Night Grousin’
By Cammi Norville
The first thing I become aware of is how hot it is. I can already feel a thin layer of sweat covering my body even though I just woke up. I lift the t-shirt that I use as a makeshift eye mask off my eyes. I squint instantly and drop the t-shirt back over my eyes. It's bright. Too bright. I groan, roll over and peek at my phone.
10:36 am. About five and a half hours of sleep. Could be better but could be worse.
I want to keep sleeping, but my tent is like a furnace at this point, baking in the late-morning summer Nevada sun. I stretch out my battered body, hearing joints pop and crack. It's Day 19 of 21 for this work stint, and I’m definitely feeling it. I survey my clothing options and end up wiggling into the same shorts and tank top I've been wearing for the past week or so.
No sense in putting on clean clothes when I also haven’t showered in a week anyways.
I unzip my tent and wander over to the EZ-up that acts as a slight barrier between my food tote and cooler and the harsh sun. I open the cooler and notice the last of my ice is melted. The remaining food I have is just sitting in slightly chilled water. I shrug. It'll probably be fine for another day or so.
I spend the next few hours eating, reading, yoga-ing, day drinking, and chit-chatting with my coworkers.
6:00 pm. Time to try to sleep a couple more hours before night rolls around. Even in the evening, it's hot in my tent. I toss and turn, but manage to doze a bit before my alarm goes off. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I start to get ready. The sun finally starts to set.
8:45 pm. We grab our gear, make sure the spotlights are charged, and load up in our trucks, each team wishing the other luck.
Another night, another eight hours to trap some sage-grouse.
2:08 am. About 5 hours into my work night.
I stop, bring my binoculars up to my eyes, and switch on my spotlight. After a full 360° scan, I switch the light off.
Nothing.
I push my sleeves up, switch my headlight on, and keep hiking. My legs burn from the miles of hills I’ve hiked every night for the past 18 nights and my back is tight from the endless days of sleeping on the ground.
After a bit, I stop again and repeat the process. I see something, a flash of green. Probably a deer, maybe a coyote. But I ignore it, finish my scan and continue hiking. Green shine isn't what I'm after.
“I knew we wouldn’t find anything over here,” my coworker mutters.
I shrug. “We’re just out for a nice hike then.”
He chuckles, even though he’s heard that sad attempt at a joke countless times from the entire crew whenever we don’t find anything. It’s not much, but that mentality of “just out for a nice night hike” can make consecutive nights of not seeing birds a little more bearable.
We keep hiking. The moon is out, just a little crescent, but mostly hidden by some clouds. This is good. They'll be less likely to see us coming.
Again, I stop and scan with my binos and spotlight.
Finally, I see it. That sweet beautiful glimmer of blue, shining out from among the sagebrush. I count six and then recount to be sure.
I pick out my target and turn to my partner to make sure they're good to go with the net.
I flip on the white noise machine to cover our footsteps as we approach, lift the spotlight a bit higher, and, as my heart pounds, go in for the capture.
A strobing spotlight. White noise everywhere. Tunnel vision on that little circle of blue shine. Adrenaline pumping through my body. I trip over some rocks and shrubs but don’t allow myself to lose sight of that blue glimmer.
Blue eye shine finally turns into the shape of a grouse. Just a few more steps. The flash of a net. The sound of flapping as the other grouse roosting in the sagebrush nearby take off in a panic.
Once we have the bird under control and out of the net, we get to work putting on a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio collar and unique ID leg band. We take weight, other morphometric measurements, and fecal, feather, and blood samples before releasing the bird back into the sagebrush.
We gather up our gear back into our packs again, take a moment to congratulate ourselves over successfully trapping and collaring the bird, and get right back to hiking and spotlighting for that coveted little blue eye shine in the last few hours of the night before the hot sun comes up.
I work for the US Geological Survey studying greater sage-grouse. Sage-grouse numbers have steadily declined in recent years. Drought, habitat loss due to fire, disease, and the encroachment of pinyon pine and juniper trees are all things that seem to negatively affect sage-grouse populations.
The VHF collars and GPS units that we deploy on the grouse after catching them allow us to track their movements with something called radio telemetry during breeding, nesting, and brooding season, in hopes that we can determine what exactly is causing the decline and what we can do to stop it.
During the late summer and fall, I travel around different parts of Nevada and California, trapping, collaring, and working hands-on with this beautiful bird.
The trajectory of data collection for the next year relies somewhat heavily on the success of the previous year's fall trapping. If we're unable to collar enough grouse during the trapping season, then there's the chance there won't be enough individuals to track and monitor during the following spring and summer. During the spring and summer, I get to hike around beautiful sagebrush ecosystems tracking the collared birds, monitoring their nests and later their chicks.
I'm outside more than I'm not. I get to see places and areas that most people never have the chance to. I have practically unlimited access to the outdoors. I’m handling wildlife. I’m helping make a difference in the natural world. Everything I'm part of with this project is working towards a better future for these birds and the entire sagebrush ecosystem, which hundreds of animals call home.
What could be better, right?
Well, let’s rewind about two and a half weeks, shall we?
The crew is moving field sites, yet again. After all our gear is packed up, with me in the passenger seat and my partner driving, we set off down the mountain towards town. Someone has said something to me a few minutes before that kinda upsets me, but I know that they’re stressed, so I try to not take it personally.
I look around for my sunglasses in the truck and can’t seem to find them. All of the sudden, my eyes begin to fill up with tears. I think to myself, “Are you seriously crying over a pair of lost sunglasses?”
My partner glances over, and, realizing that I'm crying, asks me what's wrong. I manage to squeak out, “I don't know,” and from there, my emotions erupt. It’s like some wall holding everything back comes crashing down. I’m crying uncontrollably, tears streaming down my face. I can’t seem to catch my breath. I start to shake. My legs, arms, cheeks, and nose tingle and then go numb.
I pull both my legs up onto the seat with my elbows resting on my knees. My hands are tangled in my hair, clutching my head. It feels like the whole world is coming apart and I can’t do anything to stop it.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but eventually, I’m able to coherently think, just for a second. The analytical, scientific part of me kicks in and evaluates what is happening. I make the connection that I’m probably experiencing a panic attack. It’s the tingling and numbness that leads me to this conclusion since I’ve never felt anything quite like it.
Even after this realization, it’s probably about 45 minutes before I’m able to regain some control. My tears slowly dry up, my breathing evens out, and I’m overwhelmed with extreme exhaustion. All I want to do is close my eyes and sleep for 12 hours.
As I’m sitting there in the truck with my eyes closed, I hear my partner calling my name, but it sounds like he’s far away and muffled by a blanket or something. I can’t seem to make my eyes open, so I opt for just ignoring him. Except he keeps saying my name, which I find incredibly annoying at the moment. Why can't he just let me sleep now?
I finally muster a tremendous amount of energy, and slowly blink my eyes open at him.
He convinces me to sip on some water and munch on some Cheez-Its as we continue down the mountain into town. I wonder if what just happened affected my taste buds at all, because the salt tastes good, but the cheese flavor is not great.
By the time we get into town, I feel pretty much normal again. Still very tired, but otherwise fine.
I start to reflect on what I just experienced.
I’ve had minor bouts of anxiety before, but nothing like this full-blown episode. To be honest, it scared me. I was worried it would happen again.
I know my body and mind get bruised and battered from this work, but never really gave it much thought.
I don’t think there was one specific thing that triggered the panic attack. It was an accumulation of things. Sleep deprivation, lack of cleanliness, loss of motivation or optimism, work stints that seem to have no end in sight, no utilities, spending practically 24/7 with the same group of coworkers for three weeks, perpetually sore and tight muscles.
The list goes on.
Each thing was a drop into the glass. By themselves, they're manageable and not a huge deal. But all together, my glass was very full. That comment that upset me and my lost sunglasses on that day were just the two final drops before everything overflowed and crashed in on me.
Working your hardest at everything, and “hustle culture” is very prevalent in American society right now.
But what these lifestyles fail to recognize is that you cannot serve something fully until you first serve yourself.
This idea and actually applying it to my life is something I’m still working on. Because I’m so passionate about my job and the cause I’m working for, I find it hard to draw the line between work & personal life, especially in the field setting where I don’t get to go home every day after work. My panic attack showed me that my mental state is not always as healthy as I thought it was, and I need to find ways to mitigate the stressors I encounter while working.
This experience was a wake-up call to me to take my mental and physical health more seriously and not just slide things under the rug.
While I’m not sure what a completely healthy work/personal life balance looks like yet, I’m more aware of the imbalances now and the effects they can have on my body. I’m making more of an effort to do little things for myself throughout the day and listen more closely to my body. Life is full of constant learning, and this is something I can grow and learn from.
I choose to view this experience in a positive light. I’m only 24. I (hopefully) have a long life ahead of me. I’m glad this happened to me while I’m still young, that way I can work on changing the behaviors now that I need to in order to have a happy, balanced life ahead of me.
And I did end up finding my sunglasses.
Cammi Norville is a traveling wildlife technician and Dead Foot Collective’s social media manager. She enjoys hiking, camping, climbing, and pretty much any other outdoor activity. Follow her on Instagram: @_nomadic_cam.
