{"id":1401,"date":"2020-11-29T07:53:57","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T07:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2020-11-29T07:53:58","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T07:53:58","slug":"foul-fowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/2020\/11\/29\/foul-fowl\/","title":{"rendered":"Foul Fowl"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Should I write about the ordinary ones? The lousy ones? Like a good picture of a bad thing? Is my job to filter out the dismal or only filter out the low quality? You’ve been warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What I wanted was pics of exotic shorebirds and ducks at the National Wildlife Refuge. What I got was a weed-lined tractor trail with two and a half miles worth of an endless pickle weed patch on one side and nothing but overturned dirt on the other, set to a backdrop of an endless parade of truck traffic on the 37, in a bowl of distant mountains and urban skylines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I followed the tractor trail two-and-half miles to the water of the North Bay. The bushes at the trailhead were littered with tp, looking mostly like a place to pull off the highway and to take an emergency crap. I was hoping that eventually, I would come upon tidal, bird-infested waters. Instead, I side-stepped spent shotgun shells with the remains of a metal carcass, passed by an abandoned structure of some kind, pondered a very lost and large cement block, and covered my nose with my face mask hoping to block out the odors of a foul-smelling ditch. When I arrived at the most northerly point of the North Bay at low tide, I witnessed nothing more than mudflats and vanishingly small birds in the tidal distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, the temperature was perfect and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Even weeds can be colorful with interesting shapes. The junk piles make for semi-interesting compositions embedded in the pickleweed and a horizon of hills. A kite stopped on a stump protruding ever-so-slightly above the terrain. Two deer ventured out onto the barren fields from a small weed patch. I wondered if deer have ankles to twist as they retreated back at the sight of me over the clumpy dirt to their weedy home, probably confused as to why a person was on the trail at all. As I walked, I drove flocks of songbirds in front of me from one weedy perch to another, apparently not sharing my dim view of the seed-sated weeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I often wonder when I hike alone what would happen if I keel over. On this one, I don’t think anyone would chance upon me until the next planting season when some hapless farmer would wonder what that crunching noise was under his big fat tractor tires. I would have expired within sight of the highway with the indifference of nothing more than roadkill. I’ve hiked in remote places with more people than this trail (none). I was close enough to see yet far enough never to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I felt dirty when I was done, like negotiating with a used-car salesman. It was an ugly hike. As you may suspect, I don’t recommend it. But keeping people away may be just what the birds need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>Should I write about the ordinary ones? The lousy ones? Like a good picture of a bad thing? Is my job to filter out the dismal or only filter out the low quality? You’ve been warned. What I wanted was pics of exotic shorebirds and ducks at the National Wildlife Refuge. What I got was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[115,116],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","tag-sanpablo","tag-sanpablonationalwildliferefuge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}