October 19, 2003 - On October 18, 2003, I saw my first migratory waterfowl on the Feather River. A brownish duck with a large white slash over its forehead was resting among a gathering of gulls, and at first I couldn’t decide what species it was, so startled was I in seeing its lonely position in the wide river bend.

Of course! I had seen that type of bird thousands of times when I worked at Oakland’s Lake Merritt Waterfowl Refuge–a female greater scaup! But they are not common on the Feather River, as scaups are bay diving ducks and seldom join the dabblers of the valley marshes–and female scaups are usually accompanied by the dark-headed male. They are also generally in flocks, and I wondered why this lone bird was the only migrant visible as far as I could see.

At Lake Merritt, the lesser and greater scaups would gather on the lake, resting in the middle, or some tamer lessers would join the grain feeding at the water’s edge behind the Rotary Nature Center. Those two species are similar, but the greater has a wider beak and is larger, and the male has a greenish sheen to the head, rather than the blue tone of the lesser. But one isolated female on a wild river under the spacious skies? That is more surprising.

As I watched that scaup preening, dipping its beak in the water, and tucking its head under the back feathers for a nap, completely accepted by the loafing gulls as if the duck was indeed a non-competing bird of a feather, I wondered about its origin. What stories could it tell? Where did it come from? How far had it traveled? Had its mate been killed by a hunter?

I had no way of knowing the answers to my questions, since our conversation skills were in two different worlds, and I could only imagine the course of its life. We were as unlike as an elephant and an ant, yet we were sharing the river, the air–the world–and I knew the scaup would soon disappear and perhaps we would never meet again.

At Lake Merritt, the scaups and other divers like goldeneyes, canvasbacks, and buffleheads will dot the sheltered refuge where they have gathered for thousands of years.  Stormy waves drive them off San Francisco Bay to rest on calmer waters. They shuffle around the bay area, but some will hang around the refuge all winter until the spring summons again calls for them to fly away to distant waters. Every year for the 32 that I worked there, I would see them come in the fall and go in the spring–as I know they still come and go–and I felt a certain camaraderie even though they were wild and didn’t relate to me at all. I was just a person who sometimes rowed a boat around the islands and scared them into flying to other parts of the lake. But I wasn’t a hunter, and they didn’t have that overwhelming fear that would have quickly sent them away from the area.

In the spring, I knew they would be going, and I would feel a loss in their absence. It was as certain as the seasons. The bird lover would like to fly with them and find out their secrets, but alas!, they were in their world and I in mine. There was a slight sense of sharing their lives in the movie, WINGED MIGRATION, when the photographed birds were depicted from the flying flock angle in some remarkable pictures, traveling over vast regions of water and wilderness to reach those northern nesting grounds.

The scaup on the river was an object of interest to the rough-neck crowd of mergansers-- those sleek-headed divers with a hook-tip capable of inflicting havoc on any unfortunate fish. Some had been around all summer, but dozens quickly slip into the river in October to participate in a feeding frenzy where hundreds of salmon are dying and the waters are generally energized with smaller fish. Perhaps they wondered what that odd scaup diving duck was doing on their river, but there was no fuss about displacing her.

While the scaup was resting, perhaps after a strenuous flight, the mergansers were clowning around in the rapids or snorkeling with their heads half submerged. Often they will fly up above the rapids to boat down like a kayak in white water, bobbing around like a cork on the current as if in delight at their unique swimming ability. They have leisure time.

The next day I was down by the riverside with my binoculars to see if the scaup was still around. It seemed to be gone, and only additional mergansers had arrived. It was one of those passing mysteries of nature, and I would never know the conclusion of that encounter. Maybe the scaup was headed for Lake Merritt, and perhaps Stephanie Benavediz, the present naturalist at the nature center, will see that bird merge in with others, but never know the other side of the story. Or maybe a hunter will bag that bird before it gains sanctuary in the blessed refuges.

All we know is that life goes on, and even though individuals fall by the wayside, the species will survive if habitat is available for their welfare. It’s all they need–water, food, and a place to be a bird, wild and free, able to choose a flyway and a resting place.

Thus we welcome the birds. May they find sustenance in our surroundings so that we may admire their feathered beauty, wonder about their passage, and find hope in their aerial ascendency.

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“Hope is the thing with feathers,

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without words,

And never stops at all.”

–Emily Dickensen

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