A Blue Grouse Two-for-One Mystery

Tribute to a Grandparent-Birder, Part 2

Sometime in the summer of 1981, my grandparents climbed into their white Volkswagen Vanagon and set out from Akron, Ohio on the most epic road trip of their lives.

Alaska.

Any birder’s dream, it was to be their first and only visit to the 49th state. By 1981, Gram and Gramp had already traveled extensively in the lower 48, but this long journey north promised a smorgasbord of birds the likes of which they had never seen. And Alaska delivered. Puffins, kittiwakes, auklets, puffins, murres, jaegers…all those seabirds were instrumental in swelling their life lists to almost 500 species.

Before ever reaching the Last Frontier, however, there was a stopover in British Columbia and the opportunity to do a little birding in western Canada. That turned up a Blue Grouse, as noted in my grandfather’s Golden Guide.

But hold on—in 2006, the American Ornithologists’ Union (predecessor to the American Ornithological Society) split the Blue Grouse into two species—Dusky and Sooty Grouse. Both are found in British Columbia, casting a haze of doubt over the sighting.

Without more accurate geographical information, it’s probably impossible to discover whether Dusky or Sooty earned the checkmark on the pages of Granddad’s book. But for me, that’s the lesser of two mysteries involving this sighting. More intriguing personally is Gramp’s handwritten notation beginning with a single, disembodied “F.”

That F doesn’t appear on any of the other sightings Gramp jotted in his field guide over the years. Then there’s the note he affixed to the back cover of the book.

Real Da Vinci Code stuff here, so let’s get to work. The first column reads “Page.” Simple enough—a reference to a page in the book, if taken at face value. The second column is where things get sticky because it has two headers. “No” sits atop “F/B,” under which is a series of numbers—including a particularly cryptic “47/46”— each corresponding to a page number. Finally, at the bottom sits “495/494.” Some quick addition (I’m pretty handy with a calculator) shows that the numbers in the column add up to exactly that 495/494. Since this is a bird book, we will deduce that “No” stands for “Number,” and by extension “Number of Birds.”

My literacy in family history tells me that “F” no doubt refers to Florence, as in Florence Alice Bowler, my paternal grandmother.

From left to right—the author, my grandmother Florence Bowler, brother Jeffrey, grandfather Bill Bowler

It follows then that “B” is Bill Bowler, her husband of 59 years. (The thrice-underlined “M/P” could mean one of two things—“Ma/Pa,” as Gramp frequently referred to themselves, or “Mike/Pete,” my dad and uncle. Since no information follows that header, we will ignore it for the purposes of this post.)

Using the “Page” cue, we can infer that 47/46 means the total number of birds Florence and Bill saw on page 351 of the field guide, and lo!, when we flip there we find another “F” notation next to Blue Grouse. Thus my conclusion can only be that 495/494 are Gram and Gramp’s life totals respectively and that F, conspicuously appended only to Blue Grouse, means only Gram saw it, giving her one more life bird than Gramp.

Blue, Dusky, Sooty…I’m less concerned with the true identity of the bird than how it’s possible Gram spotted this sizable grouse and Gramp did not.

Get to the bottom of this, I order myself like M to 007. You have until the end of this post.

Had they been separated for part of the day? Did Gramp just flub the sighting? Given their life lists otherwise perfectly overlap, it’s clear they did most of their birding together.

Yes, together is how Gram and Gramp did pretty much everything, from the time they met in the late 1930s as coworkers at shipping and mining company Pickands Mather in Cleveland, to the day Gram breathed her last in 1999.

Cleveland was the geographic love of Grandma’s life, but unlike Gramp she was native to western Pennsylvania, not northeast Ohio. Florence Alice Cross was born in the tiny borough of Bessemer, PA in 1914 to Ada and Albert Cross. The family relocated to Youngstown, OH when Gram was young, but the loss of their house due to the Great Depression eventually forced the Crosses back to Pennsylvania to live in their ancestral home in the even tinier borough of Clintonville. That must have been tough on everyone, but them were the times.

Gram stands before the home her great grandparents built c. 1870. Photo c. 1985 courtesy of Jan Schweikert

By the time Gram met the man she would eventually out-bird, the Crosses were back on their feet and settled in northeast Ohio for good. There they would stay for the rest of their lives, though as we know from my previous post, Gram and Gramp would make a brief detour in Houston, Texas before finally building their beautiful mid-century modern dream home in Akron.

Photos courtesy of Jan Schweikert

Within those walls, Gram cultivated a warm, loving sanctuary for her childen and grandchildren and, swept up in Julia Child’s culinary revolution, transformed herself into the greatest cook who ever walked this Earth. Gram was a wonderful birder who adored Greater Roadrunners (which I’d always thought were her favorites) and Common Loons (which I recently learned from my cousin Jan were her actual favorites), but it was in the kitchen that her genius burned most intensely. She was curious about food. She binged cooking shows and threw herself into exploring regional cuisines (her cajun phase was a favorite). Yet as creative and adventurous as she was, what I remember with the most longing were the staples—roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, pork and sauerkraut, cheese fondue, leek and watercress soup, sliced tomatoes with dill (from a garden where it seemed she grew everything). And, oh!, the desserts—bananas Foster, blueberry pie, baked Devil’s float, and always a birthday cake tailored just to your liking.

Gram with the author in a freaking sailor suit. Goddammit, Mom

Then of course there was her legendary shredded wheat bread. More on that in the recommends 👇

We lived for the Sunday feasts Gram put on, and we longed for them when she and Gramp would load up their van to escape the bleakest months of Ohio winter. The Southwest is where they really padded their life lists—Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Always together.

Yet no matter how close in proximity, in personality feisty Gram and mild-mannered Gramp couldn’t have been further apart. In a way, Florence Bowler was a woman of contrasts. Though standing five feet with her shoes on, she was no shrinking housewife. She was a fiery force of nature who walked her own path, called things like she saw them, and took orders from no one, including John Q Law.

I’m convinced they were caught seeking a vagrant bird and nothing can change my mind. Image courtesy of Jan Schweikert

When not running amok of the law, Gram was busy living her life as a modern housewife of the 1950s and 60s. She oversaw the design of her state-of-the-art home and furnished it in a style that was both of the time and timeless. She eschewed Sunday churchgoing in favor of family gatherings. When the world told Florence to drink Coke or Pepsi, she bucked the establishment and opted for RC. Bush or Clinton? “I’m voting for Ross Perot,” she boldly announced one election year. I may be wrong, but I suspect Gram resented being told what to do, perhaps the legacy of her school days when she, a lefty, was forced to write right-handed under threat of corporal punishment.

On the other hand, she could be fiercely old fashioned. Using “god” as an epithet would earn strong disapproval. She could tolerate Gramp’s occasional frustrated “damn,” but she once famously walked out of a movie upon hearing the word “shit.” And as open-minded as she was in the kitchen, she sneered at fearmongering culinary trends that preached the lethality of eggs, bacon, sugar, and cream in an effort to sell “healthier” alternatives. More than anything, she saw margarine as an affront to man, nature, and god, an obscenity more profane than anything in Samuel L Jackson’s vocabulary, an epidemic threating to debase food quality in homes and restaurants and possibly undermine the very fabric of society itself. Woe to the waiter who dared try to pass off margarine for the real thing. “That is not butter,” she would huff to whatever beleaguered server drew the short straw on Gram’s table. When it became impossible to predict which restaurants would have butter available, Gram got pragmatic and stocked her purse with butter packets.

Yes, butter was always on hand, including on birding trips. Armed with a little Coleman cookstove and a lot of butter, Gram would prepare a campground breakfast worthy of any chef’s kitchen. The offerings were often simple—eggs, bacon, fried toast, coffee, but Gram had some mystical touch that could turn the standard into something transcendent. On a chill morning, her breakfasts were just the thing to warm the insides and prepare her crew for the birding day ahead.

And oh the birds we saw, especially on those Big Bend trips in Texas in the 90s. Zone-tailed Hawk, Montezuma Quail, Elf Owl, Green Kingfisher, and Lucy’s Warbler among them. And yet for all those gaudy birds, it was the Roadrunners darting to and fro around the desert that seemed to delight her most. And it’s true—some birds are more arresting than others. It was Gram who pointed out my first Roadrunner as the VW pulled into a Big Bend campground, and at once I understood her fascination with this large, iconic, charismatic (and slightly silly) bird. There’s a reason I’ve never forgotten it—your first Roadrunner is a big deal.

So is your first Blue Grouse. I mean Dusky Grouse. Or was it Sooty? Whatever. Gram saw it. Gramp didn’t. So in a lifetime of birding together, how did that happen? I’m afraid for now it remains a mystery. Because I’ve plumbed the depths, asked around, read all the travel journals I could find. I’ve hit a dead end. I’m not ready for a seance just yet, though. Gramp was a prolific journaler. I have hope more materials from the Alaska journey will surface and the Mystery of the Grouse will at last be solved. Maybe there will even be clues to its Dusky or Sooty identity.

Absent hard facts, one thing I can do is speculate about how that grouse made them feel. Gram had a competitive side. She used to brag about how she could outrun all the boys in her school. She showed little mercy in board games, and she delighted in winning at croquet. I like to imagine she got at least a flutter of satisfaction from topping Gramp by one bird. I also like to think Gramp was amused by the whole thing. After all, “F” was his favorite person, so it makes perfect sense that “B” would happily concede birding superiority.

Gram and Gramp’s 50th wedding anniversary. Photo by Unknown

Featured Photo—Greater Roadrunner

In October 2023, I traveled to Tucson to meet some friends and bird in the southwest for the first time since Big Bend. My only regret from an otherwise perfect trip is not getting a really good shot of a Greater Roadrunner. How I botched these, I’ll never understand. This particular bird was right there. In front of me. Not moving. Still, I enjoy the rainbow of color on the Roadrunner’s tail, and I know if I showed this slightly blurry photo to Grandma Bowler, she’d gush, call it “wonderful,” and soon it would be framed on a wall somewhere in her house.

10/10 Recommend

Shredded Wheat Bread

My personality takes more after Gramp, but the only thing I remember the man cooking was batches of simple syrup for his cocktails. Gram inspired me to learn to cook and practice it as an act of love. And when my cousin Kelly resurrected the shredded wheat bread recipe some years ago, I determined to make it a staple in our home too. There are dozens of recipes for shredded wheat bread to be found on the internet, but this is the one our family would die (and likely kill) for. Out of the oven, we’d tear into the warm, slightly sweet bread with the crispy crust like Ravens into a sun-kissed desert carcass. Luckily, our recipe is simple and easy to re-create. Here it is in Gram’s own handwriting, or if you prefer, check out my somewhat competent video tutorial 🍞

*Chef’s note—do NOT bake at 400 degrees F. The top will burn. Bake at 360 for perfect results. Also, in lieu of a yeast cake, use 2 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast. And grease your bread pan!

I recommend enjoying with tomatoes slices with dill and Gram’s leek and watercress soup (recipe available per request). It also makes the best morning toast you can imagine. However you choose to enjoy shredded wheat bread, for the love of all that’s holy, let Gram rest in peace and please serve with butter!

That’s all for this week. Do you have any unsolved birding mysteries of your own? How about some family recipes that fill you with longing? If you do make the bread, please let me know how it turned out in the comments!👇

Until next time, bird yer granny’s ass (sorry Gram) posterior off!

nwb

Once again, I owe a debt of gratitude to my cousin Jan Schweikert for providing invaluable photos and information contributing to this post.

This post was human-generated. All photos (and food) by Nathaniel Bowler unless otherwise noted.