Beneath the Surface

I found out through a tweet that my favourite travel guide company was having a travel writing competition, and that entries were due in 24 hours. Even though I was (very) late, I had a spark of inspiration and wrote something that day. The theme was “beneath the surface” and the shortlisted entries were just announced today. Even though my story didn’t get selected as a finalist I still think it’s not half bad and I thought I’d post it here anyway.

Walking under Memphis

Although I was humming its most famous tune, I was not in Memphis to see any of its most famous sights. I was here to see the inside of a lizard’s brain.

I had never been to Memphis before, and as I was making my way through the airport I couldn’t get “Walking in Memphis” out of my head. I have always loved the song, and this was the first time I could sing it to myself while actually walking in Memphis. For weeks I had been anticipating my trip to this city steeped in American mythology, on the banks of America’s grandest river, the Mississippi. I was curious about Memphis’s famous attractions: Bourbon Street, Graceland, The Pyramid. But mostly I was eager to slice open the brain of a lizard and peer down at what was inside.

The following morning I arrived bright and early at Memphis’s Rhodes College and was immediately struck by the beauty of the campus. Its Old Gothic sandstone buildings are impressively imposing and give the campus an air of intellectual gravity – which I suspect was the architect’s intention. The fact that it was still only March meant that the trees were bare and the grass was dead, giving me a sense of quiet foreboding that was not helped by the fact the campus was deserted, it not yet being 7am. This was the only time my busy host, a Rhodes professor, had available to meet with me, so I hurried through the campus.

A sandstone wall at Rhodes College, Memphis Tennessee

I was stopped dead in my tracks when I arrived at my host’s building, or, rather, the location where his building should have been. What I found was not a beautiful structure made of multicolour sandstone, but an empty courtyard.

The courtyard where the building I was looking for should have been.

I searched the courtyard’s perimeter and found a non-descript set of damp concrete stairs that lead underground before ending abruptly at a concrete wall. As I descended the steps I noticed a door to the right, without any indication as to where it might lead.

The nondescript concrete steps leading underground.

To my surprise the door was unlocked, and opening it revealed a poorly-lit, cavernous hallway. In display cases along the walls taxidermied animals stared at me through their glassy eyes, but otherwise it was completely deserted. I wandered the halls, my footsteps making uncomfortably loud echoes, searching darkened offices and research labs for signs of life. Eventually I noticed one lab with a light on, and to my relief found my host.

I had ventured into this underground lair of a research facility to learn a new technique for studying the brains of lizards, which I use to learn about how evolution shapes brains through natural selection. The professor I was visiting is one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic. The technique is called immunohistochemistry and uses extracts from the blood of animals, in this case goats, donkeys, and rabbits, to study how certain proteins are distributed inside a brain. It’s rather like attending a one-day cooking class to learn a new cooking technique, except the ingredients are closer to the components of a witch’s brew than a crème brûlée.

I spent that day in the underground laboratory learning how to carefully slice lizard brain tissue, combine the slices with solutions derived from the blood of animals, stir the mixture thoroughly, and then mount the slices carefully on microscope slides. It felt appropriate to be learning this in a lair under a city famous for Hoodoo mysticism. Of course at the end of the process we did not consume our concoction, but rather examined the brain slices under a microscope. And instead of reciting incantations we discussed how to identify brain cells that produce the neurotransmitters oxytocin and vasopressin. In my mind, the whole experience emphasized how much modern science can have the feel of witchcraft when you take a step back.

Some slices from the brain of a lizard incubating in a solution derived from rabbit and donkey blood.

My host, the lizard brain expert, found nothing particularly unusual about his lab, only lamenting the lack of windows. But as I was leaving campus that evening, I was thinking about how a large scientific research facility was present on this campus yet almost completely undetectable, and I wondered what else an old, mystic city like Memphis might be hiding below its surface.

Not finding animals around Trondheim, Norway

Recently I was spending a week in Trondheim, Norway, and tried desperately to find interesting animals. It should have been pretty straightforward; there are some really good spots for animals in the area. However, April is not the ideal time of year, things are far too frozen, and I mostly failed to find my target species. I did get some good local knowledge, though, so I thought I’d post what I heard - and what I did manage to find.

Muskox

The train station where you get off to look for musk ox.

The main draw in the area, for me at least, are the world’s most accessible wild muskox. Reintroduced to the alpine plateau of Dovrefjell, they can been seen relatively easily according to this website. Just hop on a train in Trondheim, hop off at Kongsvoll, and hike 3ish km! That is amazingly accessible for the world’s most remote northernly hoofed mammal.

However, note that all the pictures on that website appear to be taken in summer. In April, the place is snow covered and bleak. The train station is a the bottom of a gorge through the mountains, in mid-April I found it snowy but sunny and pleasant with a temperature around zero. That is not where the muskox live, however. They live on the plateau east of the gorge.

I took this picture standing at the train station at the bottom of the gorge, looking east. These buildings (which were locked up) mark the start of the muskox trail, which leads up the ridge behind the buildings and up onto the plateau beyond, where the musk ox live.

The first couple km of the muskox trail lead up the eastern wall of the gorge and over the ridge - not an easy stroll, especially in knee-deep snow. And once I got over the ridge, the temperature plummeted. This itself was not a big problem - I was dressed for this - but it does make the experience significantly less comfortable.

A view of the beech forest that covers the sides of the gorge that I hiked up. After this point my phone got too cold and stopped working, so there are no more pictures. The plateau looked the same as this, but without the trees.

I hiked along the Muskox trail towards the Høgsnyta lookout. Though muskox can be found anywhere along the trail, they are most commonly seen from the lookout (apparently). As I walked towards the lookout the wind picked up, and with it, snow squalls blocked my view to the point where, a few times, I had to stop and wait for them to die down because I couldn’t seen the ground through all the white and couldn’t tell if I was walking on flat ground or about to go over a cliff! So I never made it to the lookout, and I didn’t see any muskox.

Rock Ptarmigan

Here’s one I saw: I flushed on at the edge of the tree line while walking back to the train after my failed attempt to see the musk ox.

Mountain Hare

These are present in the forest that grows along the sides of the gorge. I saw three between my trips up and down the gorge. Other people also report seeing them, so it seems they’re pretty common at the site.

Reindeer

They exist in large herds in Dovrefjell but the movement of the herds is apparently unpredictable. Very hard to see.

Red Deer

Apparently common on Hitra Island, in particular around Sandstad. Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the island.

Roe Deer

Apparently also common on Hitra Island. I didn’t see them near Trondheim but I did see them hiking north of Sognsvann subway station in Oslo, on the hiking trail that runs along the eastern side of Sognsvann Lake.

Eurasian Beaver

The dam where you can see beavers was completely frozen over. I couldn’t even find any openings where the beavers might be coming up for air. It was just way too early in the season to be looking for them.

There is a well-known spot for beaver in Trondheim - several people pointed me to the same place. Theisendammen, on the western edge of the city, has a family of beavers, and apparently the best place to wait for them to appear is from the lookout platform at 63.420690, 10.344516. Again, however, I would recommend looking for them later than April, because the whole dam was still solidly covered with ice (and snow) when I visited. In Canada I’m used to looking for beavers in gaps in the ice of frozen ponds and lakes, but here there were no gaps, just solid ice.

Eurasian Otter

Otters are regular along the ocean shoreline in Trondheim, there were sightings while I was there. However, there don’t appear to be regular spots, you just have to luck upon one, and I never did.

Black Grouse & Western Capercaillie

Both are apparently common in Bymarka Nature Reserve, the hill to the east of Trondheim. I also heard a rumour that there is a population of Siberian Jays here. I took the tram to Lian Station and walked uphill, but didn’t luck upon any of these three.

Adder

Buried somewhere under all this snow is an adder hibernaculum.

I’ve seen pictures online from Norway and Sweden of adders out basking on snow in the spring, and I found them to be such a strange juxtaposition. I was hoping to see this phenomenon in person as someone gave me the location he’d seen an adder just a week before I arrived. Unfortunately there had been a lot of snowfall in the intervening week, and the site, 63.376644,10.285963, was not accessible without snowshoes (which I did not have).

White-throated Dipper

Let’s end on a happy note. This is one target animal I did manage to find in Trondheim. I’m not sure how common dippers are in urban environments, but I found this one at 63.431136, 10.363289, smack in the city night next to a construction site.

Finding Animals in Newfoundland

Newfoundland is a spectacularly beautiful (in a harsh, windswept sort-of a way) island off the northeast coast of North America. I spent late 2021 there at Memorial University in St. John's, and, as is my natural habit, I set out to find as many animals as I could in my spare time. I was there only in the fall, so keep that in mind with respect to my comments on where and how to find things. I'll also include any advice I got from people who seemed to know what they were talking about.

Mammals

Woodland Caribou

There are small numbers scattered all over the island, including on the Avalon Peninsula, but the only place I saw them was along Highway 430, the highway that goes up the Great Northern Peninsula to St. Anthony. I heard that the area around Port-au-Choix is a particular hotspot for them, but I didn't go there. I saw two herds just from the highway, one around Portland Creek and the other near Green Island Cove.

Red Fox

There's a habituated family on the road to Cape Spear, right where the asphalt road turns into gravel. They approach cars like they're used to being fed, so drive carefully!

Canadian Beaver

Newfoundland is pock-marked with ponds and lakes, and you drive by them constantly on the highways. Many, many of these ponds have active-looking beaver dams and staking one out for a while would probably yield successful beaver sightings. I didn't do this, and I didn't see any beavers just with quick glances at the lakes as I wizzed by at 100km/hr. The only beaver I saw was in a pond on the hike to Gros Morne Mountain.

Ermine

The only small weasel present on the island, they're found all over the island but aren't easy to see. The only place I saw one was at the picnic area by the pond at the Memorial University Botanical Gardens. It was foraging around like it was used to being fed.

River Otter

Once again, the only one I saw acted like it was used to being fed. It was in the farm pond on the Skerwink Train and swam over to us as we approached the pond. We stood there watching it, as it swam back and forth, periscoping and watching us.

Meadow Vole

There seem to be lots of these on the Great Northern Peninsula but I didn’t see an evidence of them anywhere else. On the Great Northern Peninsula, I saw them at both Cape Norman and Flower's Cove.

Mystery Vole

I saw a vole with a distinctly yellowish head running between boulders at the base of Gros Morne, where the climb up the gully starts. If I were on the mainland, I would have confidently said it was a rock vole, but apparently those don't occur on the island. And because the place I saw it is so accessible, and is part of a national park, I suspect it has been thoroughly sampled. If a population of rock voles lived there, it would be known. So I've just chalked this one up as unidentifiable.

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin

These seem to be relatively common. We went on a boat tour from the Bonavista Peninsula at the end of October and we found a super-pod of hundreds of them. The water all around the boat was boiling with them, it was an amazing sight. Apparently these super-pods are a fall occurrence, they are seen in smaller groups in the summer and can be hard to find in the spring.

I also saw a small pod of them looking out from my cabin near Carbonear, one of the Mad Rock Cabins. And I found a dead one washed up near St. Anthony.

White-beaked Dolphin

The Sea of Whales tour operator, who took us to see the white-sided dolphins, told us that spring is the time to see these around Bonavista, and he doesn't see them in the summer or fall.

I saw them only from the Cape Norman lighthouse on the Great Northern Peninsula, a well-known whale-watching spot. Their dorsal fins are so big that at a distance I had trouble telling them from (female) orcas!

Minke Whale

I saw these surface-feeding from the Cape Norman lighthouse, in association with the white-beaked dolphins. It was very neat to watch their huge mouths come out of the water and go along the surface.

Harbour Seals

Apparently they very common, but I noticed a distinct lack of seals the entire time I was in Newfoundland. People there absolutely hate seals; they get a lot of blame for keeping the cod stocks from recovering, and I suspect seals are harassed in a lot of places. This was particularly apparent when I took the ferry to St Pierre and immediately spotted seals hauled out around the harbour there.

On Newfoundland itself, just about the only place I found seals is around the southern end of the Avalon Peninsula, in particular in the harbours along the Irish Loop.

Hooded Seals

These were the only seals I found that were not habour seals. I saw a few of these hauled out with some harbour seals at the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, at the first point where the trail to Watern Cove looks out over the shoreline. I’m not sure if they’re regular there, I was there after a big storm and they might have just been resting up. Also, this is a famous location for Ediacaran fossils, unfortunately the places they are visible are only accessible on guided tour.

Birds

There are too many birds to list and discuss. My full list for Newfoundland can be found on my eBird profile here. It's lacking the most famous bird for the area - Atlantic puffin - as they move offshore outside the breeding season.

Newfoundland gets lots of vagrants. There were several warblers, some rare even for Canada, hanging around into December. I didn't chase them down, but if you're into that sort of thing it'd be worth checking out eBird, the Newfoundland Birders Google Group, and Jared Clarke's Twitter to see what's around.

Bald Eagle

Common soaring around the coast and over the highways, even a long way inland (probably because of all the ponds and lakes), but definitely not as easy to find as on the coast of British Columbia or Alaska. The whale watching tour out of Bonavista (Sea of Whales) took us to an active nest.

Rock Ptarmigan

Just about the only place you can find them is on the peaks of the Long Range Mountains in western Newfoundland, and just about the only accessible peak is Gros Morne. I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of them - upwards of 20 - while walking across the plateau. Not sure if that's normal or if its been a particularly good year for them.

Boreal Chickadee

I rarely see these elsewhere in Canada, so it was a pleasure to discover that they are probably the most common forest bird on the Avalon Peninsula, where the black-capped chickadee is rare. Further west on the island the black-capped gets progressively more common and the boreal harder to see.

White-winged Crossbill

Common across the island wherever there are conifers. A rare treat for me elsewhere in Canada, it was great to see them so frequently.

Northern Fulmar

Hard to see. I saw them once from shore after a big storm, and once from the ferry to St Pierre.

Dovekie

Easy to see from shore in the late fall and winter. Very hard otherwise.

Reptiles

What reptiles? I didn't see a single reptile my entire time there, because there are almost none in Newfoundland. However, according to Sea of Whales, leatherback turtles seem to be getting more regular, to the point where it might just be possible to target them on a trip.

Amphibians

There aren't any amphibians native to Newfoundland, and the introduced ones are suprisingly hard to come across, despite the abundance of fresh water. I only saw green frogs and American toads once - driving along Route 73 at night during a rainstorm.

Other

Strombolites at Flower’s Cove

Strombolites!

There are only a small handful of places in the world where strombolites exist. I had no idea that western Newfoundland was one of those places until I drove past a small, unassuming sign for a "strombolite walk" at Flower's Cove. These have to be the least promoted strombolites in the world. If you have the time, check them out! They are rare, weird, and totally underappreciated.

Some comments on stuff I didn't see

Orca - Sea of Whales tour operator out of Bonavista targets these in the fall, after the migratory whales have gone. But he still only sees them about once in every four trips. Gotta get lucky!

Seals - I was hoping to see bearded, harp, and ringed seals during my time on Newfoundland, but given how hard harbour seals were to find, I didn't maintain much hope. Apparently harp seals regularly haul up at some harbours (I was told Holyrood is a good spot) during the dead of winter. They are also regular in early spring on the ice that flows down from Labrador along the north shore. Bearded seals are uncommon and erratic but turn up regularly, apparently. Ringed seals are either very rare or are overlooked because they look so much like harbour seals.

Muskrat - Apparently there's been a steep decline in their population recently, and it's currently unknown why. They used to be very common but are now almost impossible to see.

Arctic Hare - Present only on the most barren tundra-like spots. I looked for them on top of Gros Mourne and at Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve but wasn't lucky enough to see one.

Willow Ptarmigan - Present all over the island but hard to see. Their population follows boom-and-bust cycles and I think I was there at a low ebb. I looked in several known spots and couldn't come up with one.

Leatherback Turtle - I was surprised to see pictures of these featured prominently on the websites of whale watching companies. It seems they are becoming a regular thing, which is very neat. The Sea of Whales boat tour out of Bonavista said he sees them mostly August-October and will see about one a week during that time. Not great odds, but a lot better than I was expecting! A biologist I talked to in Terra Nova National Parks also said he thinks they're becoming more regular in Newfoundland waters and suspects global warming may be responsible.