Listening Differently
By Mara Scallon
“So! I’m signed up to do a bird count survey for the Mountain Birdwatch Project…would u be interested in joining??”
This early-evening text from my dear friend KP brought a smile to my face. I quickly replied that I’d check my schedule, and within two days we’d finalized our plans. I was a bit apprehensive about this trip, not because of backpacking with KP but because of my fledgling birding skills. I have had hearing loss from an early age, which has served as an easy excuse for why I tend to identify birds visually instead of auditorily. As someone who expends a lot of effort on following and understanding human speech, I usually view time spent near nonhumans as an opportunity to relax, let down my guard, and not worry about focusing too much on what the other critters are saying. My hearing still isn’t great, though my attention-paying abilities must bear equal culpability. More than once, I’ve asked an ornithologically-inclined companion for their best guess as to the creator of some tree-based chatter, only for them to politely suggest that the noisemaker was mammalian; evidently the noises were the mocking jeers of red squirrels.
My listening skills for bird identification are poor, but if I’m truthful, the rest of my approach to bird identification is pretty nascent as well: I enthusiastically use the MerlinID app to sift through and identify the warbles and chirps of my avian neighbors, I usually unfocus my binoculars before correctly focusing them, my eBird checklists are usually incomplete (what’s a breeding code, anyways?), and I excitedly hoot about novel or first sightings (thereby alerting the target birds to their now-concerning proximity to a bumbling biped). I’ve not been learning to bird for all that long, and it’s not my primary hobby so my skill development has been slow, albeit joyful and interesting. Throughout this journey, I’ve also been balancing the temptations of using technology like MerlinID with the deeper-held gratification of recognizing and naming the bird on my own or the tactile satisfaction of thumbing through a bird guide. Long live analog! But, dang, is it easy to embrace some of this tech when you’re just beginning.
When we met up for the trip, I mentioned to KP my concerns of being a subpar—though no less enthusiastic—partner for this endeavor, and she reassured me that I’d be fine: it’d be an opportunity for me to learn and practice, and realistically, my biggest contributions could be in morale-boosting, wayfinding, and timekeeping. I was delighted by this encouragement as these are three skills I have in abundance. With my confidence restored, KP and I finished up our Hannaford shopping trip by splurging on Raisin Bran and oat milk. We returned to the car and headed west for the last leg of our journey into the Rangeley area, to Saddleback Mountain.
Once at Saddleback Mountain Ski Area, we shouldered our bulky packs (a box of Raisin Bran occupies a lot of space, you know) and began our pokey ascent up the ski runs, immediately gaining 1,715 feet of elevation over two miles. Along the way, we eagerly sought out wildflowers and encouraged one another to enjoy the stunning vistas so we could catch our breath. Once in the alpine zone, we traced the ridge for several miles, passing the summits of Saddleback and The Horn before making camp along the Appalachian Trail in a small campsite with multiple tent platforms. We popped our tent up on the platform with the fewest holes in its rotted boards, unfurled our sleeping bags, and happily crawled inside and away from the gathering clouds of voracious insect suitors.
As my watch buzzed in the morning darkness several hours later, I reminded myself to boost morale and get us onto the trail ASAP so as not to miss our ideal (read: kind of mandatory) 4:15 a.m. start of the bird count. Using a combination of gentle cajoling and high beams from my headlamp, I got us onto the trail on time and we arrived at our first sampling site several minutes early. This was fortunate, for while we had GPX locations showing which exact section of trail we needed to occupy for each count, we also had site photographs we needed to capture and extra layers we needed to tug on.
We nestled in down jackets and perched on granite slabs just below the mountaintop of Saddleback Junior. Puffy fog clouds overflowed distant valleys and glowed brightly in the light of the half-moon. KP readied her clipboard with its multiple data sheets, I readied my stopwatch and good morale, and then we waited.
This project, which has been going on for the past twenty-five years, is designed to count ten bird species and—drumroll please—red squirrels! While I spent my pre-trip time scheming about trail snacks, KP had been learning and quizzing herself on the varied vocalizations of these focal species: yellow-bellied flycatchers, black-capped chickadees, boreal chickadees, winter wrens, Bicknell’s thrushes, Swainson’s thrushes, hermit thrushes, blackpoll warblers, white-throated sparrows, and fox sparrows. The researcher leading this multiyear project had prepared detailed notes indicating how KP was to mark different species, by what means she identified them (seeing or hearing), if and where they moved, their distance from her, and the critters’ approximate location across cardinal directions.
Using a series of species codes, un/circled codes, and solid or dashed lines all superimposed on a quadrisected gray circle, KP diligently marked the nearby creatures at our first sampling spot: white-throated sparrow, black-capped chickadee, and red squirrel. While I was in charge of the stopwatch—and running MerlinID in the background, “just in case”—I was absolutely mesmerized by watching KP translate the assorted, seemingly unidentifiable sounds around us into cryptic notations on the page. As her pencil confidently darted around the gray circle, marking species here and movements there, I began to discern the different patterns in some calls and I could determine approximately where the birds were.
After twenty minutes of observations, we were done. Satisfied with our work, KP carefully tucked away the completed data sheets and we scrambled over the summit of Saddleback Junior to our next sampling spot, where we roosted on blaze-painted rocks at the top of a steep descent. Again, we listened and she marked our observations. On to site three, settling ourselves beneath a fir painted with the Appalachian Trail’s famous rectangular white blaze. Then to spot four, characterized by an abundance of tufty ground lichen and Vaccinium plants. As we listened and waited here, I noticed some trampled bunchberry along the edges of the trail. While KP marked white-throated sparrows, yellow-bellied flycatchers, and Swainson’s thrushes, my eyes traced the moose footprints along the ground. When my stopwatch indicated our sampling block was complete, I surveyed the trampled bunchberry and found loose moose hairs stuck on the branches of the shrubs above. I plucked those hairs, gifted them to a delighted KP, and followed the moose prints into the trailside trees, where I found several moose summer scat deposits and a broad, flattened area, indicating this was a resting spot for our elusive moose! Thrilled with the possibility of sighting of such a large mammal, KP and I continued on to sampling spots five and six, where we did not see the moose, although KP had great success with hearing the birds and I with the red squirrels.
By the final sampling spot, I was confident in identifying the Swainson’s thrushes, white-throated sparrows, and of course, the red squirrels. Though this is a short list, these were some of the most vocal birds so I heard many repetitions of their songs in a short period of time. I also gained more practice in listening carefully to the other unknown birds, tracking their movements, and generally paying attention to what was happening around me. Satisfied that I’d delivered on my ability to keep spirits high and keep us on the correct trails, I felt the whole exercise was a great success. KP was similarly elated, pleased with identifying a few additional bird species at a few of our stops, marveling at the evidence of our moose neighbor I’d uncovered, and happy to report to the researcher that we had completed our survey.
We chattered as we retraced our steps, traipsing again through all six of our sampling sites as we followed the Appalachian Trail back to our campsite. There, we poured bowls of Raisin Bran, drowned them in oat milk, and happily crunched our way through breakfast. Satiated, we loaded our packs up and headed westward, over the rocky summit of The Horn, through bogs to get to the summit of Saddleback, where we walked along the rock-lined paths before stepping down through a band of gnarled alpine evergreens and emerging at the top of the ski mountain. There, we met a couple who were clearly birding, for they sported fancy binoculars and an impressive zoom lens on a high-end camera.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” I asked as we drew near. They told us they had driven several hours from Portland to try to see a Bicknell’s thrush. Evidently more adept at using the eBird platform than I, they’d seen a post from someone who had recorded a sighting of that species on Saddleback the previous day, and they’d eagerly jumped into their car to try to spot this bird. We told them about our sampling project, solemnly informed them we’d not seen a Bicknell’s thrush, and wished them luck.
We descended the ski mountain along the Green Weaver trail, walking in wide arcs to mimic the downhill skiing motion in the hopes of saving our toes from being smashed into the fronts of our shoes. Channeling skiing techniques as I walked down a ski slope on a gorgeous summer day, I thought about how I only knew this area during the non-winter months: I’d hiked, biked, trail run, and camped across the Rangeley region but I’d never been here during the snowy months. Similarly, I realized, there were many who came to this area only during ski season, who might only imagine chasing the best powder instead of blackpoll warblers or Bicknell’s thrushes.
My mental and emotional map of Saddleback Mountain now includes a birding trip with KP, and my perception of the Rangeley region is richer for it. Skiers’ mental and emotional maps may include successful runs, challenging ski trips, or amusing lodge hijinks. All users of land and space—that is to say, everything human and more-than-human—replicate the process KP and the other bird researchers used to document their identified birds: we use different symbols, movements, directions, and codes to mentally inscribe our experiences upon the landscapes in which we spend time. Whether you’re a red squirrel (I know you!), an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, a birder wannabe (call me!), a mogul maestro, a winter wren (I don’t know you yet!), or a plein air artist, Saddleback Mountain holds a special place in the hearts and memories of many.
This granite mountain that stands 4,120 feet above sea level is physically inscribed with wide ski runs, the narrow Appalachian Trail, and soft footpaths of its nonhuman denizens, yet Saddleback is also inscribed with the memories, emotions, and lifeways of the many who have come to know it in some manner. The mountain has been known to skiers for sixty-five years and to the Abenaki Nation for thousands of years. We would do well to remember that we are not the first to spend time on this land, we will not be the last, nor are we the only species. With intentional, slow attention, we can see more clearly the intersecting and interdependent layers of love and life on our landscapes. Learning new bird species has facilitated this practice for me, as it has caused me to be attuned to the available habitat, movements of species smaller than me, and the myriad sounds that surround me in some spaces. Practicing this intentional, slow attention-giving whether at home or further afield, has enriched my understanding of these places, and made my mental maps more complex.
As for my own mental map of Saddleback? I anticipate an additional layer will be added in June 2026 when KP and I return. I’m hoping to reacquaint myself with my known birds and perhaps add an additional bird species to my list—maybe the Bicknell’s thrush? Most likely, it’ll just be another mischievous red squirrel, and I’ll be fine with that.
