_{[Author's Note: This blog is slightly unconventional in style as I've made a 'creative decision' to focus away from the nitty gritty details of trapping, banding, and other data collection in the field and instead focus on a more abstract topic: the process of growth in perspective throughout the summer. Working in close proximity with any kind of organism can force a different outlook than one suited for day-to-day city life. This doesn't necessarily mean appreciation for nature is amplified so much as it is broadened. I hope to tap into this idea with this piece, so bear with me. - Sean]}

Not much time passes in the field before a realization strikes you - that there is precious little on earth that can compare to holding a life in your hands. To know that you have ultimate responsibility for another life, even “just” a quail, can be at times both awe-inspiring and frightening. Each morphs into a piece of art in your mind; and truly, it is. At that brief moment in time one can feel the gravity of an entire world resting in their fingers. But it is a world seen, acknowledged, and yet rarely understood beyond the most superficial of levels.

After one such moment, an awareness can begin to emerge. It chews around the edges of preconceptions and burrows deeper with time. You are left wondering, wondering and hoping. What does the addition of a metal leg band mean to a quail? Or the taking of a vial of blood? Is it all just bewilderment, or is there more? Furthermore, what is the experience to me? Will this bird succeed in its quest for life? “I sure hope so,” the mind may reply. On and on thoughts, questions meander lazily further downstream. But this is one of the earned beauties of working so closely with other living beings: such a simple encounter can send one down a river of thought. It could be a quail, another bird or a beetle and the feeling is much the same. Life’s strengths and its fragilities stand nakedly before your eyes.

Such a situation breeds fondness, a fondness that grows over the course of a summer. What was ‘merely’ a bird can take on its own character, quirks and all. Interesting scenery gives way to an identifiable being with its own aspect and behavior. And this broadening of view extends beyond just the study organism. As time passes I find myself recognizing the insistent roadrunner, the curious jay, the greedy squirrel. But it is not just the human qualities we are able to distinguish. The jay’s curious gaze is frequently punctuated by raucous squawks and fits of beak cleaning. An almost mechanical buzz denotes the roadrunner’s pleading. The squirrel… well, you get the idea. A patchwork of existence becomes richer not only because we can see ourselves in the world around us, but something entirely separate from ourselves. And the cost for this is time spent looking, holding, and thinking about life not your own and much different from your own. Most heartening is that this perspective is not just the domain of researchers, but any with an interest in the natural world.

Ultimately, this relationship to setting flows as tributary to the larger work being done. The quail become something much grander than simply a walking, squawking data point. As the researcher you begin to see each quail as their own self-contained creature with traits that are not entirely inhuman – boldness, desperation, cunning, cowardice, and so forth. Too, are the oddities: pipping calls after being separated from a mate or the keenness for a nice dust-bath. There is a real joy in this arrangement that makes the work more impactful, more significant. Of course, one could simply argue a need to humanize and seek a sort of kinship with the world around us. But even if imagined or spurious, such a relationship can compel us to peer further and delve deeper into what lay before us.  These thoughts have acted as a fulcrum to my involvement, pushing me when I am at the height of zeal and pulling me back when resolve falters. In this case, a broader view has established a much deeper significance.