A run-in on an old runway
A crappy encounter while looking for birds. Still got a plant of the week for ya
Something happened on the last day we lived in Massachusetts that, for better or worse, made me step back and re-evaluate how I think about myself and my safety outdoors.
It was last Saturday afternoon when I was worn out after walking miles and miles looking for birds, beginning the Friday evening before. Bird-a-thon, the yearly fundraiser for Mass Audubon, runs from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Saturday. Our team had fanned out across the state—including to Martha’s Vineyard—to count as many species of birds as possible, competing with other teams for the highest species count. Throughout yesterday evening and a long morning at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where dozens of birders searched for rare warblers, vireos and thrushes, I had been stressed out trying to find my target species and not finding as many as I wanted. Except for a few highlights, it was just a slower day for migration. But at the same time, the bright green oak leaves and azaleas in pink and purple at Mt. Auburn were nothing short of magical in the early morning light.
Around lunchtime, I decided to head to South Weymouth Naval Air Field. Birds that live in grasslands are uncommon in heavily forested New England, but often hang out in the former air field’s grassy expanses. I checked the online spreadsheet where team members kept track of our master list of species. There were few birds that were really possible for me to see, which reduced my stress. Now I was out just to see what might happen—to catch a hawk wandering far out of its normal range or a longspur flitting around the old tarmac.
I stopped at our apartment to use the bathroom and grab snacks. Priya took a picture of me in my getup for the day. I had chosen a very bird-centric shirt—Kelly green and with a Mass Audubon graphic—for this day among days of birding. I knew I might look slightly silly, but what the hell. We’re doing it for the birds. I want people to know.
I had stopped at the air field the night before to look for Wilson’s Snipes and Eastern Meadowlarks. I had never gone there so late fell before and was a little worried that the evening crowd might a little rougher. The place is significantly more chaotic than your usual city park—while it has its charms, it’s also a Superfund site with a number of smashed-up outbuildings where kids party at night. But there were only a couple distant dog-walkers and bikers. I heard the meadowlarks’ flute-like song shortly after stepping out of the car, but couldn’t find any snipes in the natural cranberry bog on the edge of the site. Still, blueberry bushes were in flower all along the crumbling runways, their whitish-pink flowers turning gold in the sunset.
On Saturday afternoon, the air field was looking like a desert under full sun and a stiff breeze. The wind wasn’t the best for birds. Things were quieter than the night before. Still, it was worth it to look. I walked south along one old runway. Most of the birds in the grassland were Savannah Sparrows, a fairly common species, but as I got to the southern edge of the grass, I heard the thin insect-like buzz of Grasshopper Sparrows. It’s a species much easier to see in the Midwest than in the Northeast. Hearing them always transports me to thoughts of western grasslands. I recorded a couple songs on my phone.
I crossed a stream into a young birch forest. A bird I didn’t recognize at first, because I hadn’t seen or heard it in so long, turned out to be a Field Sparrow—nice for me to see, but not a new bird for the team.
I was low on water and tired. I had managed to avoid sunburns through three applications of sunscreen, but it was at least time to take a break in the car air conditioning and move to another site. I began walking back.
Crossing a runway, I saw two guys approaching with their shirts around their heads to keep the sun off their necks. This seemed clever at first, but I suppose it also exposed their pale backs to the sun, too, so maybe not so clever.
As we neared each other, one of them said, “This guy must be gay.” My first thought was to wonder if they were talking about someone else, even though we were the only three people around for hundreds of yards. Well, this is stupid, I thought to myself. I kept avoiding eye contact as they started trying to get my attention. “High five. Hey, high five. Over here. High five,” as they passed me a few yards away. At the last minute, I acknowledged them by looking over, straight-faced, and raising one hand slightly.
I got a brief look at their faces. They were a few years younger than me, but bulkier. They were leering at me—there’s no other word for it. It had been some time since I had been leered at. I looked away. The whole encounter had lasted maybe 45 seconds.
I continued on to my car. After a little while, I thought to myself, “That sucked.” I decided I’d go back to them and say something. But when I turned to look for them, they were nowhere in sight. Like the deception of distance in a desert, the gap between us had widened rapidly, and they had probably entered the woods. It was too late.
The day’s mood shifted from the artificial stress of finding birds for a lighthearted fundraiser to something a bit more serious in just a moment. It had been so long since someone had mocked me to my face, on foot and right in front of me, that I was taken off guard.
When I’m outside, I’m generally focused on how I can make others more comfortable and welcome, which to be clear should be my focus as a white guy. But the result was that I didn’t have a canned response planned if I was targeted. I was left with my basic self-defense plan of “sling my camera at someone’s head if they get violent, and then run,” something I have thought about before. (For their own good, I hope no would-be assailants underestimate my willingness to sacrifice my camera, or how much the lens weighs.)
In the moment, broadcasting that I didn’t care about what they said seemed like the best course of action, both from a safety and a moral high ground perspective. But I soon wished I had yelled back at them. That’s been the hardest part in the week that followed—feeling like they got their say and I didn’t. That frustration sticks with you for a few days.
How I present myself to the world is partly a negotiation between what I want and what I think is expected, but I think most people would say I generally act like myself wherever I am. Meaning that I’ve always tried to lean into what I look like: a wiry, fairly nerdy, not very muscular person of medium height. More Elvis Costello than Bruce Springsteen, let’s say. The result is that I probably come across as vaguely queer to some people—which is just fine with me and usually has very little effect on my life. I know plenty of people who are much more bold and brave than me in the way they present their identities to the world. Yet apparently some people’s ideas of acceptable identities are so narrow that even I’m excluded.
I don’t want to self-edit my appearance to make it less likely for me to get comments from strangers. Given that I don’t usually read as comment-worthy to most people, it’s not something I think about often. I’d rather present the low-key quirkiness that I gravitate towards and let people make of it what they may. If they confront me about it, well, good—I’d rather be the lightning rod for that person rather than someone else, chew the schmuck out, and have them think twice about doing it the next time.
But that day I was at a disadvantage. I was alone (it was broad daylight, so I wasn’t worrying about that) and possibly too far out for someone else to hear me scream. I was outnumbered and taken by surprise. And the whole thing felt so middle school. I’m partly laughing at the absurdity that it happened and partly enraged by it.
Most times when people see me with binoculars and a camera, they just have polite questions. But folks like shouting from cars around here. “Nice purse,” shouted one guy driving past on a busy road, referring to my brown camera bag. “Loser,” said another guy in a pickup who saw me walking beside a state highway to get to my volunteer position after not finding parking near the museum. But the day at the air field was the first time in years that I’ve been bullied up close, with a physical threat implied if not directly stated.
I guess my point is that if I, someone who basically just reads as a straight white guy in most situations, am catching crap from strangers, that’s just the tip of the iceberg to the overt hatred that many people face constantly. The conversation around implicit bias often ignores both the structural causes of injustice and also the in-your-face bigotry that’s still a daily reality for so many. That’s a pretty obvious conclusion, but I’m saying it because I had thought we’d at least made it past using “gay” as an insult. That was my mistake. It’s a reminder for me to get out ahead of this stuff and not let up the pressure, because things are only going to change if the heat stays on both in private and in public.
As I’ve thought many times but said aloud less often: sexism that says more feminine bodies are inferior also classes less traditionally masculine men as less-than. Homophobia that says bright colors or tight clothes are unmanly also sets out hopelessly narrow (and perpetually shifting) limits for straight men. I have an ethical responsibility to fight for people that face prejudice more directly, but I also personally benefit from resisting the same systems. I’m grateful for the reminder, because staying focused on the big picture is what counts.
After the air field, I stopped at Squantum Point Park in Quincy, which coincidentally was also an air base until 1953. It has since been transformed into a state park along Boston harbor with dense forests, a wetland, and a narrow grassland in the center where the runway was. It’s a great place to check out during bird migration. Along one of the forested trails, I crossed paths with a small group of Bird-a-thon participants of all ages. We swapped stories and shared our highlight birds.
The youngest of the group—far younger than I was when I started birding—was on fire with enthusiasm when I mentioned I had just seen a Prairie Warbler. He rushed off to look for it. He was running out ahead of the rest, looking and listening for the next bird, without a care of what other people at the park might think. That’s as it should be. I want to keep working to widen the circle of what’s accepted and safe.
Flower of the week: Blueberry
So anyway, here are those blueberry flowers I saw at the air field. I’m not 100% sure of the species of Vaccinium, the blueberry genus, but I suspect it’s lowbush blueberry (V. angustifolium.) Blueberry shrubs have long been a feature of open spaces in the Northeast, from hilltop glades to wind-downed clearings in lowlands. Native Americans of this region used burns to clear areas for blueberry bushes, especially in the “blueberry barrens” of coastal areas like Cape Cod. (An imperfect name: a field of blueberries is anything but barren.) More recently, blueberries have taken root along power lines and vacant spaces in greater Boston.
The bell-shaped flowers mark the plant as a member of Ericaceae, a large family that includes heaths, cranberries, rhododendrons, and more. The shrubs spread across a field using underground rhizomes to clone themselves hundreds or thousands of times.
In past years, less attuned to the floral calendar (because I wasn’t yet writing a newsletter) I missed seeing the peak blueberry flowering time. This May, I’ve gotten many looks at blueberries-to-be. If the blooms are any sign, it’s going to be a good year for the berries. (Though I might think twice about eating the ones growing on a Superfund site.)
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Possum Notes is a weekly newsletter about wildlife and landscapes around where I live. It’s produced on occupied Massachusett and Wampanoag land.