The sunset is behind my left shoulder as I walk the last leg back past Whetstone Pond. It’s a nice change… I’ve appreciated the winter precipitation (rain, snow, occasional sleet…and the local meteorologists’ new favorite: graupel), but it was a stubborn season. Furthermore, the sunsets have been stubbornly affixed behind my right shoulder for what seems like forever. This feels different. The equinox is also behind me – several weeks past now – and there is a new promise on the air. Spring has returned to the refuge…
I’ve had no luck on my quest. Camera in hand, I’ve been trying to locate – again – a particular quarry… I first saw her several weeks ago on the north side of the pond: A Northern Harrier. Not unknown, but not the most common raptor on the refuge. It’s her face; the facial disk tells the story: she is a sharp-eyed hunter, but what she really is…is aural…the owl-faced hawk…
It’s been 120 years – April, 1903 – since Mr. Roosevelt made his famous train trip to the American West. What Douglas Brinkley has labeled the “Preservationist Revolution” will not occur for another five years, but the seeds are sown now… He brought the nature essayist and fellow New Yorker “Oom John” Burroughs on the train with him. John Muir had been contacted before the trip began; the president spent three days in Muir’s beloved Yosemite high country with “John of the Mountains”. But Roosevelt – accidental president, outdoorsman, big game hunter, and proponent of “The Strenuous Life” – is first and foremost an ornithologist…
On May 21, 1903 the presidential train rolled into Portland, Oregon for a brief stop before continuing to Seattle, the last station before the return trip home. The meeting with William Lovell Finley was short in duration, but almost incalculable in effect…
It’s a shame that Finley is not better known – even in the Northwest. One of the best ornithologists of his time, brilliant photographer, talented writer, Point-of-the-Spear for the Northwest Audubon movement at the dawn of the 20th century, he is not unknown, but underappreciated. The president spent pleasant evenings with Burroughs on the way west discussing what a National Park is, and what a Federal role in its management might be. In Muir’s High Cathedral the two men sparred as much as discussed; Roosevelt the Conservationist, Muir the Preservationist. But Finley was a different story; here was a kindred spirit, possessing the same passions, a similar vision… At the time Finley was engaged in a titanic struggle against “Plumars”, those who hunted birds for their plumage – especially plumage for ladies hats, perhaps the symbol of haute couture at the time. The number of birds “taken” was staggering, the precipitous population declines extinction curves. Finley’s story centered on Three Arch Rocks, off the northern Oregon Coast. He had Roosevelt’s attention the entire time. The goal was simple: he wanted Three Arch Rocks designated a national wildlife refuge.
And on October 14, 1907 so they were…
The president’s conversations with Burroughs and Muir certainly moved his thinking about the need for preservation of the extraordinary places and extraordinary wildlife of the American West. But the meeting with Finley…
Roosevelt: “Birds should be saved for utilitarian reasons; and, moreover, they should be saved because of reasons unconnected with dollars and cents.… The extermination of the passenger-pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer…and to lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad of terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach—why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.”
…Muddy Creek parallels the Willamette River here; its waters will eventually reach the big river downstream at Corvallis. Late morning, the marshes are quiet… The low, forested ridge is on the west side of the refuge. The quiet here is appreciated; I’m listening, hoping to at least hear the bugling of the noisy ungulates… In 1897 C. Hart Merriam, Director of the US Biological Survey, named Cervus canadensis roosevelti after Roosevelt, who was then the US Secretary of the Navy. The Roosevelt Elk herd is around here somewhere…
The Finley National Wildlife Refuge – happily situated on the west side of the central Willamette Valley. It seems only fitting that C. canadensis roosevelti roams this countryside. Finley’s name is also found at Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge…Finley Island. The recognition is welcome, due, yet insufficient…
1908: In one incandescent year Roosevelt executed the “Preservationist Revolution”, and forever changed the nature of the American West, and how we know it. National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges exploded into existence from the tip of his pen,…like lighting from the tip of a magician’s wand… “…I so declare…”
The Denman Wildlife Area is small (1760 acres) and established much later (1954). Kenneth Denman (1904 – 1962) was a Medford, Oregon resident, spent time on the Oregon Game Commission (precursor to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife), and was the architect of the federal property transfer (the Camp White US Army base) to the ODFW. It is small, the detritus of Camp White remains, but it is ours…
My Harrier has proven an elusive quarry. I’ll look for her next time. There are, however, an abundance of consolations to be found, especially on the big pond. Another favorite, Aix sponsa – the Wood Duck – is paddling across the water at last light. I’m not sure why he’s in such a hurry, but I’m happy to see him. Those colors, especially the iridescent head, glowing green to purple depending on the light… He’s common here on the Pacific Littoral – the landscape between the Cascades and the sea. So lovely… Too lovely?… at the start of the 20th Century he was nearly gone…
In May of 1903 two men met for a few hours in Portland, Oregon to talk about birds…
