I'm at home nursing a bad cold that I had before, during, and after Thanksgiving flights to Milwaukee WI. As I was strapped into some sort of Boeing product, and propelled at an altitude of 39'000 feet, the resulting air pressure changes shoved all sorts of gunk in my ears. Now I can hardly hear anything.

That reminded me of a time long ago when I birded without ears.

I guess it's more accurate to say I birded without hearing, because I still have ears- I find the fleshy protuberances handy for holding up the eye glasses that I'm increasingly needing to wear.

Anyway my story happened in 1974 at the start of a three month long geology field course, out of WWSC. We were all headed from Bellingham to the desert Southwest. I left with a severe case of bronchitis, but luckily the Prof let me come on the trip.
Headed down the east side of the Sierra we passed over an 8000' ft pass, then straight down into Death Valley- several hundred feet below sea level. The resulting rapid elevation change shoved so much stuff into my ears I wound up being nearly totally deaf for about 2 weeks.

That 2 weeks was spent in Nevada's Muddy Mountains, just outside Las Vegas , where we camped in an arroyo each night, mapping the tangled geology of this small folded, spindled and mutilated (geologically speaking) range. Very interesting. It was my first trip to the Southwest, so I was excited to see some new birds. But I couldn't find any hardly at all! I thought the place was just mostly devoid of birds - it was pretty sparse Mohave Desert vegetation.

Then one night as I was lying in my sleeping bag, one ear popped open! Sleeping near the main campfire I was overwhelmed by the sounds of the loud sounds of a big party of drunk and stoned geology students having fun in the desert. It was so loud It was funny. Folks stumbling past me blabbed away loudly, presuming I was still deaf. The next morning my other ear popped open before anyone else had gotten up. Just for fun I played deaf for awhile and was amused when people would come up to me and start yelling - "GOOD MORNING, JEFF!" "HOW DO YOU FEEL, JEFF!!". Not wanting to hear much more yelling, I admitted I was among the hearing again.

In my first foray into the brush just outside of camp, I found birds all over! Quite a few Verdin amongst other birds. I had never realized how much I used my ears when outside - all those little ticks, and scratches that alert one to something going on in the bushes.

Years later I spent a week around an actual deaf person. He was a great teenage kid who worked for a week on our trail crew in the North Cascades. This was in the lower Chilliwack River valley, near the Canadian border. Some real big trees up there.
Anyway, it was a big year for yellowjackets ,which unfortunately for us, nested in holes in the ground, often along the trail where we were working on the "tread" of the trail, and often upsetting a nest. We got real tuned into hearing the buzz of pissed off yellowjackets in time to run for it. The kid, of course, couldn't hear a thing, So we all learned American Sign Language for "bee", and waved our arms around to get his attention and give him the sign. It worked pretty well, unless he was looking the other way. So he got more than his share of stings, but was pretty good natured about it.

On our last day out , the valley got rocked by a full blown Cascade thunderstorm. In those valleys it can seem like being in "God"s Own Bowling Alley", the thunder bouncing off the valley walls. Our young deaf friend was ecstatic, jumping around with a huge smile on his face. If he couldn't hear it he sure could feel it. I was a cool thing to see.


Jeff Gibson
ears on
Everett Wa