The River Landing

The Eagle Quest

Though it was still early morning when I canoed onto the Illinois River, already the coolness of night had evaporated. Branching from the main river, I leisurely paddled down a narrow, winding channel, through a complex of other channels, small lakes, and bottomland forests. The channel led through part of the Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area near the confluence of the Sangamon and Illinois rivers. My destination was the site of an active bald eagle nest several miles away.

By late morning I had encountered few people, only a few men in jon boats traveling to their favorite fishing spots. Tree death from recent floods events (several large floods in the last few years) was very apparent throughout the area. In some places, the forest appeared similar to a late winter scene; almost all of the trees of various species were totally lacking in leaves. The occasional healthy tree (usually a black willow, silver maple or green ash) stood in stark contrast to the rest. I felt as if I should have been freezing from cold weather rather than perspiring in the heat. In most areas, paddling in the shade was not an option.

Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area (SFWA), 1998

The forest, however, was alive with birds in every direction. Cavity-nesting species, in particular, seemed to be doing very well. House wrens and prothonotary warblers were abundant; their songs echoed through the woods. There were also the usual year-round residents such as black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, and the non-native Eurasian tree sparrow. Tree swallows were numerous; they sometimes passed closely by in their search for flying insects, which they had no trouble in finding. All of these species, I thought, should benefit from the temporary abundance of standing dead timber (snags).

After passing through a large backwater lake, I picked up the narrow channel again. It led to an area of higher ground where flood-related tree mortality was less. After some distance, I saw a low levee on my right which partially enclosed the lake with the eagle nest. The lake’s water level was somewhat higher than in the channel, and in one place, higher than the levee. With much difficulty, I maneuvered the canoe into the small cascade, over the levee, and into the lake. Soon I could clearly see the eagle nest tree over a half mile away along the perimeter of the lake.

I paddled slightly closer to the nest tree, and with my binoculars I could make out two immature eagles, each out of the nest and perching on a different branch of the nest tree. I did not approach much closer, though, as a close approach could have caused the birds to fly. I scanned the trees and the sky, but the parents were nowhere in sight. Satisfied that the nest had produced young, I left the quiet backwater lake and followed the Illinois River back to the boat ramp.

The nest tree long after the young eagles had fledged.

Eagle nest long after the the young eagles had fledged.

Over the next few hours on the main river, I encountered many water craft including jon boats, a few large pleasure boats, and a towboat pushing several barges. On the weekends, the river becomes much busier. Yet the backwater lake with the eagle nest is relatively inaccessible amid over 10,000 acres of wild floodplain habitat. Hiking to the eagle nest from the river, one would have to fight aggressive mosquitoes, thick tangles of vines growing across piles of fallen timber, poison ivy, and mud. Few probably attempt this. So for this area in Illinois, the eagles could not have chosen a better site to nest.

The eagles, however, built their nest in a dead tree; and many of the larger trees in the area that might be suitable as nest trees were also dead. Eventually, I thought, the nest tree would fall, perhaps not for a few years or maybe during the next wind storm; the eagles would then have to move on and construct a new nest from scratch; though until they do, they would continue to build onto the existing one every year.

Considering this, my first thought was that this should not be cause for concern. For isn’t it normal for trees to die and fall? But then I recalled that the recent high tree mortality along the Illinois River is related to artificial modifications of the river’s watershed.

We are fortunate that Illinois has become a fantastically productive agricultural state with a fine road system and thriving, interesting cities in which to live. But there have been trade-offs: The land can no longer absorb precipitation as it did when wetlands were widespread and streams were in a natural meandering condition. Rather than soaking into the land through wetlands and being slowly delivered to rivers, more precipitation is now more likely to run off the land and be quickly transported through channelized streams to the main rivers, such as the Illinois, which rise in consequence. The Illinois River’s floodplain, in addition, has a reduced capacity to store flood waters because levees, in many areas, prevent river floods from spreading across the floodplain; and backwaters connected to the river are largely filled with sediment from erosion on the watershed . As a result of these hydrological changes, the remaining bottomland forests are inundated by flood waters more often than in the past. Some trees cannot survive such repeated inundation, especially for long periods. So it is very probable that the death of the eagle nest tree is related to these unnaturally frequent and sustained floods. And although many cavity-nesting birds seem to have benefitted from an increase in snags, this situation will not last; for all of the standing dead trees will eventually fall, possibly within a short time span.

As I left the river behind, I remembered reading in the book Eagle’s Plume, by Bruce E. Beans, that habitat loss may possibly be the greatest threat facing bald eagles today. Yet here along the Illinois River – a river that has seen better days – bald eagles still find a few areas suitable for nesting. Something must be right here if successfully nesting bald eagles are present and increasing, as field studies have shown. I’ll try to remember that the next time the flood waters rise at unusual frequencies or heights or when I look at a floodplain forest site composed mainly of standing dead timber.

* * *

Summer is almost over. Bald eagle nestlings throughout the Midwest have long fledged. Today the river is almost at its lowest level for quite some time. The air holds an unmistakably present yet faint odor of silty mud, from recently receded flood waters, a coating of which lines the river banks and covers plants of the forest floor and decaying organic debris. Paddling the canoe in the shallow backwaters is difficult; in some areas, the paddle passes through only a few inches of water, and the bottom of the canoe must be pushed with considerable effort across the soft, silty lake bottom. I pause to rest and watch a migrating osprey, and then notice two large dark birds soaring about in the general direction of the eagle nest. I did not really expect to find either of the two immature eagles seen earlier in the summer, but both of the soaring birds are first-year bald eagles. I watch the birds for a while and continue onward with a smile and an uncertain, yet very good, feeling.

[Note: This story originally appeared in slightly different form in the winter 1997-98 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine, number 263.]

A Western Birding Excursion: Of Wind, Rain, Rocks, and Renewal - Part 1 of 2

Usually after several years of not traveling much out of the Midwest, I develop a longing to see something different: birds and ecosystems, as well as cultures. For years the Colorado Plateau (centered on the Four Corners area of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico) has repeatedly drawn my attention; yet I had not been back for over a decade. So on a snowy, cold January evening, I made an early commitment to attend a volunteer service outing in April at Arches National Park, Utah. Then I spent the next three months planning my route and possible itinerary, all subject to change until the last minute.

Thinking of the West reminded me of all the bird species that I had missed on previous trips. I tend to miss species that others easily seem to find, probably from not being focused or ambitious enough to seriously look for specific birds, as a real birder would. One species, though, has gnawed at my conscience for over ten years: the ferruginous hawk. I may have seen one in Arizona in 1988. Or maybe not; it was not a good, clear sighting. I traveled to the West again later in 1988, then in 1990, and again in 1997. No ferruginous hawk. I have long recognized that I may not be the most observant person, but missing a ferruginous hawk after so many visits to the West was beginning to get embarrassing. Though I may always feel inferior to the hardcore birding intelligensia, I maintain that to lead a balanced life, it is probably best for me to avoid becoming too obsessed with finding new birds. Easier said than done? Perhaps.

* * *

After carefully packing everything I could think of (leaving behind the unabridged dictionary), I set out from central Illinois following a route designed to avoid traffic and big cities. In less than two hours I was west of the Mississippi River. But everything still looked like Illinois. At Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Missouri, with its turbid water and levees, I could not help but feeling that I was at Chautauqua Refuge in Illinois. It was not until I visited Prairie State Park in southwestern Missouri that I felt at least on the fringe of the West. One of the first birds I heard was a western meadowlark. Then, while sitting on a rock and contemplating a buffalo wallow (the park has a herd of free-roaming buffalo), for some reason, I turned my head and looked up at just the right moment to see a low-flying Swainson’s hawk, a true raptor of the Great Plains. My trip to the West had a propitious beginning. I tried not to think about the ferruginous hawk except for the fact that I was probably still too far east to see one.

Because most travelers religiously follow the interstates, the county roads and two-lane highways tend to be lightly traveled, even on a holiday weekend. I stayed off the four-lane highways. St. Louis, Tulsa, Kansas City, and other big metropolitan areas remained merely names on a map. Avoiding their vast suburban areas and satellite subdivisions was difficult, though, noticeably more so than a decade earlier. Traveling the back roads also allowed me to maintain a certain intimacy with the land; it was easy to pull over at will if something caught my eye. Like in Kansas, when I made a screeching three-point turn after seeing a scissor-tailed flycatcher sitting on a barbed-wire fence.

Beginning in Oklahoma, I pulled off the road for nearly every raptor that even remotely looked like a ferruginous hawk. Most were red-tailed or Swainson’s hawks. In the old dust bowl lands of western Oklahoma, a kettle of several raptors soared over the highway. I quickly stopped. A farmer plowed his dusty field just below the soaring hawks, with the high winds picking up the dusty ol’ dust and blowing it all away in a cloud of dust. I stopped my tape of Woody Guthrie songs, shut off the engine, and proceeded to study each hawk; to my astonishment, they were all Swainson’s hawks. One suddenly began to dive at another, and as both headed downward to the ground, I saw 40 or 50 more standing around a large carcass, very near the tractor’s path. Only one bird mantled the dead animal and fed. The others hungrily looked on. Many were looking directly at me. The farmer, enveloped in the swirling dust, seemed to ignore both me and the hawks. Through my spotting scope, I carefully looked at each hawk, thinking that surely one must be a ferruginous hawk, but all were Swainson’s hawks! Soon the farmer must have gotten too near, because most of the hawks simultaneously took to the air, formed a giant tornadic kettle, and drifted northward on the wind and dust. The farmer kept plowing, and what could I do except continue onward. The farmer didn’t even wave.

The Great Plains is still wide, open land with few trees, especially the western plains. But it is not wild land. Public land is scarce, and cattle ranching is king. Most of the land is private and fenced for cattle. I don’t like to trespass; so onward I drove, the open country begging to be hiked across, a ferruginous hawk probably over a nearby hill. But I continued to drive, until Oklahoma’s 32,030-acre Salt Plains NWR.

Most of the Salt Plains Refuge is frustratingly inaccessible to the public. So although long hikes were out of the question, a few access points allowed for quiet wildlife viewing; quiet, that is, except for the maliciously blowing wind. At the official refuge shorebird observation platform I guess I should not have been surprised to find...well...shorebirds. There was a snowy plover among numerous peeps and sanderlings. And while closely watching a foraging common tern, almost too close for me to use binoculars, I noticed a distant osprey fly through my field of vision. Among the highlights at another part of the refuge were snowy egrets, a little blue heron, northern shovelers, green- and blue-winged teal, and a large foraging flock of American avocets. Salt Plains Refuge does not resemble Illinois, but the singing Carolina wren made me still feel too much of a connection with Illinois. I needed to go further. A proper visit to Salt Plains Refuge would have to wait until another year, perhaps during the sandhill crane migration.

Because of all the open space in the West, I naively expected the campgrounds to be spacious, spread-out affairs with campsites widely separated. But to my consternation, at most public campgrounds, space was miserly used at best. The state park campground near Salt Plains Refuge was too developed for my tastes, and the campsites were too close together with little screening vegetation. So onward I drove.

Later from my motel room window, far removed from the hum of campground generators, I observed dark, nasty weather slowly moving eastward. Strong, dangerous storms blew across Oklahoma and Missouri, and into Illinois. I thought of my house under the shade of a large Siberian elm tree. Would it be there upon my return in two and a half weeks? But that was eastward thinking. I was full of hope and heading west.

Black Mesa Nature Preserve is at the far northwestern corner of Oklahoma’s Panhandle. In terms of wildlife and plants, Black Mesa is an extension of the Rocky Mountains. Shortgrass prairie with pinyon pine, sagebrush, and Rocky Mountain juniper finally took away all thoughts of Illinois. And Black Mesa is in the Rocky Mountain time zone. I hiked to the top of the mesa all the while listening to western meadowlarks, and had to track down an unknown song to find a brown towhee, a species I had never seen before. Overhead, ravens soared and croaked on the strong and continuous winds. There were turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks. A large flock of pinyon jays flew across my path several hundred yards ahead. But I noticed, as I had before in other arid regions, that birds were few and far between. I sat within a jumble of boulders, scanning the skies for raptors. A male northern harrier glided past. More ravens. Eventually, thoroughly bludgeoned by the chilly wind, I shouldered my backpack and began the descending climb, at least a two-hour hike to the parking area.

Black Mesa Nature Preserve, Oklahoma

By New Mexico, I almost gave up trying to find a suitable campground. Perhaps the park designers all studied their trade in the shopping malls of Illinois. Maybe they think campers actually want to see and hear everything that other campers are doing, and which television show each is watching. That is not where my interests lie. So with unenthusiastic resignation I planned to spend yet another night in a motel, but now I wanted a motel near a Mexican restaurant. Toward that end I plotted a course for Santa Fe, with a brief stop at Las Vegas NWR, New Mexico.

Public access at Las Vegas Refuge is severely limited. But the refuge has several artificial ponds that attract migratory waterfowl, plus an auto tour from which the ponds may be viewed. It was far from a wilderness experience, but, especially in the West, water equals birds. At an observation deck, not far from the parking lot, I observed numerous waterfowl of several species plus several eared and pied-billed grebes. Off in the distant grasslands, closed to public access, a group of pronghorn antelope lounged in the late afternoon sun.

Then further along on the auto tour route, I stopped at a large pond, which was also very popular for bank fishing. I did not really expect to find much in the pond, considering all of the human activity. Yet not far from the bank were several western grebes, ruddy ducks, and canvasback ducks. I was slowly coasting along the dirt road looking for birds, driving with my knees and mostly avoiding potholes, when a cinnamon teal, a species I had never seen before, came into view not more than 20 feet away. I wanted to quickly stop, but another vehicle was behind me! After finally finding a place to pull off the road, and backtracking on foot, the bird, of course, was gone. At that moment I knew if I finally did see a ferruginous hawk, the sighting would undoubtedly occur under the worst of possible circumstances, probably while driving on a busy, fast-moving, four-lane highway, a few seconds before the road enters a long mountain tunnel.

Later, on the interstate highway en route to Santa Fe, I had no choice but to forget about birds. Billboards and passing by slow drivers (anyone traveling under 75 mph) now occupied my thoughts. And gift shops, gas, and junk food. Santa Fe promised many motels and restaurants. But Santa Fe was not user friendly. Immediately upon exiting the interstate, I was swept up in a great cascading stream of traffic in the new suburban developments, with bright lights and confusing signs directing me everywhere at once; I was a rat in a maze. There was no time to think. The thought struck that maybe I needed new glasses. Why did I feel like a daft tourist in a foreign country? Was this culture shock, after exclusively traveling the back roads through small towns designed for people, not for automobiles? My original plan to avoid big cities was a good one. At Santa Fe, I strayed from the right path, and in only a few more days the service outing would begin, when looking for birds would get a lower priority. It was time to get serious. But first, Mexican food was the highest priority.

See Part 2 for the rest of the story....

[Note: This story originally appeared in slightly different form in the summer 2001 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine, number 277.]

A Western Birding Excursion: Of Wind, Rain, Rocks, and Renewal - Part 2 of 2

Santa Fe was quick and painless. Traveling quickly, I soon found myself on the Navajo Reservation in Chinle, Arizona, near Canyon de Chelly National Monument. To avoid the other curious tourists, of which there were many, I checked out of the motel before sunrise. After driving several miles to a designated observation point, I walked a short trail that led to a canyon overlook, where Anasazi ruins were visible several hundred feet below. Later in the day, paying tourists would be shuttled in large groups to the distant ruins of the "Ancient Ones," ancestors of the modern day Pueblo tribes, on open trailers driven by Navajo guides, like a well-oiled theme park. I sat in the early morning light, on the edge of a sandstone cliff, watching white-throated swifts, violet-green swallows, ravens, and a highly energetic spotted towhee singing one song after another. Then long before the turkey vultures rode the canyon winds, I was bound for another Anasazi site at Hovenweep National Monument, Utah.

The campground at Hovenweep was nearly deserted. I quickly set up my tent, and was on the trail, embarking on a hot, dry hike to a remote Anasazi outpost. I had plenty of water, a bird guide, and a copy of Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. Although soaring raptors would be difficult to spot in the cloudless skies, with an isolated campsite to return to, I remained optimistic.

As expected, in the middle of the afternoon, birds were as scarce as ever, but rock wrens sometimes sang from the tops of the desert bluffs. And from the gnarly vegetation, a black-throated sparrow or plain titmouse occasionally sounded off. A mountain bluebird was an unexpected sight, helping to maintain the afternoon’s spirit of optimism. But except for the dependable ravens, the skies seemed empty. I panned and panned, thinking that a ferruginous hawk must be soaring above. But after returning to camp six hours later – still high from the great pleasure and privilege of being able to scrutinize a large, remote group of Anasazi ruins with no other visitors – the ferruginous hawk remained elusive. Like being tossed a bone from the desert spirits, a common poorwill sang a few notes just after sundown, just before the wind began to blow, a terrible wind that would blow birding and optimism to an oblivion for the next two days.

Though it may have been an illusion that wind increased as I traveled further west, it was no illusion that the land became rockier. Rock formations of startling proportions occupied views in all directions, in a landscape of rock and dusty, rocky soil. Overused phrases such as the "bones of the earth" can be excused as being simply a best description. It is in this area that the late Edward Abbey began his "...lifelong love affair with a pile of rock." The Colorado Plateau is, at least on the surface, one big pile of rock, but it immediately challenges the mind to comprehend its great range of scales. At one moment, the place seems vast in both time and space, endless and empty; while at the same time we are warned about our next moves, to stay on the official trails and avoid stepping on the sensitive cryptobiotic soil, an unusual association of bacteria, algae, lichens, mosses, and fungi. Damaged cryptobiotic soil could take years to recover from a footstep.

At Canyonlands National Park, Utah, the winds continued to blow, probably gusting to 50 miles per hour or more. In an entire afternoon of hiking, the only birds I saw were a few ravens and turkey vultures. The wind swallowed up all sound. So the immediate task was to find water, where there would also be birds.

On the Colorado Plateau, wind and water erosion combine to create unusual rock formations, an example of which is shown here at Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

The Scott M. Matheson Nature Preserve in Moab, Utah, protects 875 acres of rare wetlands along the Colorado River. Tamarisk, a non-native tree that is literally taking over western riparian areas, is also found in the preserve. Tamarisk forms dense, monocultural stands in which branches from neighboring trees interlock to form impenetrable thickets. Most of the preserve is free of tamarisk, but along the Colorado River, there is little else. I hiked along the river on a maintained trail and was surprised to see two mallards take flight from the turbid water and a school of non-native common carp sucking air from the water’s surface. The Colorado River began to seem more like a degraded river, and I became a bit depressed. Were it not for the many birds seen at this site, including a Bewick’s wren and Townsend’s solitaire, my disposition for the day would have been even more mixed.

* * *

True to my expectations of the service outing at Arches National Park, I did not find much time to pursue birds. We repaired trails and broke rock with pick axes, and told park visitors we were being punished for walking across the cryptobiotic soil; we hauled out tamarisk, and transplanted bunch grasses and prickly pear cactus to help restore an area where an underground water pipeline had been installed. It was hard work, dry and hot work. On one day, I drank over a gallon of water. It was great!

Midway through the service trip, our leader granted us a free day, which I used to follow a watercourse that led to a seldom visited, remote part of the park. All day I looked up at towering sandstone cliffs with strange eroded formations called hoodoos. Birds in the riparian woods were sparse by Illinois standards, but by then, I knew what to expect, and so, was not disappointed. Spotted towhees sang throughout the day, and blue-gray gnatcatchers, ruby-throated kinglets, and yellow-rumped warblers (Audubon’s variety with a yellow throat) were never far away. Near the furthest extent of the hike, while sitting against the stream bank reading, I looked up at just the right moment to see a distant flock of Brewer’s blackbirds as they flew quickly over the wash and over the canyon wall.

On the return hike, I walked at a slow pace, knowing it might be many years before another visit to Utah. Life gives us only one chance to see the world, and I had yet to travel beyond the contiguous 48 states and Ontario, Canada. If I had not been looking downward as much as up – so as not to trip, step in water, or walk off the trail – I might have missed the shadow, caused by a golden eagle, move across my path. But the eagle was quickly beyond the canyon wall and out of sight. And such is the case with my birding style, and why I tend to miss species. Sometimes, however, the birds find me.

So if I were only prepared once in a while, life would be much simpler. On one of the final workdays, I had to rapidly walk a couple hundred feet to retrieve my binoculars to confirm that the bird I heard was, in fact, a lark sparrow. That experience should have taught me a lesson that would have soon been put to good use, if I had known what was coming. But no lesson did I learn. Later I was trying to gather a shovel full of "soil" to transplant some Indian rice grass, concentrating on placing enough weight on the shovel to break through the cement-like ground without falling over, when I noticed a few others in our group looking toward the sky. They were watching a large gliding raptor. Oh no!! My binoculars were several hundred feet away! I dropped the shovel and ran for my backpack. But by the time I located the bird, it was much further away, though still close enough for some plumage details...which showed that this bird was definitely not a red-tailed hawk. Of course, it was the ferruginous hawk. Then all too quickly the bird was gone, gliding over the canyon walls. Yes, fortunately, sometimes the birds find me.

After the service outing ended, I would have only the next two days to drive from Utah to Illinois before it was time to return to work (i.e., gainful employment). The return trip was, to say the least, swift. I remember seeing a black-billed magpie somewhere in the Rocky Mountains; Kansas was windy; and I heard the first eastern meadowlark of my return trip in western Missouri.

Before too long, I was soon on the edge of a rock outcropping at Trail of Tears State Park, Missouri, looking down on the Mississippi River and across at Illinois’ Shawnee Hills, putting off the inevitable just a little longer. I listened to parula, yellow-throated, and Kentucky warblers, wood thrush, scarlet and summer tanagers, and more. On the river, a fish crow called as it stood on a log, floating downstream; a Mississippi kite glided over the river, and soon passed out of sight behind the river bluffs. It was not bad being back in the Midwest.

With almost 4,500 miles behind me and several new bird species, especially the ferruginous hawk, I felt satisfied. The West had grudgingly yielded a few more of its secrets. Untold secrets will continue to draw my attention. For I know that I will not be able to stay away from the Colorado Plateau for too long. So am I now in love with a pile of rock? Why not? A pile of rock offers no disappointments and cannot break a heart. For a time, though, my interest in the Midwest has been renewed. Without doubt, the Midwest also has many secrets yet to be revealed. Onward then, to Illinois.

[Note: This story originally appeared in slightly different form in the summer 2001 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine, number 277.]