the herons of araby

Nearly twenty years ago I completed a doctorate on authoritarian politics in the Arab World. I created a model that linked variations in opposition groups to ruling elites' certainty of the costs of unity or defection. I tested this model via field research conducted in various Arab countries, where by that time I'd lived for over seven years. In my dissertation's obligatory "Acknowledgements" section -- the last section anyone types up -- I thanked professors, family, and friends. I also added a heartfelt tribute to our family home: "The Unicorn Farm continues to bark against the creep of suburban homogenization, enduring as a green island of eccentricity for generations of offspring, immigrants, and innumerable life-spans of grateful animals."

(R. Singh)

My doctoral research appeared in various forms: a chapter in an edited volume, an article in a peer-reviewed journal, etc. I have since penned enough analyses of Middle Eastern politics to have earned tenure at my small university.

Yet, in 2023 I find that -- apart from reflections on the art of teaching, like this -- my most recent work has concerned people, nature, and the environment, especially in the area of our family farm (as may be seen here, here, and here). I could not have known it at the time, but that homage to the farm was telling: even as I was putting the finishing touch on the most laborious intellectual project I'd ever completed, a part of my mind was always elsewhere.

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I spent yesterday with friends counting nests in Potomac Creek's great blue heron rookery. It's an annual event we conduct in late January, before the birds return for the spring nesting season. This was my fourth or fifth time out. Sometimes I bring my kids. The heron rookery lies on the other side of the Creek, just a few hundred yards from our farm.

Counting twiggy nests perched high in the crowns of sycamores and pin oaks (the two tree types they seem to favor most) is muddy, laborious work even on a fortuitously nice midwinter day. 

It's hard going.

The tree we need to get to is straight ahead. (R. Singh)

 

Some of the trees that hosted nests in previous years are helpfully numbered with small metal discs pinned to their bark. But you need to find them, and to get to them. That means passing through plenty of sharp bramble and boot-sucking wetlands.

Even muck boots are no guarantee of dry feet. On our map of the rookery, a few trees have been playfully named after past volunteers who took icy baths in the attempt to reach them. Thus far, I've avoided such an honor.  

 (Sidebar: To stay ready for such challenges, including the need to cross streams when backwoods camping, I make a point of walking along the narrow tops of campus curbs. This tests my balance. It also recalls the mannerisms of biologist Bernd Heinrich, a distance runner and personal hero. Heinrich wrote that while on campus he habitually runs from his car to his office. I won't go that far, but like to think that we both provide students some amusement.)

Recording nests (R. Singh)

More hard going: Cross this stream. (R. Singh)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                

               And here's the payoff:

(R. Singh)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of these trees have 2, 3, or 4 nests. A precious handful have up to 25 -- they are veritable bird condominiums 70 feet or more above the marshes. Elsewhere, I've portrayed blue herons as philosopher-birds, but one can only imagine the racket when dozens of heron babies are screaming for food in a single tree. Such unicorn trees raise questions of why herons are so attracted to one particular tree and not another.  Let me know if you've got the answer. 

Of course, some trees that held nests in previous years are now empty. The Creek is a dynamic place. Frequent windstorms knock down both nests and trees. The ongoing decimation of ash trees by the invasive ash borer is also limiting the herons' choices. I've come across dead and dying herons before (and keep a small heron skull in my university office). There are many variables at play.

Our annual nest count therefore provides only an estimation. But since our nest data goes back to 2007, it allows comparative insight into the general health of the large heron community that calls the Creek home.

(R. Singh)

Despite good years and bad years, the Creek's heron population appears relatively stable. Steps have been taken to keep it so. In the mid 1990s, a local non-profit, the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust (NVCT), purchased the 70-acre rookery to protect it from human predation and abuse: housing developments, timbering, hunting (although federally protected, herons are big targets), dumping, unruly ATVs, etc. Today, the rookery is buffered by a Muslim cemetery and mostly embedded within the 3,000 acre Crow's Nest Natural Area Preserve, established in 2008. 

The rookery has become a sanctuary. The herons that will return to the Creek in just a few weeks to start the next generation are safe for now. 

And, in a turn of events no one could have predicted twenty years ago, I now chair the board of directors of the NVCT, the non-profit that first protected the rookery. This is well. Since 2012, the Syrian regime has dropped as many as 80 thousand barrel bombs, often targeting civilians, including hospitals, and deploying the double-tap technique that maximizes deaths among emergency responders. One city the regime singled out for special punishment is Aleppo. When I was 19, I spent about a year and a half in Aleppo, a beautiful city that wrapped me in its maternal arms. It is a mercy that no fellow board member ever asks me to explain Arab politics. We talk about herons.*

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*A significant chunk of undeveloped land in Stafford County is reportedly owned by outside Middle Eastern investors. Perhaps I'll pursue that topic another day.