, the window of opportunity is too short. You need to be immersed in the song, which is best done on the breeding grounds. Recordings just ain't the same. There's a bit of info mixed up in this old thread. I'm sure there's some warbler in your vicinity, and if you go north far enough you'll find lots of them breeding in Canadian forests. The best of the migration is in the east, though.
The migrants have passed through, but it's surprising how many birds you can find in the city, if you look. I'm following a pair of Kestrels that I see near my subway stop on the way to work each morning. They should be nesting, but I haven't seen any proof yet. No question once I get to work, where I can see into a House Finch nest full of chicks on a light fixture right outside my window. At lunch I walk over to another skyscraper with one of several Peregrine Falcon nests around town. They have the birds on a video monitor in the lobby, but it's always better to see them with your own eyes, which can be done from along the East River. Five fledglings are just about ready to start flying. And that's without even mentioning the Park.
Here's a Peregrine webcam, and lots of bird links from Barbolink.
- alex 6-15-2001 9:41 pm [add a comment]