Posted: 6/21/05
Looking out for the little guys
Fred Lesher loves birds, especially the ones that are hard to find
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
We walked into the greenest valley this side of a Brazilian rain forest last Wednesday morning.
Our quest, or should I say Fredís quest, was to hear or see a veery, a woodthrush, or a cerulean warbler.
A what?
Itís true, those three birds arenít household names like bald eagles and tundra swans.
But for people like Fred Lesher, they are just as important.
Fred, 69, is a bird expert and a very interesting guy. Heís a retired college English professor, and he speaks with a lot of unintended poetry and humor.
I had asked if I could accompany him on one of his outings, and he readily complied.
So we headed down the trail from the Upper Reno Campground at 6 a.m. that overcast morning into the green valley below Walter Kueblerís house.
Itís a beautiful walk, as many people have experienced. In mid-June it is as lush as a jungle.
And there is a connection with the tropics when it comes to the elusive cerulean warbler, because they winter in Central and South America. But they are losing habitat there, and people like Fred are worried about it.
There has been a lot of cutting on state land in our vicinity too, but Fred doesnít think that is a problem. He said the tract we were on, which he likes very much, should hold some warblers. Itís full of other great birds, and is woodpecker heaven, he said.
We stopped about 300 yards down the trail, where it makes a swing to the east, at a spot where Fred has heard warblers in the past. The birds like a solid canopy overhead, which this green spot of heaven contained.
He donned a set of headphones and held up an amplifier. (Fred has some hearing loss and canít hear sounds in the high and low registers.) He slowly turned around, listening for the buzzing call of the warbler.
ěNot here,î he said simply.
We hiked a bit further, then headed back. Fred walked with a slight limp. ěMy knees are complaining,î he said.
They werenít always bad, he said. He recalled one day a while back when he parked at Shellhorn, walked the backroads and woods to Freeburg, then hiked back to Reno and up Highway 26 to his car.
Thatís a serious hike by a serious birder.
He stopped and listened again. ěThis hasnít been disturbed,î Fred said with a little concern in his voice. ěThe habitat is here. They should be singing.î
That was about as close as Fred came to complaining that morning. I was expecting some grumbling. After all, we didnít hear a cerulean, nor did we hear a veery or a woodthrush, the other two birds that Fred was searching for that day.
Not a wasted day
But the morning was far from wasted. Over the next hour Fred saw and heard many birds, and it was a thrill to be a part of it, to see his knowledge and passion, and to hear how he expressed it.
Just the way he described the bird calls was fascinating. For example, the woodthrush has ělovely flute-like tones at intervals down the scale.î The veery has tumbling down notes. The oven bird calls ěteacher teacher.î
I was riding with a very interesting human bird guide.
We drove slowly along Hillside Road with the windows of his maroon Chevy Tracker down. We stopped on several occasions. At one spot north of Marvin Heillerís farm Fred spotted a dicksissel.
A what?
I told you these birds are not superstars. The dicksissel does not have a beautiful song, but it sings with such intensity that it is a Lesher favorite. ěNot very musical but he puts all he has into it,î Fred said.
He located one on the top of a sumac, and trained his 30-power spotting scope on it. That gave me a birdís-eye view of the bird. Sure enough, it threw back and sang with a gusto that I havenít seen since the Hanke Band played at Germania Hall.
We spied a bobolink too, and heard an eastern meadowlark. An eastern bluebird called out. ěCheerful, cheerful Charlie,î Fred said. he uses a lot of mnemonic devices like that to remember calls.
A little further we saw a red-headed woodpecker on a telephone pole.
Fred likes to drive Hillside Road. He does hawk counts there in the fall. Some days he will see 1,000 hawks or more.
Fred pointed to a tall radio tower by the road. ěOn foggy nights they take out maybe hundreds of song birds,í he said of the cables on towers like that. ěOther people say theyíre not that big a problem.î
We descended toward Reno, and stopped at the parking lot to the quarry. Fred heard a scarlet tanager, and a red-eyed vireońěYou hear it, you see it, you think it, what of it,î he said, describing the call of the vireo. I listened, and sure enough, it worked.
A brown thrasher flitted past, and a cedar waxwing perched atop a spruce tree.
We stopped at the lower campground. Fred and his wife, Jolene, heard a wood thrush there a week ago. But not today. Fred even took out a tape recorder and played the beautiful call of the woodthrush, which did indeed have lovely flute-like tones at intervals down the scale. Playing a tape will sometimes will bring a response. Itís a little trick of the birdwatching trade. But no luck today.
A bluejay called its metallic call while Fred had his headphones on. He almost jumped. ěOn the amplifier it sounded like somebody beating on a pipe,î he said.
As we drove through Reno, Fred saw Karen Colsch on the deck of her house filling a bird feeder. He said hello and told her that he had watched her feeder before.
That didnít bother Karen, which is no surprise, her being a Bauer and all. She replied that she had a tanager a month ago.
People are 95 percent friendly, Fred said as we drove on. He has had some hostile encounters. ěMaybe I deserved them,î he said.
Our last stop came in Wunnecka country at the end of Klondike Road. Elder Wunnecka drove past on his four wheeler. We visited a while, and Fred had made another connection.
That stop marked the end of our outing. I had to get back to the real world, although the one I had just visited was good enough for me.
Fred headed toward his La Crosse home, driving slowly, keeping an eye on the little guys.
Caledonia Argus
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