Fight or Flight
Arts: A soldier goes birdwatching in Iraq
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When Sergeant Jonathan Trouern-Trend, an avid birder, deployed to Iraq with the Connecticut National Guard, he saw a chance to update his life list. His sightings are chronicled in his new book, Birding Babylon (Sierra Club Books).
2/15/04 I'm lying on the ground with my eye on some guy racing around in a pickup truck, wondering if he's going to take a potshot at us (which would have been suicidal), while a pair of crested larks were not even 10 feet from me, the male displaying and dancing around.
3/16/04 Tomorrow I get to go on a run to the burn pit…. [The pit] is a big draw to gulls and crows, and I'm sure I'll see something good in the gull department.
3/18/04 I think everyone thinks I'm doing security work when I'm looking into the distance with binoculars. I'm not sure what they think when I'm looking up in a tree.
5/14/04 On the way the helicopter hit a bird. It traveled through one of the windows near the pilot's feet and into the helicopter…. The bird was a male pin-tailed sandgrouse. I'd like to see one alive, maybe later this year.
6/23/04 As I was watching some wood pigeons, a pair of F-16s came tearing down the runway…. The birds were unfazed.
1/27/05 Yesterday was my last day in Iraq for this deployment…. One day I hope to return, with binoculars but without a weapon.
Illustration: Jed Morfit
