The Francis Journal of 2002

This is the journal of the year 2002 during which I lived with birds along the Verde River in Northern Arizona. Although I owned and ran a small business at the time, this was a year spent largely in solitude with the birds and it became a year of immense personal growth and discovery. The first half of my journal is filled with bird observations but the second half finds personal reflection creeping into the pages. I had left the journal alone for nearly eight years and was quite surprised by the content once I read it again this year. I hope that you also find interest and value here.

This almost never happened. I was going through a divorce and had been living in a small apartment when I discovered this little mobile home set along the River. I looked at it with my daughter, Betsy and was ready to dismiss it because it was in need of cleaning and repairs. I felt that I was beyond that stage of life which had required such humble lodgings. Surprisingly, I did not really notice how wonderfully set the house was in the riparian zone of the River. Betsy – 16 that year – turned to me and said “Dad, you have to live here; this is so you.” I will always owe 18 months of joy to her push on me. Thus began a period of daily visits to a riparian heaven with my binoculars and camera. What took me years to understand was that my own personal journey into myself began during that time also. To this day it is difficult to unravel the weave of birds and reflections that appear in this journal. However, I do know that Betsy’s comment eventually taught me to look outside of the bounds of my narrow perceptions and appreciate a broader view of the world.

I must introduce myself. I am Dennis, a 65 year old former and present-day field Biologist. I earned a Master’s in Biology in 1975 while working as a field biologist with a Museum in Flagstaff, Arizona. I actually left the formal aspects of life as a Biologist in 1976 but, as I discover with this journal, I have never truly departed from the very essence of my chosen vocation. I have two grown children, have done a variety of things to earn a living, and I still live within ten miles of the same rental mobile of this journal.

I am not, by nature, the kind of person who journals. That is for others who have more focus and purpose than I. This journal worked because I started out with the intention that it be merely an annotated bird list. That made it event driven and not something I needed to invent each time. Once I got into the habit of writing, it became a simple thing to make entries that had no direct bird reporting application.

I am adding a new wrinkle here. In many instances I have read something from 8 years ago that needs to be updated or commented on today. Some of these entries will, therefore, contain a “then and now” component.  As set this journal into the web, I will do so one day at a time and will decide upon updates as the need arises. In that regard, the adventure merely continues.

So, let us begin.