She Finds Life On The Wing
It’s 6:09 a.m., and dew sparkles on the thigh-high grass on Blackwell Island. Above the growl of 18-wheelers gearing up for Blackwell Hill, there’s a peep then a trill then a chirrup then a “sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet.”
“Yellow warbler,” Susan Weller says as she pulls brown rubber boots onto her feet and grabs her clipboard. She points into the sky. “Violet-green swallow.”
It’s late for Susan. At sunrise, the natural world roars in the absence of human noise. By this time of day, people are arriving with their terriers and leaving with their sleeping bags.
“Cedar waxwing.” Susan follows the flying bird with her eyes, then jots a CW on her hand-drawn map in black ink and hikes away from the highway.
She understands the language of birds. She hears the blackbird’s anger, spotted sandpiper’s curiosity and blackcap chickadee’s alarm.
Susan counts birds for various agencies interested in working around habitats. But today she is counting for herself. The Bureau of Land Management plans a boater’s park for this idyllic setting. Susan and the Coeur d’Alene Audubon Society want to know which habitats the development will destroy.
“This is my least favorite place to count,” she says softly, trying not to alarm the pygmy nuthatches and redwinged blackbirds. “I have this feeling of impending doom.”
Her father taught her to hunt and fish. He drove for days to find a California condor to show her in 1961, aware the birds were heading for extinction. He explained extinction to his 7-year-old daughter, and she cried.
“He directed my whole value system,” Susan says.
She studied English literature, but gravitated to outdoor work in Montana. A bird specialist taught her to recognize birds and band bald eagles. She was captivated and began relentlessly studying bird sounds on tapes.
“I like their longevity as a species,” she says. “I love their variety. Raptors are so fierce. Hummingbirds are so small.”
She wanted to know the sounds of battle, contentment and irritation, so she immersed herself in the woods and listened and observed.
Diabetes changed her lifestyle in 1986. She began writing on wildlife issues for Call Note and Bugle magazine. She left that work when her husband’s job - he’s a metallurgical engineer - brought her to Cataldo in 1988.
With no writing outlet for the habitat problems she saw in Idaho, Susan began speaking her message of conservation. She started the Rose Lake Bird Club right away. It evolved into the Coeur d’Alene Audubon Society.
“She is certainly one of the most responsible environmental advocates that exists in this country,” says Scott Reed, a longtime birder and attorney. “She doesn’t speak without total accuracy about what she sees and what she knows. And that’s the problem - the truth hurts more.”
Her words have provoked opponents to shoot her mailbox and threaten her over the phone. Susan, 46, insists she’s not anti-logging, but supports responsible logging. Intimidation is wasted on her.
“I’ve never been one to keep my mouth closed,” she says. “I’ve paid personally. It’s the only way I know.”
She can’t stop the BLM’s boating park. So she intends to keep score - winners: man; losers: catbirds, song sparrows, flickers …
Showtime
The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre’s season of hot shows kicks off July 6 with “Hello Dolly.” “The Music Man” opens July 20, followed by “Our Shining Hour” on Aug. 3. “My Fair Lady” will open Aug. 17 and close the season.
All shows are in North Idaho College’s Schuler Auditorium. Call 769-7780 for tickets.
What are your favorite memories of North Idaho College? Think back for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.