The River Landing

Canoeing the Willow Thickets of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge

September 19, 2009

I launched my canoe at the old boat ramp at Chautauqua Refuge’s south pool. At this time of the year, the water would normally be quite low, sometimes even too shallow for a canoe. But refuge managers have kept the water levels deep for the last couple of years in an attempt to set back the black willow thicket that is threatening to take over the south pool. Extensive rains and a frequently flooding Illinois River this year have encouraged this effort.

From a distance, the flooded willow thickets look impenetrable. But a closer approach would show that the trees are spaced far enough apart for canoe travel. The thickets, which began growing in earnest about 15 years ago, have been self-thinning and growing taller ever since; beavers have also been thinning the willows a bit as attested by their numerous cuttings and occasional lodges. But the flooding keeps succession from proceeding as it normally would toward a silver maple-green ash forest. This thicket that is becoming a forest is solid black willow, with the largest individuals about 10 inches in diameter and 25 to 30 feet tall.

Out in the open water, migrating tree swallows kept me company, darting close to the canoe as they gulped insects to fuel their southward migrations. At the willow thicket, which seemed to cover a not insignificant proportion of the south pool, a great blue heron took flight from a willow perch. And great egrets stood on branches that barely protruded from the water. A belted kingfisher perched on a higher snag, and let out its usual rattle call as I floated past. Though I was still on the open water, from within the flooded willow forest I heard wood duck calls echoing from the trees. At one point, ten wood ducks flew from the shelter of the willows; and I speculated that a true survey of the entire thicket-forest would undoubtedly yield many more. The willows are clearly providing birds with needed habitat, though obviously not the open-water diving ducks or ducks of open marshes.

For a few moments, I enjoyed the warm morning sun on my back; but I paddled onward, bound for the cool shelter of the willows, where I planned to have an early lunch and read. Then a loud, high-pitched calling from the willow edge commanded my attention. My first thought was "shorebird," but then I estimated the shallowest water in the willows was about four feet deep; so, I reasoned, a shorebird could not have made that sound. And then I saw the osprey, flying directly toward me. It probably used the willows as a night roost and early morning foraging perch, and was awaiting mid-morning thermal activity before continuing southward on its journey. The bird circled around and then rapidly gained altitude, before soaring away toward the southwest. I struggled to keep the bird in my binoculars as the breeze continually turned my canoe in the wrong direction for viewing. But within a few minutes, the osprey was nearly beyond sight, and so I continued with my paddling business, to the willows and shade.

Hiding in the black willows at Chautauqua NWR.

American White Pelicans Coming Home to Roost

August 25, 2009

We came out to the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, my wife and I, in the early evening for a fruit and cheese supper at the Eagle Bluff Access area, to relax on our fold-up chairs for a quiet time observing life on the refuge, perhaps a bit of reading, and to watch the sun fall below the bluffs across the Illinois River valley. But except for a few swallows of various kinds, great blue herons, and double-crested cormorants, there was not much wildlife activity on the refuge; not even a need for setting up the spotting scope.

After our supper, and just before sundown, we left the observation deck for a walk across the refuge, toward the Illinois River, on the levee that separates the refuge’s north and south pools of Lake Chautauqua. And that was also when many birds became increasingly active. There were more foraging swallows, which passed over the cross levee on their way between the two refuge pools; several loudly calling Caspian terns; a great horned owl hooting from obscurity within the black willow thickets; and a lone pectoral sandpiper that drew our attention on the barren sand along the water’s edge. Then at once, we saw a line of American white pelicans flying in an long, undulating, repeating pattern across the sky, then another group, and then still another, which abruptly changed direction as the group flew low directly above us, apparently nervous about flying so close to two human beings. Before too long, more pelicans flew over, and we estimated a couple thousand that joined together into one large grouping in the far corner of the refuge’s north pool, gathering together in a large night roost on the water.

As the sun sank below the horizon, we heard loudly calling cicadas, another sure sign of summer’s imminent end.