My son and I with Ranger Rick circa 2002

Then I thought about who I share a birthday year with, a true American Icon, Ranger Rick and his magazine. Yes, we were both started, so to speak, 45 years ago.

My heartfelt Happy Birthday and Thank You to Ranger Rick for his influence on my life.  

For 19 years, I’ve had the privilege of working with my colleague Ranger Rick and for National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center located in Michigan. Does it sound strange to call Ranger Rick a colleague?  Not to me. I’ve walked with him in an Earth Day parade. I’ve handed out, boxed up and shipped his magazine to literally thousands of school kids over many years. I’ve camped at the Great American Backyard Campout with him. He sits on my desk each day.

Before we were colleagues, Ranger Rick and I were childhood friends. My family subscribed to Ranger Rick magazine and I fondly remember writing reports on wildlife at around 8 years old. Who as a child writes reports for fun?  But I had a love for big cats when I was younger. I’d clip photos from Ranger Rick magazine of lions and tigers and cougars and I’d write a little synopsis for each one. There were a lot of house cats in my reports too, I admit. I’m not sure I ever showed these reports to anyone. If I ever run for president, my secret cat reports will probably come out. It won’t be good, all the cats were naked.

The moral of the story is…birthdays come and go, but the gift of sharing nature and wildlife with your children can last a lifetime. This is important to take a moment to consider.

We take care of what we love.

Be Out There. Start early, start for yourself, start for your kids, start now.

Great Blue Heron covered in oil from the Enbridge oil spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Photo/David Kenyon

More often than not, really momentous epiphanies surface from great storytelling.  To be on the receiving end of a great story is to experience a revelatory moment in the midst of hearing, seeing or reading about something or someone who moves you, sparks your imagination, makes you laugh out loud or even scares the bleep out of you.

Storytelling is a“golden ticket” that makes you go from sitting to standing, from scarcity to abundance, from fear to courage.  You get up, metaphorically or physically, and you take yourself somewhere new and better.

NWF Storytelling Initiative

In the New Year, National Wildlife Federation is embarking on a storytelling initiative, the brainchild of NWF staffer Carla Brown who is leading this effort and to which I’m thrilled to be a devoted storytelling groupie.   We’ve just begun and what I see are endless prairies, mountains and rivers of amazing people who for one reason or another, have privileged the National Wildlife Federation with sharing in their expression of love for wildlife and the natural world.  In my nearly 20 years at NWF, this new adventure in storytelling is the most inspiring thing I’ve been a part of.

And while the world often pushes us to tell stories of only larger than life characters and tragic events; if you’re like me you crave stories of authenticity, of people like yourself, of small gestures that add up to something bigger or simply make life more fulfilling.

“It’s the worst of bad manners – and self protection, I think, in a nervously cynical society – to ridicule the small gesture.  These earnest efforts might just get us past the train-wreck of the daily news, or the anguish of standing behind a child, looking with her at the road ahead, searching out redemption where we can find it: recycling or carpooling or growing a garden or saving a species or something.  Small, stepwise changes in personal habits aren’t trivial.  Ultimately, they will, or won’t, add up to having been the thing that mattered.”

Barbara Kingsolver

The Power of Storytelling

One personal golden ticket moment for me that came from storytelling was a paragraph in Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  If you haven’t read this story, the Kingsolver family spent a year off the food grid, growing their own vegetables and fruit, raising their own animals, making all their food.  For most of the book I was inspired and salivating (see the book’s recipes!) and quite honestly, a little intimidated.  It is unlikely I will personally raise the turkey that I later eat on Thanksgiving.

But Barbara Kingsolver’s story and what said towards the end of her book about stepwise changes adding up the thing that mattered, made me get up and re-establish my garden (something I’d stopped doing for a few years), made me pay attention to the praying mantis on my fence, made me feel proud of feeding my family from the garden.

Through a small gesture I reminded myself that spending more of my daily life outdoors brings nothing less than welcome stillness to my often bustling soul.  That’s the golden ticket of storytelling and the power within, and that’s what drives me in this new effort – because if we do this storytelling initiative well – it will produce “golden tickets”, and I can’t think of anything we all deserve more.

Photo: Leslie Science and Nature Center

On the night before I see the eagle fly, her trainer, Francie Krawcke, tells me the bird is having difficulty flying.  It is breeding season and parts of her body are heavy and flying is uncomfortable.  “She’s moody” she adds.   This seasonal and higher reproductive hormone change in the eagle triggers nesting behavior that includes becoming territorial to protect her nest, eggs, young and hunting grounds.

The next morning I write two notes, one to my son’s school excusing him fifteen minutes early so he can see the eagle fly and one to my boss to ask if I can miss an afternoon management meeting so I can see the eagle fly.  I feel a twinge of guilt and think of one of my favorite authors, poet and philosopher, Mark Nepo who says:

“Much of our anxiety and inner turmoil comes from living in a global culture whose values drive us from the essence of what matters.  At the heart of this is the conflict between the outer definition of success and the inner value of peace.  We are encouraged, even trained to get attention when the renewing secret of life is to give attention”.

This quote helps me remember why I choose to spend a Green Hour with an eagle and my 13 year old son Max rather than one more hour at work.

In the car on the way to the Leslie Science and Nature Center (LSNC),  I watch out of the corner of my eye as my son’s head moves up and down to the beat of his iPod.  Earlier Max casually mentions that he is going to bring his iPod “in case I get bored with seeing the eagle fly.”   When we arrive at the Leslie Science and Nature Center, I am more than happy to leave my Blackberry and Max’s iPod in the car.

As we approach the eagle enclosure, she screeches repeatedly.  “She wants to fly.  She knows what’s coming” I whisper to Max.  A handful of other people are milling around waiting to see the eagle fly too.  We’re told by the LSNC staff that the eagle was pushed out of her nest when she was young and hurt her wing.  Put in rehab, she imprinted, forgot she was an eagle, in other words.  This eagle relates more to humans than other eagles and at five years old hasn’t learned all the instincts she would have if raised in the wild, including how to fly.   “She forgot who she is” my voice cracks.  I feel teenage eyes giving me a warning look.

We traipse down the hill to where the eagle will practice flying between two wooden sawhorses about 50 feet apart.  A rope, called a creance line, extends between the sawhorses and the eagle is fastened to it by a metal swivel attached to the Jesses (leather) that are attached to the eagle’s ankles.  This set up allows the eagle to travel the rope during her flight training.

We watch the eagle fly.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After awhile, someone in the small group gathered in the field shouts,  “can she go off the rope?”  “She’s ready.” Francie answers.  “But, I am not”.  Francie’s hand briefly stops at her heart and then she points at her head. “It’s here.  It’s me.  I’m not ready.” She says.   I glance at my growing boy.  This boy, who stands in front of me every so often, looking right into my eyes saying, “I am almost as tall as you.” To which I always give the same response, “It won’t be long until I have to look up at you.”

In this moment, I want more than anything to see the eagle off the creance line.   I look up and in my mind’s eye the eagle soars above my head, its mighty wings spread against the crisp blue sky.

Since my visit, I’ve learned that the eagle is flying now without the creance line.  She is also making  her public debut flying on May 21 when the Leslie Science and Nature Center holds their annual Mayfly event.  National Wildlife Federation serves as a sponsor of this event.