The Naturalist | Educate Your Way to Rich Running Experiences

By Chase Parnell  —  November 11, 2020

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My Dad and I don’t see eye to eye on things all the time, but one interesting evolution over the last handful of years has been our common interest in birds. I won’t claim total ownership of sparking his appreciation of the feathered ones, but I did gift him a bird identification book a few years back, and since then, we’ll sporadically exchange photos or texts regarding species we’ve seen. 

My older brother Eric knows nothing of birds but he’s heard my Dad and I converse on the subject. So the other day my brother sent us a video that he took with his phone of a Northern Flicker and an American Robin drinking from the water that pooled in his rain gutter. In jest, he identifies the flicker as a, “red-cheeked billy bluepecker.” He didn’t know the flicker by sight and it made me wonder how weird it was that I did. I see a flicker almost daily. I enjoy their flight and how they jump around our lawn looking for bugs. They aren’t rare but they still feel special to see, unlike more common birds: sparrows, robins, jays, and crows.

I put on my bird nerd glasses and respond to my brother with the correct names of the birds and tell him that now he’s going to start seeing them everywhere. There is a name for this, it’s called the the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon and it happens to me all the time. The “phenomenon” is that once some event occurs that causes you to really acknowledge something: an object, a word, a style, or in this case a bird, you will inevitably start to notice it everywhere.

Recently I was unusually impressed by someone’s use of the phrase, “we contain multitudes.” I liked how it conveyed a sense of depth to the human experience and thought the person who said it was quite smart. But then I was watching the election coverage and heard a reporter say it and then I read it in a blog post just hours later and thought, damn, Baader-Meinhof got me again! All that to say, the Northern Flicker has now entered my brother’s orbit; he has a name for this bird that will surely be visiting him again soon.

Simply having the language to name something starts you down the path towards understanding. Look no further than the common parlance of mountain, ultra, trail runners. Try to remember that first run you went on with a “real” ultra runner; I can almost certainly say that you were doing a lot of head nodding at terms you heard with no actual comprehension. Vert, switchback, saddle, bomber, grinder, side-hill, doubletrack, salt, handhelds, technical, beefy, burly, mellow, runnable, flat. There’s even further translation required based on who is speaking. My first real gnarly long run was with Rod Bien at Smith Rock State Park back in 2008. When he said a trail was “flat”—for me, a guy who just moved to Bend from Eugene, Oregon, I thought flat meant it would be like running on the bike paths along the rivers and creeks that flow through Eugene, but to Rod, that meant almost anything that you could actually run without hiking. Learning the vocabulary is all part of the process of becoming an ultra runner.

I’ll concede that there is something very experiential about running in nature; the visual stimulus and aerobic effort combine for a very satisfying experience and maybe that’s all you’ve needed to get out there and have a blast. But what if you also knew the origin of the trail you were running on? Maybe the forest service used it to access a major fire once, maybe Native Americans followed a similar line, maybe you learn that during certain weeks in the summer you can harvest huckleberries and chanterelles along the trail.

There’s a term for the person I’m describing: a naturalist. This is essentially someone who goes out into nature and knows what they’re looking at and how natural processes change what they see. They are the person you want leading the tour, translating the infinite number of mysteries that abound every time you step outside.

Now, it’s possible to get carried away; we are runners after all, we can’t be constantly stopping to identify every mushroom, bug or tree that crosses our path. For instance, I’ve gone on some fairly long hikes with my in-laws (durationally speaking), but we’ve never made it very far. Maybe 2-3 miles max. One is a botanist, the other a wildlife biologist. You can’t imagine the web of interconnectivity they see when they look into a swathe of what appears to me to be a fairly benign patch of woods. Every five seconds they spot something that sparks their interest. They have to look closer, feel it with their fingers, smell it.

As trail and ultra runners, we love the outdoors, we love running epic loops, but we don’t always stop and smell the roses. And I believe it’s to our detriment; we’re missing out! So I’m going to urge you to slow down a bit and stoke your curiosity about the natural world. Next time you’re out, take a picture of something that gives you pause, look it up when you get back home, learn a couple facts about it. This type of information will build on itself as you begin to see how these natural phenomenons are connected. Say you see a bird, it’s gray and bigger than a sparrow but smaller than a crow. You google: gray bird in mountains. Sure enough, a photo of what you saw comes up. It’s a gray jay. You read it likes sub-alpine environments and that it does indeed winter in your neck of woods. You listen to an audio file of its song. Next time you go out for a run you may hear that call and find a subtle pleasure in knowing that it’s not just some bird somewhere in the canopy, but a gray jay. You’ve built a connection.

I feel the same way about trail names. While you might be able to follow trails by memory and use your general sense of direction, the name of a trail often has its name for a reason. It may  describe a nearby physical feature or a bit of history or even let you know what lies ahead. If the trail is called Misery Ridge, you might be able to predict what type of terrain you’ll be facing. Additionally, you also become a better resource for giving directions to wayward hikers/runners/cyclists or even emergency rescue teams.

It also helps to be able to orient yourself on a map, to know what direction you’re heading on any given trail so you can describe surrounding features. Here’s an example of something one might say if they have the language for it: You descend into the canyon from the main lot, cross the bridge, head east on the Wolf Tree Trail, continue on about a half mile until you arrive at the tip of the horseshoe bend in the Crooked River, then look north towards the rock walls; on the center spire, about three-quarters of the way up, you’ll spot an indentation where the golden eagles nest. Having a language for natural places allows for a specificity in communication and comprehension. It’s worth taking the time to educate yourself as much as possible; it’s sort of like being an expat living abroad. You’re never going to feel like a local, or really even begin to understand the culture, if you don’t learn the language.

If you’re feeling motivated, make it a goal to learn one new thing each run. Anything that catches your attention. It could be an object, a life form, a process, anything any piques your curiosity. If you’re diligent in this objective, your tapestry of understanding will fill out and before you know it you’ll be a regular John Muir out there, waxing lyrical on everything beautiful that meets your eye. 

The nature writer that has had the most profound effect on me personally is Robert Macfarlane. He’s a Brit that focuses most of his explorations in the lochs, moors, lakes, and highlands of the UK. He geeks out hardcore on the etymology of place names and physical descriptions of the land. He considers questions like why some people call small rivers creeks and why some call them streams. He has even commissioned audiophiles to create sounds that represent elements in the natural world. I listened to a minute long audio clip that was created to represent Rime, which is the frost that forms on rocks due to rapid freezing of moisture contained in clouds or fog. For Macfarlane, this audible stimulus added dimension.

Here’s a passage I selected from one of his books, The Wild Places, that displays the depth of Macfarlane’s ability, “There is no mystery in this association of woods and otherworlds, for as anyone who has walked the woods knows, they are places of correspondence, of call and answer. Visual affinities of color, relief and texture abound. A fallen branch echoes the deltoid form of a streambed into which it has come to rest. Chrome yellow autumn elm leaves find their color rhyme in the eye-ring of the blackbird. Different aspects of the forest link unexpectedly with each other, and so it is that within the stories, different times and worlds can be joined.”

I hope I’ve planted at least a tiny seed of inspiration for you. Studying books, maps, field guides, or even just going on a run with someone who really knows their stuff are all great entry points. You’d need several lifetimes to even learn all that is happening in your own backyard, but if we’re talking about digesting just one new tidbit per day, baby steps, after enough time you’ll learn the fundamentals and add a real richness to your daily running experience. So go ahead, tap into that child-like wonder and go find your answers. 

The red-cheeked billy bluepecker

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