The River Landing

The July Transition

“Seasons turn and bring the change, the shifting of the weather vane”—from the song The Breath Between by David Francey

 

On the prairies, big bluestem panicles have emerged.  Corn tassels have grown out and, later each afternoon, cicadas call.  Swallows gather into flocks and perch on utility wires along country roads.  These are some of the signs I look for every July, of summertime passing, even as the longest day of the year remains a fresh memory.

          As I opened the entrance to our cabin’s driveway, I heard a distant dickcissel calling; and across the road, barn swallows and American goldfiches flew over a prairie planting with blooming gray-headed coneflowers and bee balm.  Through the trees, I saw Quiver Lake; during a typical July, I would expect low water with dispersing herons, egrets, and migrating shorebirds on the mud flats, which in some years can be quite extensive.  But recent heavy rains throughout the watershed have caused the Illinois River to rise, flooding over backwaters connected to the river.

 

Quiver Lake with a green ash struggling to survive against

flooding, drought, wind damage, and the emerald ash borer.

 

          Songs of breeding birds were less apparent than earlier in the month, but as I stood on the bluff edge overlooking the river valley, a tufted titmouse’s song drew my attention, and for a short while I listened to a yellow-throated vireo until the bird went silent.  From the direction of the lake, I heard red-headed woodpeckers calling and growling at each other, and down below, flood waters surrounded the bases of green ash, black willow, and silver maple trees that stood close to the lake’s normal shoreline.  My first thought was that it would be easy to launch my new canoe, chained to a tree above the historic high-water line.  The adventuresome part of me said to seize the moment; but the old man inside countered with:  It’s already a hot, humid day, destined to become hotter and probably too windy for canoeing.  Another time, I thought; but a person cannot say that too often until another time is out of reach.

          When I climbed down the bluff, I saw that grape vines had grown over most of the driftwood left over from previous floods.  Vines and flood debris, including large snags, would completely cover our lakefront if I did not clear things away every so often; this year I had been negligent.  There was plenty of work, which would have to wait for a cooler day; but the vines were winning.  Then I determined through careful consideration that reading a book in the shade while being cooled by slight breezes off the lake was the best option.  Or staring off into the distance, watching weather develop as clouds take shape, change, dissipate, or gather into isolated summer storms. 

          Reading a novel might be looked upon as a form of escapism, but in doing so, I try not to lose awareness of my surroundings, even slight movements, sounds, and subtle details.  Earlier in the month, while lost in the meld of mind and book, when the lake level was lower and slowly heading downward, I saw in my peripheral vision a soft-shelled turtle surface twenty or thirty feet beyond the shoreline seeps; great egrets walked in shallow waters on the other side of the lake stalking fish, and as I watched the egrets, a Caspian tern, the first of the summer, dove several times into the water for a fish before flying toward nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.  About a week before, I was surrounded by thousands of mayflies in the air, and then I saw others clinging to every piece of vegetation along the lakeshore.  As I passed by, most would take flight at once, many landing on me; and even when I sat calmly against a large tree, they were drawn to me; so, annoyed, I left the beach area for another day.

 

            Mayflies on grape vines at Quiver Lake.

 

          On this latest visit, though, I saw no mayflies or remnants of mayflies.  But there were new piles of flood debris and stranded duckweed in rows parallel to the shoreline, giving evidence of how high flood waters had only recently been; some of the wood had been broken up into small pieces by previous wave action, looking very much like mulch one would buy at a garden center.  The entrepreneur in me wondered if it would be possible to gather up this free “river mulch” and sell it at a 100% profit:  natural and organic, healthy and chemical free.  So the idea is out there now, for anyone with the initiative.

          As I walked along thinking about river mulch, a spotted sandpiper called and took flight from a nearby partially sunken tree branch.  When the bird flew away from shore, wings beating in their typical vibrating manner, it was joined by another of the same species, possibly a breeding pair that could have been nesting nearby.  Then a killdeer called and flew from the bluff side of the lake toward open water and downriver out of sight, searching for open ground for foraging, with or without mud flats.

          Later I heard a calling eastern kingbird and saw it perched on an ash tree’s dead branch; the large branch extended over the water, and every once in a while, the kingbird left its perch and flew over the lake to catch a flying insect high above, and then return to the same tree.  I recalled earlier seeing a red-headed woodpecker performing a similar flycatching maneuver, but in a more awkward manner than the kingbird, flying after an insect one way and then another way and then another before making its catch.  I’ve always thought it strange for a woodpecker to engage in such an activity, which the species does not appear well suited for.  As I contemplated returning to the cabin, two great egrets flew over the flooded willow forest just beyond the other side of the lake; they were heading toward the wildlife refuge and would be searching for shallower waters.

          Conditions along the river and its floodplain are always changing, and that is what makes them interesting, even as the yearly cycle is predictable in a general sense.  So I look forward to the coming mud flats over the rest of summer and shorebirds from the Arctic, along with migrating osprey before too long, and then higher water levels in the fall with the waterfowl migration.  Autumn colors, bare trees, and then snow and the shortest day. 

          The years go by as they will, lengthening daylight for half of the year, progressively shorter daylight the other half, with time moving faster as I age.  And although those shorter days begin after the summer solstice in June, it’s not until the middle of July that I truly sense the transition.

 

Quiver Lake seeps exposed as lake levels drop with the Illinois River, August 10, 2024.

 

Quiver Lake on August 18, 2024 with great egrets foraging in the 

shallow lake waters (a sweep of the binoculars from north to south

yielded 47 great egrets).

 

So Many Days Like This

Morning eyes opened when ready, mind recalling a dissipating dream state:  sometimes a scene from a social gathering, a composite of many such real scenes, former work colleagues from different times all in the same dream space.  Unfinished business?  Unresolved issues?  Or no meaning whatsoever.

        Window blinds opened for a sense of the day’s weather.  Wash up and climb down the stairs.  Coffee outside on the deck for a while to feel the morning breezes; listen to the neighborhood sounds of people beginning their days; take note of the late spring bird community, the reliable members as they appear on the scene:  house sparrow, house wren, Carolina wren, house finch, American goldfinch, northern cardinal, American robin, American crow, blue jay, European starling, common grackle, mourning dove, chimney swift, ruby-throated hummingbird, gray catbird, chipping sparrow, brown-headed cowbird, eastern phoebe, eastern wood-pewee, great crested flycatcher, turkey vulture, Cooper’s hawk, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, black-capped chickadee, cedar waxwing.

        Breakfast.  Could be scrambled eggs, Cream of Wheat, polenta, grits, bagel and a banana, cereal, or oat meal.  My wife and I share our dreams.  Later, upstairs with the acoustic guitar:  “Born in Chicago,” “How Lucky,” “Brand New Good Old Days,” “It Sure Can Get Cold in Des Moines,” “Good To Be,” “Little Bird in Heaven,” “Monday Morning Blues.”

        Before the day is hot, bicycle the usual route at Compton Park along Killjordan Creek; through the northeast part of town, where, before the civil rights era, Black residents of Macomb were once restricted to make their homes; down Dr. C.T. Vivian Way and Randolph Street; through Chandler Park, the town square, and back home.

        The last morning hour: read, check e-mail, and back to reading.

        Lunchtime sandwiches online from Jimmy John’s and out to Argyle Lake State Park to a specific picnic table.  Over the lake, we’ll look for a belted kingfisher, red-shouldered hawk, bald eagle, great blue heron, green heron, or northern rough-winged swallow.  We’ll follow the park road, through dense forests and ravines, around the lake, then county highways through an intensively farmed landscape to Lakeview Nature Area and our honeybee hive.

         Back home.  More reading, maybe some writing:  an essay for the blog, short story, or the novel-in-progress.  Read until consciousness begins to fade in a natural way; eyes heavy, heavier…and out for around thirty minutes or more.

         Awaken at some point for weight training and exercise with music for the better part of an hour; these days it might be Stillhouse Junkies, Rory Block, The John Byrne Band, John Gorka, Rum Ragged, Kate Rusby, or Antje Duvekot.

         Sit out back under the beautiful Bradford pear tree before dinner.  Gray squirrels crossing over the yard on electric wires; a bullfrog in the pond; busy adult birds feeding young; a barred owl calling; cottontail rabbits, their superfast young zooming around foraging on our costly horticultural plants.  Rabbits would be everywhere, eating everything were it not for predation, the owl’s role.  Animals must eat.  And it’s dinnertime, our day’s largest meal, followed by short episodes of an older television show, from a time when the bar on grossness and offensiveness was much higher.

         Catch up on the day’s news items:  progress toward another Moon landing, International Space Station, wars, civil strife, our porous southern border, wasting the taxpayer’s money, North Korean sabre rattling with missile launches and nuclear explosions, economic sanctions, terrorism, genocide, mass shootings, refugee camps and famine, oppression, hostage taking, criminals and lunatics in high places, COVID down but not out, bridge and road collapses, natural disasters, and the usual climate change mantra wherever it can be squeezed into a story.  Music is better:  Greg Maroney piano with cello, solo piano playlist.

         And finally, sleep again.  A full day; a full, good life.  Fortunate to be where we are, my wife and I.

 

The Way Forward

“There’s no accounting for the inaccuracies of memory or the prognostications one can only see looking backwards.”— Jennifer Delahunty, from “Future Perfect,” an essay published in Fourth Genre, Spring 2022.

 

In my mind’s eye, as clear as what once was reality, I saw the trail winding ahead through a rough forested landscape of bluffs and ravines at Spring Lake Park north of Macomb.  For the longest time, the only wildlife was a fleeing white-tailed deer.  Where are the birds?  I had wondered.  I was there for the hike, but I also wanted to see birds, maybe catch the tail end of the fall migration.  So I slowly kept following the trail, highly attentive to my surroundings.  Still, all I heard was the wind.  But then, after a short while, as if a genie had granted a wish, I heard a faint “kluk, kluk, kluk, kluk” echoing among the trees.  A pileated woodpecker.  I knew these woods were large enough to attract this species, but they’re not common.  In the leafless forest, I was able to track down the bird by listening for its calls and searching with my binoculars.  It was about 500 feet away, climbing the side of a shagbark hickory.  Then, as if my mind-video had lost its streaming connection, the images dissipated, replaced by the actual reality and frustration of being stretched out on the living room couch, starring at the ceiling, as I paused between chapters of Paul Theroux’s novel, The Family Arsenal.

 

Pileated woodpecker (Photo credit:  Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

 

        Doctor’s orders.  I was into the second week of recovery from outpatient surgery:  lie down as much as possible during the day, no hiking, no exercise, lift nothing heavier than a gallon of milk.  I think I never realized just how incredibly delicate is the human body.  Could recovery really take four weeks?

        Outside it was all deep snow and ice; two bad January storms back to back.  My wife Julie shoveling; me watching out the window, feeling helpless as a newly hatched spring chicken.  I adjusted the headphones and listened to solo piano music, hoping to perhaps drift off to sleep and dream of better days.  And while attempting to steer my dream’s subject matter, I thought again about past encounters with pileated woodpeckers.

         I saw my first around 1980 while vacationing in a small cabin near a remote lake in northeastern Minnesota, just outside the Superior National Forest.  This was the truest wilderness I had ever seen, stretching to the U.S. border and into Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park.  At the time, I was living in the Chicago area, before I had really begun paying attention to birds; so house sparrows, rock doves, and American robins were nearly the only birds I noticed, and then not very closely.  I glanced out the cabin window as I ate breakfast when a large black and white bird with a red crest, comparable to a crow, drew my attention as no other bird had ever done.  It landed on a tree stump and began pounding its massive beak into the rotting wood, searching for insects, I assumed.  I was excited to see this rare bird, one that I imagined could only be encountered in a wilderness.

         After that, I began thinking of the pileated woodpecker as a bird exclusively of the pristine North Woods.  I never expected to see one south of the Wisconsin border, let alone in Chicago.  So when I returned home, I left thoughts of pileated woodpeckers in Minnesota and focused on my college studies and finding a way into a depressed job market.

        Several years later I was on a summer trip visiting the forested areas of southeastern Missouri when, at Trail of Tears State Park, I had another close encounter with a pileated woodpecker.  The day was hot and humid, and the forest was dense and tall; the sense of being alone in a vast wild area was not an illusion.  And when I saw the bird, it seemed to be a highly appropriate sighting considering the surroundings, but it also challenged my rigid association of this bird with the North Woods.  They were more widespread than I had assumed.  For some reason, though, I never thought about consulting a bird guide for more information, preferring, I guess, to learn by experience.

        Once I began spending more time along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers in southwestern and central Illinois, I soon noticed that pileated woodpecker sightings were quite reliable in the bottomland forests, which tend to have large fast-growing trees such as eastern cottonwood and silver maple.  And I usually had little trouble finding large holes in trees, some rectangular, that had been excavated by these birds as they foraged for insects or hammered out spacious nesting cavities, which might one day be used by wood ducks.

 

Holes excavated by pileated woodpeckers.

 

        One particularly vivid recollection of a pileated woodpecker that I often replay in my head occurred near Andalusia along the Mississippi River.  I was following the Great River Road on a quite indirect route back to Macomb.  Despite its name, the road provided only occasional glimpses of the river itself.  So when a sign announced a small roadside park near the river, I immediately pulled off the highway.  At the parking area, I didn’t see a trail leading to the river, so I bushwhacked my way to the riverbank through some brush and flood debris.  From there I had an unobstructed view of the 8.5-mile-long Andalusia Island across the side channel; the Mississippi’s main channel was on the other side of the half-mile-wide island.  After only a few moments, a pileated woodpecker, about a quarter of a mile downstream, flew across the channel toward the forested island.  Its characteristic undulating flight was unmistakable.  That scene has remained undiminished in sharpness and detail.

 

The Mississippi River and Andalusia Island.

 

*        *        *

Three weeks and I was losing patience with the slow recovery from surgery, even though lying around reading all day is nearly my favorite activity.  Mild temperatures had returned, melting the deep snows of January; northern cardinals and house finches tentatively sang.  So Julie and I seized the day to check on our cabin—closed up for the winter—along the Illinois River valley at Quiver Lake.

         Along the way, my mind easily shifted into birding mode, noting American kestrals perched on utility wires along the highway, a few soaring red-tailed hawks, an occasional bald eagle, and small flocks of horned larks in the bare-soil farm fields and along the roadside.  But there really was not much wildlife in the flat, gently rolling uplands.  Then east of the small town of Ipava, the ravines began to deepen as we neared the Spoon River valley; habitats became more diverse; and there eventually followed the wide Illinois River valley, with bottomland lakes, sloughs, wetlands, forest, and fields.  This is what I needed to help pull me forward to better days. 

         At the Emiquon Preserve and Refuge area we ate our lunch as thousands of snow geese rested in the open waters or occasionally took to the air in gradually building numbers until nearly all the birds were circling; then most of them would settle back to the water until the next cause for alarm, which seemed to be as simple as a lone bald eagle flying too close.  Nearly two miles away, across wetlands and open water, a towboat-barge traveled down the flooding Illinois River; the water was high enough so the tops of the barges were visible above the distant levee.  Later we pulled over to the side of the levee highway to view small groups of waterfowl, and here we heard our first red-winged blackbird song of the year, an event that I have long assigned to be the official beginning of the spring bird migration, the ending of which, by my reckoning, would be in May with the first call of a yellow-billed cuckoo, newly arrived from South America.  Near the blackbirds, a hidden western chorus frog called—another first for the season.

          Our cabin remained intact and safe, and I was relieved not to find a fallen tree blocking our entrance lane or even worse, a tree lying across the cabin itself.  During a brief walk down the bluffs to the flooded lakeshore, I scanned with my binoculars, from the southwest to the north, for birds flying over the floodplain forests on the far side of Quiver Lake.  But of course, I knew as I was doing so that just scanning for a pileated woodpecker would be unlikely to produce one.  We stayed only a short time at our cabin before beginning the hour drive back home; plenty of time to sort through the day’s highlights.

*        *        *

Upon returning to our quiet Macomb neighborhood from the cabin, we both had a feeling that was similar to what we typically had experienced after a long road trip from a very different and wild land.  When I entered our living room and saw the couch, though, I could no longer avoid the thought of having to slide back into a severe rest and recovery mode, at least for a little while.  Back to reading all day and traveling via my mind’s eye—our time at the cabin now being a gentle reminder that there was life beyond the living room walls.  Looking up from my books and glancing out the window would no longer create a sense of frozen exile, but would now pull me forward, along with the imperceptibly lengthening daylight hours, toward a cautious optimism.  More days at the cabin, spring wildflowers, and planning a fall trip to New England, including Maine’s North Woods and its pileated woodpeckers.

 

Reference

DeVore, S., S.D. Bailey, and G. Kennedy.  2004.  Birds of Illinois.  Lone Pine Publishing, Auburn, Washington.

Birding from a Barstool (fiction)

 

Mississippi River boat ramp and river islands.

 

From his barstool at the Shotgun Shack Bar and Grill, Jack watched the Mississippi River flowing high and fast.  He really would have preferred to be out on the river.  But canoeing in fast water was a one-way trip, and he had no desire to be carried far downstream with no way to get back; the river could also be dangerous in a flood, with its turbulence, powerful eddies, and floating trees.  So instead, Jack accepted merely looking at the river through several large picture windows located right behind the bar.  He also viewed part of the town of Shotgun, Illinois, basically a few rundown cabins on stilts, a bait shop, and a poorly maintained gravel-bottomed boat ramp.  One of the world’s great escape hatches, as most of the locals viewed it.  Jack enjoyed being the only customer at the Shotgun, but that never lasted too long, especially as the noon hour approached.

          “Another beer?” asked Donal Hayes, the Shotgun’s owner and bartender.

          “Sure,” replied Jack.

          “Run a tab for you today?  We got Emma’s catfish special for lunch.  Fresh from the river too.”

          “Yeah, run a tab.  Catfish sounds good.”

          “Great,” said Donal.

          Jack then abruptly grabbed his binoculars and focused his attention across the river’s side channel.  There was a small bird walking on a log at Shell Island just above the water line.

          “What’re you seeing out there Jack?” asked Donal.

          “Spotted sandpiper.”

          “A bird, I assume.  Is that rare?  I never heard a such a bird.”

          “It’s not rare,” said Jack, “but my guess is that most people, other than birders, probably never heard of it either.”

          “Yeah, you might be right.  And you are the birdwatcher.”

          “There are also hundreds of swallows flying back and forth just over the water and high in the air.  You can’t see them without binoculars. But I counted six species.”

          “Huh,” was all Donal could think to reply.  Other than ducks and geese during the waterfowl hunting season, Donal wasn’t much interested in birds.

          He was filling up Jack’s empty beer mug when three unkempt, long-bearded men, all dressed in dirty coveralls with muddy boots, clomped through the bar’s side entrance, and abruptly plopped down at a table near the jukebox.

          “Be right with you,” called Donal, who headed into the kitchen to inform Emma the lunch crowd was starting.

          Jack focused his attention back to the river, and quietly placed his binoculars on his lap below the bar.  He soon was tuning out whatever was happening in the bar as more customers arrived, the jukebox was fired up, and the noise level increased.  As a towboat pushed eight barges up the river’s main channel beyond Shell Island, Jack marveled as a bald eagle left its perch in a tall cottonwood tree, circled behind the towboat, and plucked a large fish from the boat’s roiling wake.  In his mind’s eye, he was out there with the eagle.  When a second eagle flew over the still turbulent wake, Jack pulled out his binoculars again for a better look; and he was so intensely focused, he was unaware that his friend Duff had entered the bar and was standing right beside his barstool.

          “What’re you seeing out there—I know you get nervous when someone asks you that.”  The reaction that most folks displayed was what made Jack uncomfortable:  one of confusion and a clear assessment of Jack as being a bit strange for watching birds.  So he was fine with keeping his business to himself. 

          “Hey Duff!”

          “I thought you might be here.  Not a good day for canoeing the river.”  Duff waved at Donal who was talking to a couple of older middle-aged women at the other end of the bar.  When he finished with the women, Donal brought Duff his usual Budweiser in a can.

          “Thanks Donnie,” said Duff.

          “Run you a tab today?”

          “Yeah sure, I’ll probably be here for a while.”  And with that, Donal went off to take care of the bar’s other customers.

          “Whoa!” said Jack, quite a bit louder than he intended. “There goes a pileated woodpecker.  It’ll be going over to the timber at Goose Lake Bottoms or Big Island.  See it, Duff, flying up the river from Shell Island?”

          “Yeah, I see it.  That’s one big-ass woodpecker.  Hey Jack, what’s the plan for today?  You just going to sit around here looking out on the river all day?”

          “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.  There’s a belted kingfisher.  See it?”

           After a while, Donal eventually returned from attending to customers sitting at tables and bringing out several lunches from the kitchen, including Jack’s catfish.  “Doin’ okay here?” he asked both Jack and Duff.

          “How about a pitcher, Jack?” said Duff.  “That way, Donnie here won’t have to keep running back and forth for us every few minutes.”

          “Yeah, good idea,” said Jack.  “You know, I think it would be interesting to keep a bird list for the bar.”

          “Whatever turns you on Jack.  You watch the birds and I’ll keep tabs on that there pitcher of beer coming our way.”

          “Good deal,” said Jack, and both men laughed.  “Okay, there’s a great blue heron flying.  And soaring way up, about a hundred American white pelicans, with two turkey vultures joining the group.  Here, use the binoculars.”

          “No thanks,” said Duff.  “You can be the bird watcher, not me.”

          “Okay, but you’re missing out on seeing an amazing sight.  There, see that bird flying kind of like a crow?”

          “It’s not a crow?” replied Duff.

          “No, it’s a green heron.”

          “You sure?  It’s pretty far away.  How do you know for sure?”

          Jack was about to answer when he noticed the two women, who were earlier at the other end of the bar, coming closer.

          “Hey Duff,” said the shorter and heavier of the two women.  “You a birdwatcher now?”

          “Hey Angie,” replied Duff, avoiding direct eye contact. “No, that’s Jack here.  I’m just along for the ride.  I do my bird watchin’ on ducks and geese…with a rifle.  Hey Sallie.” Both women smiled.

          “I’m making a bird list for the bar,” said Jack, in as suave a manner as he could muster with such a statement.  Duff slyly glanced around the room to see if anyone else could hear their conversation.

          “That’s real interesting Jack,” said Angie.  “Good luck.  I mean it.  Let us know what you see.  And nice to meet you.  We’ll see you around then.”

          “Yeah, nice to meet you,” said Sallie, and the two women turned and walked toward the exit.  Just before leaving, Angie turned to Sallie and whispered in her ear, “That Jack can eat crackers in my bed any day.”  Both women let out some devilish laughter and glanced back at Jack, who had already returned to his binoculars and the river.

          Duff said, “I think they like you Jack.  Play your cards right, if you know what I mean.”

          “Yeah well, they’re a little old for me.”

          “They’re both married anyway.  Could get you in a mess of trouble.  Angie’s husband used to be a boxer.  I seen him in bar fights, and, well, the other guy never even had a chance.”

          “Great advice you’re giving me,” said Jack, with both men laughing.  “Hey, how’s Helen these days?”

          “Ah, Helen.  I think she’s getting ready to break up with me,” answered Duff.

          “What makes you say that?”

          “Well, she keeps harping on me that she thinks I’m insensitive.  I think she’s just making up stuff for an excuse to break up.”

          “How so?  Great egret flying upriver.”

          “It all started when we stopped for gas a few days ago.  I pay for the gas and a soda for her.  The cashier says, ’Have a nice day’ as we’re walking out the door.  I say, ‘Yeah’ and I keep on walking.  Helen says I was rude, that I should have said, ‘You too, have a nice day’ or something like that.  I told her the cashier didn’t really mean ‘Have a nice day.’  It’s just something they say.  So I’m insensitive is her conclusion.”

          “Well,” replied Jack, “there is something called ‘common curtesy.’”

          “Oh, now it’s you too?  Okay, here’s another of her gripes:  She’s coming over last Friday night to watch a movie and get a pizza.  I didn’t have time to clean up the house—she’s always buggin’ me to clean, clean, clean…who has time for that?—anyway, so I put this red lightbulb in the bathroom, you know, so you have light, but can’t see the dirt.  Hey, there’s a bird I know.  Canada goose!  Pow!  Pow!”

          “Yep, good sighting, Duff.”

          “Anyway, she figures out the, you know, logic…uh…gets mad, and calls me a slob.  Says if I really cared for her, I’d have cleaned the toilet.  I says, ‘Hey, I went out and bought a red lightbulb, didn’t I?” 

          “You know,” said Jack after he stopped laughing, “I once had a woman break up with me for something I did in her dream.  In her dream!  When she told me about it, I refused to apologize, and it was a downward spiral from then on.”

          “So anyways Jack, in answer to your original question, Helen is right now not speakin’ to me.  And I guess I’m fine with that.  Better to find out now that things ain’t gonna work rather than wastin’ years arguing.”

          “Yeah, who wants to argue the rest of your life?  And there goes a Caspian tern!  Wow!  First one this summer.”

          “You mean that there sea gull?”

          “It’s not a sea gull.  It’s a tern.  And by the way, there’s no such thing as a sea gull.  It’s just ‘gull.’  Or maybe ring-billed gull, herring gull, or some other type.  But never sea gull.  You’ll embarrass yourself if you’re with other birders.”

          “Well excuse me.  One good turn deserves another, eh?”

          Jack simply shook his head at his friend’s attempt at birding humor.  “Eastern phoebe on the right, over on the lower branch of that old bur oak.  And there goes a group of little blue herons in calico plumage.”

          “Calo…what did you say?”

          But before he could think of a witty comeback, the three men in coveralls who had come in earlier walked over to the bar and stood next to Jack and Duff, motioning to Donal to come and take their money.

          “You work for Conservation, right?” said the shortest and stockiest of the three, who otherwise was a carbon copy of the other two in nearly every other way, including a filthy camo cap.

          “No,” answered Jack, “not Conservation.  I’m at the state biology lab that…well…yeah, it’s conservation, I guess.”

          “What’re you doin’ with them binocs?  Spyin’ on people?” said the medium-sized guy with an out-of-control beer gut.

          “Yeah, you spyin’?” said short and stocky.

          “Just watching birds,” replied Jack.

          “Bird watchin’!”  said beer-gut guy.  “What for?  Ya can’t shoot ‘em now.  It ain’t huntin’ season yet.”

          “Yeah, it ain’t huntin’ season,” said short and stocky.

          Jack didn’t respond, but just looked down.  He was beginning to simmer inside, which was not a good thing.  Jack wasn’t a fighter, but he was mulling over which of several biting, sarcastic replies he planned to unleash.

          But before he could say a word, the biggest and tallest of the three said, “Let it go boys.  C’mon, back to work.”  All three were looking directly at Jack, but slowly turned and stomped toward the exit.  Jack turned to watch them leave, and was about to shout out something when Duff put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, who took the hint and said nothing.

          After the lunch hour, business eventually dropped off, and things quieted down again.   Jack and Duff leisurely went through more pitchers, while Jack kept trying to increase the bar’s bird list. Occasional customers came and went, with several sincerely asking about his barstool bird watching.

         As late afternoon approached, Jack said, “That’s enough for me.  I probably shouldn’t drive as it is.”

          “Yeah, I got things to do,” replied Duff.  “Let’s finish up this pitcher.  Then it’s back to reality.”

          As Duff downed the last of his beer, a truck began backing a Jon boat and trailer down the ramp.  Jack was uninterested in this, but Duff watched the driver closely.  “Hey Donnie,” said Duff.  “Ain’t that Matt Morrison?”

          Donal looked up from washing glasses, turned toward the window, and said, “Yeah, that’s him.  He’s ain’t allowed in here; always startin’ trouble with someone more often than not.  Pretty sure he works with those three that were in here earlier.  You boys handled them fine, by the way.  I was watchin’.”  Donal tried to assess the reactions of both men at this news, but detected nothing. 

          Jack appeared not to be listening, taking his time with his last beer while organizing the bird list.  But he looked out the window and watched with interest as the Jon boat quickly moved up the river.  As they stood to leave, Jack said, “Thirty-three species.”

          “A good day’s work,” said Duff.

          “Be careful now,” said Donal.  “You come out here and watch birds any time Jack.  I think it’s good for business.  You’re a lot preferable to the type of scum I’ve had to throw out of here sometimes.”  Emma came out of the kitchen for the first time that afternoon and waved as Jack and Duff left.

          “I seen Matt Morrison go off on the river,” said Emma.  “You know, I wouldn’t doubt that Matt and his buddies have it in for Jack, him being out with Matt’s ex-girlfriend Lizzy in a canoe the other day.  Everything going alright here?”

          “So far, so good.  You know, that Jack is a good guy.  Duff too.”

          “So I hear.”  Emma picked up Jack’s bird list from the bar and said, “What’s this?” as she quickly glanced over the list.  “He seen all them birds out there today?”

          “Yeah.”

          “Huh.”

Shelter on the Porch

“The …[sky] was angry that day my friends.”—George Costanza

 

It was one of those August days in central Illinois where, weather-wise, anything might happen, except possibly a snowstorm.  The recent heat wave seemed to be officially over, but there was lingering humidity with definite warmth still in the atmosphere that radiated a sort of unstable uneasiness.

          I sat on the edge of Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, that was half mud flats because of low river levels, a normal August condition.  There were shorebirds out there on migration from the high Arctic, replenishing energy levels, resting, and preening—staging for the next big push southward.  I searched the birds for rarities, then gradually noticed the atmosphere toward the northwest, across the river valley, becoming a thicker bluish-gray.  It looked like it might rain, but I didn’t recall rain in the forecast.

 

Quiver Lake bottoms with mud flats, seeps, and open water.

 

          After a while, the gray clouds rather quickly changed to a darker shade, and far off in the distance, maybe five miles, rain fell in a curtain advancing in my direction.  The radar app on my smartphone showed a small, fast-moving system, denoted by red, barreling toward me from the northwest, and I calculated that it would be directly overhead in ten minutes or less.  So without haste, I grabbed my backpack of books, spotting scope, and binoculars, then climbed the bluff side to our cabin’s screened-in front porch.

          Within minutes, the storm abruptly hit in all its fury:  rain pouring from the sky and blasting in with the wind straight off the lake, lightning, thunder, twisting trees, falling leaves, twigs, and branches.  Quite a bit of water shot through the screens onto the carpet and some of the furniture.  I retreated further back from the spray and managed to stay dry, being in the storm and sheltered from it in the same instant.  But within a short time, the wind visibly lessened and the rain became a light dribble, more water falling from the trees than new rain from the sky.  And soon the sun was out again, then hidden again, then out again within the patchy sky. I walked out to the road to watch the isolated storm race eastward, away from the river valley and across the landscape, still dumping rain all the way.

 

The described storm on August 9, 2023, moving eastward.

 

          Steam rose from the road’s surface, adding to the air’s rising humidity, also giving off the unique odor of cool water dropped on warm pavement.  And I was transported back in time almost 60 years as I recalled the exact same smell rising from my Chicago neighborhood’s streets after a short, heavy rain when the sun again reclaimed the day.  We lived in a brick bungalow with a small front porch that was sheltered under the same roof as the rest of the house.  When a storm hit, I enjoyed being on the porch, but if the wind blew toward the house, the porch was no shelter at all.  In any case, I would eventually hear my Czech-born grandmother calling, “Tomáš, come in the house.”  But she would prevail only sometimes.

 

The author's childhood home on Chicago's west side, the mid-1960s.

 

*        *        *

In the city, with so many buildings and sometimes tall trees blocking distances, a storm could be on top of you without warning.  But at the cabin, along the shores of Quiver Lake, or out at the county road, you can see for miles unobstructed.  I once watched a slow-moving system drifting in from the west when everywhere else, the skies were clear.  I could see the rain falling straight down below the storm clouds; there was almost no wind and no lighting or thunder.  It was a friendly rainstorm, bringing needed water for plants struggling in the usual mid-summer drought, but only within its narrow pathway.  When the storm advanced over the lake, I began to see the moving front where raindrops made contact with the lake’s calm surface, and I sat on a log and watched until the rain began to fall around me.  For a moment, I thought, Why leave?  It’s summer after all.  What’s a little water?  If I were a kid, I might have stayed, but the adult in me said, Go back inside to the cabin.  (It’s not the first time I realized that kids can get away with so much more than adults as far as indulging in unusual behavior.)

          Many times I’ve been caught in the rain while hiking on a woodland trail, and I don’t recall ever being in a panic to seek shelter.  Water falling on trees, moistening the ground, flowing down ravine slopes; it’s all part of a vast cycle; and being within it seems like the most natural thing in the world.  Even with a hard rain and thunder.  As for the lightning, if a shelter is nearby, I might be better off following my grandmother’s cautious ways.         

When to Give Up: Chronicle of a Cormorant Colony

 

“…there’s no success like failure, and…failure’s no success at all”—from the song Love Minus Zero/No Limit by Bob Dylan

 

On a mid-April visit to our cabin at Quiver Lake, near Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, I was looking for signs of the advancing season, such as flowering plants and bird sightings.  Then, over the brisk winds blowing off the lake, there came, from the flooded black willow forest across the lake, the unmistakable guttural sounds of double-crested cormorants.  They were re-establishing their nesting colony of the previous year, which had failed for unknown reasons by early May; they simply left, all of the nests abandoned.

      This year I vowed to keep better track of the situation.  I was not sure when the colony became active again, but it was definitely not active two weeks before this recent cabin visit.  So, with eight weeks or more for egg incubation and time to fledge, I was expecting to see and hear a lot of cormorant activity this year.  When conditions were right, I would canoe over to the colony for a closer look.

      But by my next visit on May 4^th, the cormorants had already abandoned the colony!  I kept hoping that I was wrong and that they were all out foraging for fish, but if that were the case, I should have seen cormorants coming and going.  During the intervening days since the last cabin visit, the Illinois River had dropped quite a bit, and since the river is connected to Quiver Lake, the lake level had also fallen.  I wondered if the dry ground under the colony had given predators, such as raccoons, easy access to the nests.  Was that the reason the cormorants abandoned their colony?  I wanted to take a closer look, but time and opportunity did not converge until twelve days later.

 

***

Cottonwood seeds floated in the air like a light snow flurry and this year’s crop of silver maple seedlings grew well during the longer days of mid-May, in some areas forming lines parallel to the lakeshore, marking a previous high-water level.  The river itself had probably already hit its peak spring flood, and would be slowly falling toward its normal summer low period, but that would only be an average expectation; another big flood would not really be surprising.

      At the lake’s shoreline, I was surrounded by vigorous bird songs and calls from house wrens, warbling vireos, Carolina wrens, Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and bobwhite quail.  Yellow-billed cuckoos had already arrived, which for me signaled the end of the spring migration, but there were still some Tennessee warblers passing through on their way to the boreal forests of Canada.  Buffalo gnats were becoming annoying—as they always are in May—but to endure them, I reminded myself of the fact that insects of all kinds are the protein source needed to grow healthy nestlings that must be ready to fly before too long.  All of these environmental cues together formed the backdrop to the advancing bird breeding season, and I imagined those cues to be a strong reinforcement of the drive to reproduce.  And yet, the cormorants abandoned their colony.  I launched my canoe with little delay, and in the time it took for only a few strokes of the paddle, I was on the far side of the lake, heading for the failed cormorant colony.

      It was almost like a dystopian scene, with all of the abandoned nests in surrounding trees appearing newly rehabilitated but completely unused.  An active colony would be chaotic, with tree branches and leaves covered in bird droppings and messes.  It seemed like such a waste, after going through all of the trouble to migrate to Illinois and then assemble at this particular location, to engage in numerous flights back and forth to gather so much nesting material of twigs and larger sticks, and then, somehow collectively to make the decision to give up and leave.  How would they even communicate such a decision throughout the colony?  I can imagine some individual birds giving up and moving on for whatever reason, and some birds staying, but for all of them to leave, there must have been a compelling reason.

 

Abandoned double-crested cormorant colony at Quiver Lake, 16 May 2023

 

      Was it, in fact, predation?  Or could they have been somehow harassed into leaving?  In some circles, the fish-eating double-crested cormorant is not a popular bird.  It’s curious that the colony was abandoned two years in a row.  And a similar sequence of events happened in 2019:  There was an active cormorant colony by the third week of April, and it was abandoned sometime between then and the middle of May.  Before that, since 2011 when we acquired our cabin, either there was not a colony at Quiver Lake bottoms or I never noticed one if it was there.

      In the end, double-crested cormorant colonies will succeed somewhere and fail elsewhere, maybe more failures than successes.  Otherwise, the population might grow exponentially to the point where we would have so many cormorants (individuals live for six years on average), a population crash— related to an increase in diseases and overexploitation of habitat and food resources—would be inevitable.  Their reproductive drive accounts for failure.  That’s why each pair usually raises three or four young each year, sometimes with two broods.  As another example:  Why does a cottonwood tree produce so many seeds, when most of them never germinate?  How many years must go by before even one makes it into a tree?  What would the landscape look like if all of the seeds each year grew into trees?  At any rate, it seems that the Quiver Lake cormorant colony might be due for success.  For this year, though, they’ve apparently run out of time.

 

References

Dorr, B.S., K.L. Sullivan, P.D. Curtis, R.B. Chipman, and R.D. McCullough.  2016.  Double-crested cormorants.  Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series.  U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services.

Kleen, V.M., L. Cordle, and R.A. Montgomery.  2004.  The Illinois breeding bird atlas.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication No. 26.  xviii + 459 pp.

Serious Business

It was a classic mid-winter morning, with a dull, light grayness reflecting off the cloudy sky and the neighborhood scene unenthusiastic in its muted colors.  Though last night’s dusting of snow had already melted on the streets, most of it held on tightly to the dormant lawns.  With temperatures barely above freezing, the damp air seemed much colder, capable of snuffing out a fire, easily dissipating a body’s life.  But I had already spent too much time in the house this winter.  So, to see truly what the world had to offer, I ventured out.

          Soon a train’s whistle loudly rang out from the north part of town, and in my mind’s eye, I could see its massive engines pulling a string of graffiti-covered cars past Macomb’s downtown depot and Forgottonia Brewing.  A semi-truck along East Jackson Street roared and grunted its complaints as its driver shifted through the gears.  Distant crows called and a momentary Carolina wren’s song caught my attention.  What was it doing, singing on such a day?  But after walking a block to Killjordan Creek and Macomb’s Compton Park, a chill remained, with any new internal warmth quickly lost to the wind.  There were few hikers and dog walkers on this particular morning, and I liked it better that way.  Still, I picked up the pace, even as I wished to linger.

          At the far end of the park, I crossed the creek at South Pearl Street, and, much too soon, began heading toward home.  But here I took special notice of the creek’s natural meanders, with repeating patterns of curved collapsing banks opposite areas of alluvial deposition, which park managers attempt to limit—this inevitable tendency of all flowing waters.  But this is what I look for on my walks:  the unmanaged, natural processes, behaviors, and interactions, even the smallest examples.

 

 Killjordan Creek at Compton Park, Macomb, Illinois.

 

          At a private birdfeeder near the park, I saw a black-capped chickadee cautiously dart in on a flash, grab a seed, and then quickly fly off to shelter within a neatly trimmed ornamental shrub.  All in seconds.  They are fast and wary.  The feeder and seeds were, of course, provided by the homeowner; but as a species, the chickadee’s essential behaviors are innate, successfully honed over the millennia by trial and error—even, but especially, the wariness.  For the survivors, that is.

          As my block came within sight, a quick movement caught my eye:  a Cooper’s hawk, predator of birds, landing on a lower branch of a pin oak tree.  And then I noticed all other birds were scarce, keeping a low profile, quiet.  A few days before, this very hawk, most likely, aggressively pursued and caught a dark-eyed junco that sought refuge in our backyard quince bush…next to the birdfeeder.  The hawk kept grabbing into the bush with its powerful talons.  Then, a slightly misjudged countermovement, and the junco was no more.

          Serious business in the neighborhood.  Parents driving their kids to school and special events, bringing them back home; folks going to work and back, on shopping trips to the grocery store; the regular house-to-house mail delivery; a UPS truck, a FedEx truck; garbage collection every Thursday; clearing snow from roads, driveways, and sidewalks; walkers with their dogs; a chattering fox squirrel as I walk past; keeping bird feeders filled.  The routines of everyday living.

 

Birding for the Crested Caracara and Reexamining Priorities

 

Immediately after the car’s engine started, The Eels’ song “I Like Birds” came over the stereo.  This is one of the signature songs from my favorite movie, The Big Year.  My wife Julie and I were off on a quest:  to find a bird called the crested caracara that had recently been seen (February 10, 2023) at the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour east of our home.

        Julie recognized the song from the movie that we had seen at least five times over the last couple of years.   She smiled and asked, “Did you purposely put on this song?” 

        “Well, yeah, it seemed appropriate.  We’re kind of doing a Bostick-like thing today.” 

        Kenny Bostick is one of the main characters in The Big Year.  He gives up nearly everything in his life, including his marriage, in a competition with other serious birders to see who can find the highest number of bird species within a calendar year.  In order to accomplish this goal, he has to chase after rarities all over the U.S., especially when a rarity is reported by other birders on rare bird hotlines.  If he wasn’t just a movie character, Bostick would be traveling to the Emiquon Refuge to seek out the crested caracara, a large falcon that is typically found in the U.S. only in parts of Texas, Florida, the Gulf Coast, and far southern Arizona.  Seeing one in Illinois is a big deal, a sighting not likely to happen again for a long time.

        On our way to the Emiquon area, we saw thousands upon thousands of snow geese all over the skies of Fulton County.  And just east of Table Grove, an entire farm field of corn stubble was covered by a dense flock of snow geese that extended for what seemed like a half mile and that came almost right up to the highway.

        “You know, if we stopped to take a picture, they would all fly,” said Julie.  She knew what I was thinking.

        “Yeah, they’re very jittery.  Just about anything can make them all take flight at once, screaming their heads off the whole time.  And then they’ll circle around several times in a giant cloud, and all come back down to the same place where they started out from.  It seems to me that they waste a lot of energy.  So what does that say about 'optimal foraging theory?'”  Julie just looked at me, about to roll her eyes, as I struggled against entering “lecture mode.”

        As we passed through Lewistown, I tried to drive slower and pay more attention to any large birds in flight or perching in treetops.  We were close to the Illinois River valley and the Emiquon Refuge and Nature Preserve.  I was fairly confident of seeing the caracara when we started out on our trip, but as I witnessed the vastness of the river valley before me, I knew that we were looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

        “This place is so big,” I said.  “Where should we look first?  I know, look for the birders.  When you see a big group of them, you’ll be able to tell by their behavior if they’ve found the caracara.  If they’re all intensely looking in the same direction through spotting scopes, they’ve got something good; if they’re all standing around talking, with each birder looking in a different direction, they haven’t found it.”

        “Or we can just ask,” replied Julie. 

        “Yeah, well…we could do that too.”

        Then we saw several cars parked along a gravel lane not far from the main highway.  “Look! Birders!” I nearly shouted.  “I’ll drive past them, and all you have to do is roll down your window, look them straight in the eyes, and say ‘crested caracara’ like it’s a secret password.  But realize, in any other context, you would look like a lunatic.”  To our disappointment, though, none of the birders had yet seen the caracara.  But the previous day, it was sighted in that exact spot, which is why the birders were gathered there.  So we drove onward, thinking that we had as much chance of seeing the bird there as anywhere.

        Further away on another gravel road, a car came toward us from the opposite direction.  I slowed to a crawl, opened the window, and made a sign for the other car to stop, which it obligingly did.  And I simply said, “caracara?”  The driver kind of smirked, but said “no” in a suspicious sort of way, as if he actually had seen the bird but did not wish to reveal that fact, keeping the information to himself so that he and only he could count the bird, and thereby beat out his birding competitors by one species on the 2023 list of elite Illinois birders.  But no, that’s crazy talk, I thought.  Or was it?

        At the Emiquon Nature Preserve observatory, a quite friendly, talkative older woman approached us while walking her three highly energetic, unleashed dogs.  I felt relief that she wasn’t angry, as one of her pets had just barely escaped being run over by my car. 

        “What’re you all lookin’ for?” she asked.

        “A crested caracara,” I curtly answered while adjusting my spotting scope.  “A crusted…what?  Wait, I’ll look it up on my phone,” she replied.

        “No, it’s crested, crested caracara,” said Julie.  “It’s rare around here.” 

        “Oh,” she replied. And then we heard quite a few details about her personal life and religious interests before she and the dogs went happily on their way.

        After that encounter, we drove around a bit more within the Emiquon area on the gravel backroads and on the state highway that sits on top of a narrow levee with no shoulder to speak of:  a very dangerous situation for birders who are prone to stop with no warning if they see a bird with even the slightest possibility of it being a rarity.  And I began to realize that we probably would not see the caracara.

        “You know,” I sadly said, “yesterday was really the day for seeing this bird.  Birders came from Chicago, and they saw it, according to the internet birding hotlines.” 

        Julie gave me a rather strange look.

        “I’m not making this up!  They’re the hotshot birders, though; they always see the rarities.  I guess we shouldn’t have waited, but I had to take my 96-year-old mother to the cardiologist!  You know, she does have an aortic aneurysm that’s about to explode.”

        Julie turned to face me and raised her eyebrows.

        “Still,” I continued, “I’ll bet we would have seen the bird if I had canceled her doctor’s appointment.  Next time…well, never mind.”  And we headed to Havana, across the Illinois River, for lunch.

 

Into the Wind

The essay Into the Wind appears in Shark Reef:  A Literary Magazine (Issue 41 Winter 2023) (click on the link).  It is a narrative about certain unusual life experiences with wind and relating those times to a recent move from rural surroundings in Mason County, Illinois, to the university town of Macomb, Illinois.  

We left our country home in good hands, as this video (click on this link) by the new owner demonstrates.

 

A tornado moving along the Illinois River valley on Dec. 1, 2018.

 

Windy day at Lake Michigan, Warren Dunes, Michigan.

  

With the Wind at My Back

 

If the wind is at your back and you never turn around
You may never know the wind is there
You may never hear the sound—from the song Ignorance and Privilege by John Gorka

Hey Woody Guthrie, where are you?  The big dogs are back at the door—from the song Woody Guthrie by Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon)

 

For more than a week, the Illinois River’s depth had been gradually falling toward its usual late summer low-water levels.  But in the last few days, it had risen somewhat, and so I took out the canoe across Quiver Lake to the river for what might have been my last chance for a while, before the lake would become unnavigable as a mosaic of shallow water and mud flats.  The weather was clear and warm, and with light early morning breezes, the trip out was easy.  Later in the day, winds would blow stronger.

          Where Quiver Lake connects with the river, I waited for a towboat-barge to pass, took a photograph with my smartphone, and posted it on Facebook.  The towboat’s wake could be dangerous; usually, though, the waves are not a cause for panic in a canoeist, only something to pay attention to.  High in the sky over the river, a large flock of American white pelicans soared in a tight, slowly winding and rising column, reminding me of the DNA molecule’s double helix; sometimes bald eagles and hawks join the pelicans.  But before I could get a better look, the canoe started bouncing in the towboat’s waves, and I realized it was time to get serious about crossing the river.

 

An Illinois River scene near the entrance to Quiver Lake, Mason County, Illinois.

 

          On the river’s opposite muddy bank, I beached the canoe and then pulled it onto higher ground, well out of range of any huge swells that would be created by a v-bottomed yacht, should one pass by.  Nearby was a large silver maple tree that leaned at about the same angle as my living room chair; so, here in the shade I placed two PFDs (personal floatation devices) from the canoe as a back rest.  And with my day campsite completed, I settled in for reading, journaling, observing life along the river, and, after a while, lunch.

          Birds were noticeably less vocal than they had been only a few weeks earlier, but just as I made a mental note of that fact, a Bell’s vireo sounded off from a thicket of willows and swamp privet only a few feet away; then I immediately saw the bird in clear view, even without binoculars.  And I thought that only a fellow birdwatcher would appreciate how unusual this easy sighting was, the Bell’s vireo being notoriously difficult to locate in its preferred thick, shrubby habitats, even while its song tauntingly rings out, almost like mocking the observer. 

          I have no idea what other birders might reflect upon at such times.  But my thoughts usually include recognition of how fortunate I have been to be able to do such things purely for my own pleasure and how life’s circumstances have led me to such a moment.

          If certain decisions had not been made years before I was born, my situation today could easily have been quite different—if, in fact, I would have existed at all.  What if my maternal grandparents had chosen not to leave Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s for America?  During the military occupation of that country during World War II, Nazis guards threw my grandfather’s brother, Jarda Zelizko, to his death from a speeding train.  Would my grandfather have had a similar fate if he had stayed?  Or maybe a version of me would have lived in Czechoslovakia or Poland under communist domination and oppression for decades until the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s.  I don’t imagine canoeing and birding would have been encouraged during those times. 

          In 1945, the man who would become my father was in the U.S. Navy on his way to the invasion of Imperial Japan, when the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima effectively ended the war, saving him from whatever fate might have awaited.  A few years later, in Chicago, he met the woman who would become my mother, and a few years after that, I came into this world—1957, the same year, in fact, that the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, which further intensified the Cold War and set off the Space Race, rapidly increasing the pace of new developments in rocket and computer technology as well as their military applications.

          I remember in the 1980s, the scientist Carl Sagan musing about why we have not detected or been contacted by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.  Maybe, he thought, we’re alone in the Universe.  On the other hand, he suggested it could be that many such civilizations get started, but none make it very far beyond the point of discovering how to harness the power in the atom:  they all soon blow themselves up in massive nuclear wars.  So far, we’ve survived only seventy-seven years with nuclear weapons; there have already been several close calls; and the world seems never to have a shortage of new tyrants just waiting to seize power, who would like nothing better than to acquire those same weapons of mass destruction.  In many ways, the world is more dangerous than ever before.  And the big dogs, never really vanquished, are, indeed, back at our door.

 

At this point, it may seem that the stream of consciousness beginning with a Bell’s vireo on a mid-summer canoe trip has meandered a long way off from that observation, but I think the distance is not at all far.  I am not ignorant of history, of why I am here and others are not; and I see no reason to feel guilty because of possessing that knowledge, that awareness of being privileged and where it came from.  Being aware of it is highly important; and thinking about it for a time is sufficient acknowledgement in my view, and that is why I do it.  And yet, others may feel the need to do something more, like raise awareness or give back somehow (usually with money), and that is fine.

         For my part, by the time I was ready to leave my comfortable shade tree for the river, the wind had picked up considerably, just as the forecast had predicted.  And it blew from the northwest, just as predicted, while I would be paddling to the southeast and then eastward back to my small cabin on the bluffs overlooking Quiver Lake.  A stiff wind would be at my back most of the way, making it an easy float trip, while still remaining alert to any sudden wind shifts or unpredictable gusts.

 

The Crow Must Die

        “Look!  There goes the Cooper’s hawk!” said Julie.  We had been seeing or hearing at least two all summer, probably a breeding pair with young.  But like most other observations, we again noticed only one hawk.

        “It landed on the bridge,” added Julie, referring to the small foot bridge over Killjordan Creek at Macomb’s Compton Park.  I couldn’t see the bird because of a tree that blocked my view.  But when I finally got a good look, what I saw was a crow on the bridge’s railing.

        “Oh, it was a crow, not a hawk,” I said.

        “No,” Julie adamantly stated, “I saw a Cooper’s hawk.”  So I think I may have offended her, suggesting that she mistook a crow for a hawk, the type of comment that would have caused some birders to draw blood—but not Julie, who understands a birder’s ingrained inability to not immediately correct another birder’s apparent incorrect species I.D.

        “There it is,” I nearly shouted, “and it’s after the crow!”  The two birds engaged in some rather complex aerial dynamics for what seemed like only a few seconds before each headed to separate trees, with the crow uttering low guttural sounds.  Otherwise, there was silence in the park, as its other wildlife residents waited to see what would unfold.  Meanwhile, a woman rode past on her bicycle, totally oblivious to predator and prey assessing each other, working on their next strategies of death and escape.

        Finally, apparently weary of the high drama, the crow took to the air, with the hawk immediately taking up the chase.

        “That hawk is determined to get the crow,” I said.

        “I feel sorry for the crow,” Julie countered, “but really, I don’t know if I feel sorrier for the hawk, which has to eat too.”

        “I think the hawk has the advantage here.  It has a much greater ability for quick and sharp maneuvering in flight than the crow, and its talons are deadly.  It’s really a great example of natural selection’s fine tuning.”  And here, I stopped talking while I was ahead (before the rolling eyes).  But I kept on thinking:  For accipiter hawks to have developed such outstanding flying abilities, so very many birds have had to die over deep time.  But their prey have developed counter tactics, also products of the same evolutionary process.

        “Hey,” I said, abruptly jolted back to the moment, “there are two more crows, and now they’re chasing the hawk!”  The crows worked together as a team, successfully driving the hawk out of the park.  That is, for now.  Before too long, though, I was confident, the hawk would also have its success.

 

A Time for Swallows

Immediately after pushing my canoe from Quiver Lake’s shoreline, I was joined by several tree swallows, each on a unique flight path back and forth over the lake.  Some came so close that I could almost feel the air breaking over their wings.  This late spring morning was cool and clear, with only barely perceptible breezes now and then.  So I drifted on a nearly frictionless glide to the opposite shore, lightly paddling once in a while to orient the canoe, feeling warmth from the sun’s rays on the side of my face, occasionally looking back at the familiar bluffs with our cabin.

 

Quiver Lake, with the Mason County bluffs on the right.

 

        The Illinois River was on the down side of its spring flood, but still high enough for much of the wooded bottomlands between the lake and the river to be under about a foot of water.  More than enough for my canoe.  So I paddled forward into the woods and soon found some black willow trees growing close enough together so that I could wedge the canoe between them and prevent it from drifting off.  I then carefully slid myself to the bottom of the canoe, leaned back, unpacked my books and breakfast sandwich, and settled in to memorize the scene for days when I would be compelled to do other things.

        Tree swallows were also busy in the flooded woods, chattering to each other as they returned to or left their tree-hole nests or while foraging for insects over open water between stands of willows.  The bird community^a here was highly active, engaged in the serious business of raising young.  I was especially pleased to count so many prothonotary warblers.  This species, also a tree-hole nester, does not inhabit upland areas, and so, to see one of these birds requires a trip to the bottomlands during the short songbird breeding season (at other times, they are either elusive or have migrated south); but logistics, weather, and other priorities may not always converge to allow for such a trip at the proper times.  Even as I heard their songs sounding from the trees around me, I realized that it could be a full year before I would see this species again.

        After reading a chapter in Larry McMurtry’s book Roads, I paddled through an extensive stand of willows that earlier in the spring supported a colony of double-crested cormorants.  On calm days in mid-April, I could hear sounds coming from the active colony, including the birds’ guttural communications, from over a third of a mile away at our cabin.  On this day, although the trees still held their stick nests, there were no cormorants nearby.  The young, I thought, had probably fledged not long before, dispersing throughout the river valley, as it seemed unlikely that the adults would have abandoned their nests before that could happen.  For this year anyway, preoccupied with certain of life’s unavoidable obligations, I had not been around enough to know of anything that might have happened at Quiver Lake.  On one day, the area was full of cormorants, and now it wasn’t.  Not much more could I say.

 

Black willow trees with double-crested cormorant nests, 11 June 2022.

 

        Tree swallows were with me all morning, up until I returned to our sandy beach to call it a day.  The next stage in the yearly cycle would have the river falling to its usual summer low-water levels; at the same time, Quiver Lake would drain into the river, and leave behind mud flats and water too shallow for a canoe.  And then the migrating shorebirds, some from the high Arctic, will show up to forage for invertebrates hidden in the mud.  I looked forward to following tree swallows, with my binoculars, flying over the bottoms, until they leave for the south in October.  And I know I will be thinking about those distant willows, across from the mud flats and patches of lake remnants, that once held nesting swallows and singing prothonotary warblers, fairly confident that we’ll all be back again next year.

 

^aBird list from the Quiver Lake area, Mason County, Illinois, 11 June 2022.

    Wood duck

    Double-crested cormorant

    Great blue heron

    Killdeer

    Mourning dove

    Yellow-billed cuckoo

    Red-headed woodpecker

    Red-bellied woodpecker

    Northern flicker

    Great crested flycatcher

    Eastern wood pewee

    Eastern kingbird

    Warbling vireo

    American crow

    Tree swallow

    Northern rough-winged swallow

    Tufted titmouse

    House wren

    Carolina wren

    American robin

    Wood thrush

    Gray catbird

    Prothonotary warbler

    Song sparrow

    Eurasian tree sparrow

    Northern cardinal

    Indigo bunting

    Common grackle

    Red-winged blackbird

    Baltimore oriole

 

 

A Big Dark Bird on the Wind

 

“…as for every other man alive, all passes, all is lost, all melts before our grasp like smoke…youth is gone before we know it, and that, like every other man, we must grow old and die. —from Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe, 1935

“If you could do anything, what would you do?” asked ten-year-old Jaycie.  “Fly,” I replied without hesitation. —A recent conversation between the author and his granddaughter

 

Against the cloudless sky, a big, dark bird soared effortlessly over our western Illinois town on the steady afternoon breeze.  Black as a crow, but obviously much larger, with wings held at a shallow angle, the bird, at first, seemed to float aimlessly wherever the air currents meandered, unsteadily teetering like an unsure tightrope walker.  But after watching for a time, I could see that it actually had a rather loose yet definite command of its direction and altitude.  So without even using binoculars, I knew by its size, color, and distinctive flight pattern that this was a turkey vulture. 

        And instantly, as with every sighting of this species, I was pulled back in my mind’s eye to the 1970s.  It was on a limestone cliff high above the Mississippi River and its vast bottomlands that I, as a young man, first saw a turkey vulture.  Unaware of the bird’s presence perching on a nearby tree, I approached the cliff edge, just as the vulture jumped into the air and sailed away.  I later described the bird to one of the staff at Mississippi Palisades State Park, who was not at all surprised, assuring me in my naïve enthusiasm that this was not a rare bird, and that they were actually quite common.

 

The described turkey vulture sighting over the Mississippi

River bottomlands in 1978.

 

        All of the countless sightings I have made of this species over the next four and a half decades would be anchored to that day.  Some, though, stand out from the many:  from the hot, dry skies over the Southwest’s Sonoran Desert to Hawk Ridge over Lake Superior to Pennsylvania’s Little Grand Canyon, viewing the birds from above as they rode the valley’s contours over the Allegheny River.  And at every closer observation, being quite taken by their graceful beauty, but at the same time repulsed by their bare skin heads lacking feathers—bare apparently to avoid having soiled feathers after intimate contact with carcasses.

        The strangest and closest encounter was along the bluffs bordering the Illinois River’s floodplain when I sighted a turkey vulture far away over a field; it seemed to be pacing my vehicle along the bluff road in speed and direction, moving all the while closer and closer until…hitting my windshield full force, as if it were guided by a military-grade GPS to make a precise impact.  Why didn’t this bird make even a minimal effort to shift its wings and tail feathers, thereby gaining the necessary altitude to avoid a fatal collision?  This vulture seemed bound and determined to make a direct hit.  But why?  To what end other than its own demise on a cracked windshield?

        While small birds seem always jittery and worried about life, and larger ones have a seriousness about them, kind of a calculated efficiency, turkey vultures exude a rather lackadaisical nature:  light wing loading allows them to become aloft and soaring with only the slightest of air movements; they drift on the winds, rarely needing to flap their wings; and feed on the margins of the more respectable members of bird society that hunt live prey, glean livelihood from seeds and berries, or both.  They can be a familiar sight on any back country road of the Midwest, feeding on a cornucopia of roadkill, even on lightly traveled routes; and when a vehicle approaches, they cumbersomely fly off in slow, wide arcs, eventually returning to feed—until the next vehicle appears, and then the cycle repeats.  Annoying disturbances these must be, but part of the lifestyle they seem to accept with grace and patience, almost as if they know that everything must die, and all they need to do is to wait.

 

Turkey vultures routinely form night roosts on cell towers.

Photo by Vic Berardi posted by permission.

 

        In fact, they seem to have adapted to the modern rural landscape very well.  And it’s not difficult to imagine that road kills will continue to remain in steady supply for the foreseeable future.  Still, their habitat, although simplified in its present agricultural setting compared to the pre-Columbian state, is really quite complex with known and unknown unpredictable factors.  For now at least, though, life is good for a bird that searches for death.

        So might a turkey vulture be considered the quintessential bird of death?  These days, with my hazy self-image each year imperceptibly morphing closer to that of an “old man,” I find it difficult not to think of death as I observe a soaring vulture dispassionately looking down upon me, its dark plumage and demeanor suggestive of the great abyss:  a profound nothingness, from my perspective, that existed before I was born and will exist after this life has finished its pitifully brief sojourn within the infinity of time and space.  An afterlife I have not much considered, not being drawn to unscientific notions.  Yet who am I to scoff when so many individuals wiser than I have embraced the concept?  As for turkey vultures, I’ll be looking for and observing them until the very end.  Now if I could only convince my wife to agree to dump my dead body into a remote field….

 

Reference

del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., and Sargatal, J., editors.  1994.  Handbook of the birds of the world, volume 2.  New World vultures to guineafowl.  Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

  

For Future Reference

 

“Every mile I make is a memory…”—from the song Ridin’ on the Cotton Belt by Johnny Cash

“Look at that old photograph.  Is it really you?”—from the song This Old Road by Kris Kristofferson  

“It’s okay, it’s alright, I’m alive, and it’s good to be”—from the song Good To Be by Edward David Anderson

 

The Illinois River was at its yearly low level of late summer and early fall.  So upper Quiver Lake, with a direct connection to the river, was reduced to a mosaic of mud flats and shallow water.  I sat in the shade with my binoculars and spotting scope, hoping for broad-winged hawks, osprey, or a large group of migrating shorebirds.  But in lieu of those species, I had good numbers of great egrets, American white pelicans, ring-billed gulls, swallows, and a few Caspian terns and bald eagles.  Quite a few birds to keep my attention, plus the occasional migrating monarch.

          I took in the scene as one might watch a wildlife documentary, waiting for a story to unfold, ready for drama to emerge from behind every shadow.  The bottomland forest beyond the lake remnants taunted me by its inaccessibility, as getting there would involve crossing water too shallow for a canoe and with mud too thick and deep to slog through; all I could do was observe from a distance.  And as I did that I tried to etch the scene into my long-term memory, to be recalled on demand when I am not where I wish to be (waiting rooms, the dentist’s chair, heavy traffic, anywhere it’s crowded, the checkout line behind someone buying lottery tickets using winning tickets to buy more tickets).

 

Quiver Lake, Mason County, Illinois, a late summer scene.

 

          As I strained to fix every color, sound, odor, and feel of the wind into memory, my thoughts drifted, as they often do, to a vivid recollection of my father’s last days in his hospice bed at home.  Did he have special scenes that he could return to at will, up until his final moments?  Was he lost in his own world of thoughts, young again, riding his bicycle from Buffalo, New York, to Niagara Falls?  Did he hear our conversations around him?   He was a quiet, humble man, not prone to deliver monologues of his past triumphs, adventures, or struggles; he passed on few of his favorite memories, and I regret not asking more questions when the opportunities were there for the taking.  I know my time will also come, many years away I can only hope, and I know what I’ll be thinking about:  my wife and our life together; all our trips to places like Lake Itasca, the U.P., Isle Royale, Door County, Charleston, Savannah, Chincoteague Refuge, Lookout Mountain, Taum Sauk Mountain, Niagara Falls, and so many more; and our times at the cabin.

          Other memories, usually lying dormant, are randomly triggered by proximity to place.  For nearly thirty years residing in Mason County, I traveled the back roads many times over, for work and pleasure.  Now, a year and a half after moving fifty miles to the west, with my day-to-day concerns centered around adjusting to new surroundings and the future, I find myself in Mason County mainly when heading to our Quiver Lake cabin, and then only along the river.  But on this most recent cabin visit, I came in from the opposite direction, and traveled over the old familiar countryside again.  With little effort, words and images came flooding back with surprising clarity at nearly every crossroad, creek crossing, road marker, hill, and collapsing barn:  long lost conversations, buried thoughts, and faces frozen in time.  It’s all there, a large portion of my life.  Young again!  If only that were so; the mirror forces the truth, reflecting an aging face that sometimes seems hard to recognize as the same person I’m used to seeing in old photographs.

          Fixating on the wildland dramas of the Illinois River valley is preferable to acknowledging the aging process, which every damn one of us must give in to sooner or later.  Neither can I permanently ignore the outside world, as I need it and all of its resources to live, to afford the luxury of watching birds uninterrupted by responsibilities.

        My time at the cabin is definitely an escape, and in many ways can seem like a kind of throwback or an anchor to a better time:  the pre-pandemic world— before Covid became an actual word; when potholes were repaired, hotel staff were pleasant and unmasked, and only the occasional restaurant worker was inexperienced or incompetent; and when no one ever thought of a store running out of toilet paper.  Or at least that is what my memory tells me.

 

            Quiver Lake, an early fall afternoon.

     

On a Search for the Floodplain Warbler

 

“…right now I’ll just sit here...and watch the river flow.”— from the song Watching the River Flow by Bob Dylan

 

It was a mid-summer day in July as I stood before Killjordan Creek in our nearby well-manicured city park, once again lamenting the tradeoffs of moving into town from the country.  Birding is one of those tradeoffs, but I guess I always knew that birding in Macomb would be less of an experience than it was near the Illinois River valley.  Thoughts of the river conjured up images in my mind of wood ducks, pileated woodpeckers, and especially the prothonotary warbler, which I think of as the “floodplain warbler.”

        But I would never expect to see a prothonotary warbler in my town, even along the creek, because this species is so closely tied to wild floodplain forests that it is rarely seen anywhere else during the breeding season.  So I began making plans to visit remote forests along the Illinois River, places that would pull me as far from a tame town life as I could get.  (Too much domestication cannot be good for the soul.)  And I needed to do this soon, because the season was quickly moving along:  swallows were already loosely staging for their fall flights back to wintering territories, mid-summer cicadas had begun calling, and corn crops were in the tasseling stage; soon the warblers would cease their territorial behavior, and would be harder than ever to find.

        Within a few days, the weather and river levels converged to present an excellent set of conditions:  clear, mild weather with light breezes combined with a long-sustained flood on the Illinois River.  The river was four feet above flood stage.  And with that kind of depth, I could canoe through any of the floodplain forests at Quiver Lake—an Illinois River backwater—and Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.  The day would be mine; in the flooded forest, there would be no hikers, no ATVs, no fancy glitter-painted power boats, and no personal watercraft.  I would stay the night before at our lake cabin for an early start the following morning.

 

                        *                 *                 *

Soon after sunrise, I carried my canoe and gear to the water’s edge, which was high up onto Quiver Lake’s flooded shoreline.  I quickly floated out into the open water and immediately felt the warmth of the early morning sun on my back; but it was slow to dissipate the night’s humidity, which hung on as a fading mist over the nearby wildlife refuge and as a complex aroma of vegetation, fish, damp wood, mud, and a certain unique quality of the river water that I’ve never been able to identify.

 

               Quiver Lake and its flooded shoreline.

 

          With the river spreading onto its floodplain and into connected backwaters, there was only a slight downstream movement of water.  So, smoothly passing over the bottoms, with only slight paddle strokes, I meandered around small stands of black willows, a couple of which had an eastern kingbird on the highest branches; and I shared the open water with numerous tree swallows that flew quite close to the canoe.  Then a group of great egrets caught my attention, perched in the topmost branches of a tall tree.  Just beyond the egrets was a towboat heading upriver, its loud, rumbling diesel engines dominating all sounds.  Continuing toward the sound of the towboat, I floated across a low ridge covered with vegetation that formed a narrow band parallel to the river; the water was only a foot and a half deep here, and I could see the river about fifty feet ahead.

 

Floating over a natural river levee.  The Illinois River is beyond the trees.

 

          As I reached the edge of the trees, the water quickly became deeper, and I was suddenly floating in the Illinois River itself, finding myself being pulled downstream by the gentle, but quite noticeable, current.  More swallows (barn, bank, northern rough-winged, and tree) flew on all sides as I crossed the river in a beeline to the opposite shore while also moving sideways downstream.  Then I saw some rather large, wide swells (about one foot in height) approaching, undoubtedly caused by the towboat that was out of sight around the river bend.  They were a not-so-gentle reminder to pay attention and leave the daydreaming and birding for later.

          Eventually, I settled the canoe against a shoreline thicket of willow and swamp privet, facing the river, with the current keeping it locked in place.  Only then was I able to truly relax; and so, with my breakfast unpacked, I sat back to absorb the river and river life around me, to memorize the scene in such a way as to be able to retrieve it at critical moments when it feels as if the constraints of town life are closing in.  And just then a prothonotary warbler loudly sang its simple song, truly completing the scene very much as I earlier envisioned, and fully cementing it to memory.  Soon a nearby American redstart’s song rang out against the calls of a quite agitated red-headed woodpecker, with a yellow-billed cuckoo joining in.  And I sat there thinking about my circumstances:  sitting on the bottom of a canoe over several feet of water, being held in place by a flowing river well over flood stage, shade trees towering overhead, schools of young-of-the-year fish about a half inch long just below the water’s surface, no sounds except for bird songs and calls echoing throughout the trees, Lake Michigan upstream, the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico downstream.  Of the 12.8 million people living in Illinois, how many have had such an experience or for that matter were having a similar experience at that exact moment?  My guess is not that many.

 

                  The Illinois River from a canoe.

 

          That last idea, of course, represented the world beyond the river intruding.  Ah, the rest of the world…I trusted that it had survived just fine in my absence.  Although I was where I wanted to be, watching the river flow, the noon hour was approaching; and I could actually see and feel the mid-day summer heat building.  It was time to go.  And so, I eased the canoe out of the current, floated back over the natural levee, through the forest, and into the open backwaters beyond—listening one last time, in vain as it turned out, for another prothonotary warbler.  Circumstances would surely converge again, before too long I hoped, for a return.

 

Towboat pushing barges on the Illinois River.  (Illustration by the late Patti Malmborg Reilly).  This illustration originally appeared in the book Side Channels:  A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir, available on this blog as a free ebook download (click here).

 

Bird List for the Morning (July 7, 2021):  Prothonotary warbler, American redstart, warbling vireo, blue-gray gnatcatcher, red-headed woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, northern flicker, tree swallow, barn swallow, bank swallow, northern rough-winged swallow, great egret, great blue heron, double-crested cormorant, killdeer, spotted sandpiper, house wren, Baltimore oriole, eastern wood-pewee, great crested flycatcher, eastern kingbird, American goldfinch, Carolina wren, black-capped chickadee, northern cardinal, American robin, yellow-billed cuckoo, mourning dove, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, indigo bunting, ring-billed gull, gray catbird, white-breasted nuthatch, wood duck.

To Hear or Not to Hear

 

“Let the train blow the whistle when I go.” From the song Let the Train Blow the Whistle — Johnny Cash

“I can hear the whistle blowing, high and lonesome as can be.” From the song Starlight on the Rails — Utah Phillips

“I’m tired of this dirty old city.” From the song Big City — Merle Haggard

 

City noises surround me once again, like when I was growing up in Chicago.  As a freight train rolls through Macomb, dogs bark, the car with the loud muffler circles the block, and the first of many lawn mowers fires up.  But I focus on a great crested flycatcher calling, a singing Carolina wren, and then I spot two soaring turkey vultures high overhead.  Glancing at the spruce trees in my yard then shifts my thoughts to the northern Lake Superior country, and my mind fills with images of boreal forests, bogs, moose, and timber wolves, even as the train whistle continues to blow.   

          The whistle, though, is a welcome sound; I imagine the fast-moving train cars traveling quickly through our small town before soon moving onto the rolling countryside, across flat table lands of farm fields, down wooded ravine systems, on bridges over the La Moine River, the Spoon River, and so many smaller streams.  The sound connects me to land beyond the town, if only in my mind.  When the rumble of the iron wheels fades into the distance, I refocus my attention on bird songs, clouds against the blue sky, and the strong breezes that cause rustling leaves and branches to sway.  And of the urban clatter, I try to take little notice.

          It is a skill learned in the big city, this filtering out annoyances.  With so much going on; so many people moving in all directions at once; signs and lights directing a free person to stop, go, turn here, no turning there; one must find a way to determine what is important.  How else to make it through the mob without a collision and through the chaos without vertigo?

          In one of the largest urban areas in the nation, I learned how to go it alone, within a sort of moving bubble, sometimes even reading a book while walking to the nearby bus stop; later, focusing intensely on that same book while riding the “L” train to downtown bookstores.  I had no interest in dirty brick buildings or roadways jammed with automobiles.  And what of the people?  Just a turbulent stream of strange faces I hardy even saw and would never see again.  To all appearances, I may have seemed completely self-absorbed, avoiding eye contact.  And yet, I remained keenly aware of anyone within my peripheral vision, especially someone tracking my movements.

          That was how I once lived before over three decades in rural Illinois, where I actually learned to tune in rather precisely to certain sounds, like bird calls, and also to be more tolerant of circumstances beyond my control.  But even so, whenever I return to the big city, the old feelings and reflexes quickly return, sometimes to the shock of my wife Julie.  There was the time with her when I negotiated a downtown Chicago traffic snarl like a sharp-shinned hawk chasing its prey through a maze of forest trees, or near the Art Institute when I answered a panhandler’s question of “Do you have any spare change I can borrow?” with an abrupt “No!” without slowing my pace or making eye contact.

          Of course, those selected recollections merely illustrate survival techniques, and are not really a recommendation on how to behave on a regular basis:  dismissive of others; slightly paranoid; aggressive; maybe even rude, depending upon the interpretation.  I much prefer being more open to my surroundings, with only a coarse filter most of the time, even waving to folks as I drive down my small town street.  Recalling the comfort that I have found in the sound of a train’s whistle, I wonder if I may perhaps one day even warm a bit to the drone of a lawn mower.

 

Freight train crossing Jackson Street, Macomb, Illinois

 

 

Always an Eagle

 

“My mind ain’t nothing but a total blank…”— Merle Haggard

 

Arriving at the Quiver Lake cabin on an early May afternoon, the first sounds I heard were the clear song notes of a Baltimore oriole.  That was a good start, but having missed most of the bird migration this spring, I was nearly desperate to see as many species as possible during this all too brief cabin visit.

        My preference would have been to be at the cabin during sunrise just after a strong storm system had passed in the night, bringing the migrating birds down into the trees; but time and circumstances offered only a windy afternoon.  Even so, I enthusiastically exited my vehicle, grabbed my binoculars, and began to stalk slowly around our wooded 1.75-acre property.

        There certainly were more birds around than a month before, but the wind made it difficult to hear faint call notes or songs of whatever migrants, especially warblers, might be high in the tree canopies.  And with most trees leafed out, finding tiny songbirds by sight in the chaotically blowing tree branches became an exercise in futility.  Glancing outward over the Illinois River valley, I saw that water levels had risen quite a bit since my last visit, flooding out mud flats along Quiver Lake that may have attracted herons, egrets, or migrating shorebirds.  My afternoon dedicated to birding was by every turn becoming a bust.

        So I gave up on the upland woods and headed to the lakeshore.  Midway down the steep river valley bluff, I recalled that a bald eagle nest was visible, maybe a half mile away, just barely protruding above the floodplain forest canopy between Quiver Lake and the Illinois River:  higher up the bluff, nearby tree branches blocked the view; only a few feet further down the bluff, the nest was hidden by surrounding forests.  Only at one unique elevation was the nest in clear view.

        With my spotting scope set on full power, I clearly saw an adult eagle on its nest, white head and yellow beak shining in the sunlight; and it was attending to at least one nestling.  I had been loosely monitoring this nest for the last four years, and it looked as if at least one eagle had fledged each year.  I also knew there were three other bald eagle nests along the river within a few miles.  So the Quiver Lake nest is not just an isolated case; there is a small local population here between Havana and the National Wildlife Refuges (Chautauqua and Emiquon).  During winter, there are even more eagles around, most having migrated from the north; seeing twenty or more within a few hours of birding along the river valley is not unusual.  Whatever else may seem tenuous or unpredictable these days, a bald eagle sighting in this area is a near certainty at any time of the year.  And that fact alone is enough to bolster my mood; because by the early 1970s, eagle populations had declined so much nationwide that there were no eagles nesting in Illinois.

 

Bald eagle nest at Sangamon Bay along the Illinois River

(near Browning), 1996.  Many trees died in this area due to

extended  flooding in 1993.  See The Eagle Quest link below.

 

Bald eagle nest at Meredosia National Wildlife Refuge along

the Illinois River, 1999.  Many trees died in this area due to

extended  flooding in 1993.

 
 

        In the late 1980s, I remember feeling extremely excited seeing a bald eagle, but also troubled because I was not sure how long they would be able to survive against increasing loss or disturbance of natural areas and the continued, widespread use of a variety of toxic chemicals that can enter food chains ending with the eagle.  In my mind, the bald eagle had become a sad symbol of our nation’s carelessness toward the environment. But now, almost fifty years after the pesticide DDT had been banned in the United States (DDT had been linked to the decline of several bird species, including the bald eagle) and following years of targeted efforts by wildlife agencies to increase bald eagle populations, the species has been deemed officially “recovered.”

                                            *  *  *

        I spent more time than usual watching the nesting eagles before continuing down the bluff side to the lakeshore.  Good things are happening these days, I kept reminding myself, even as my mind was filled with thoughts of the COVID pandemic and the recent foreign cyberattacks on our nation’s petroleum pipelines that instantaneously resulted in panic buying and gasoline shortages on the East Coast.  One lesson of these modern times, it seems, is not to take anything for granted.  I say “anything” because who would have ever expected that at the first mention of a possible pandemic in early 2020, the first thought in the minds of many across the country would be to run to the local supermarket and buy up all of the toilet paper in sight?  Not the number two thought, but number one!

        When I eventually emerged from the dense tree cover bordering Quiver Lake, my view expanded to the open skies.  I panned for soaring raptors, searching especially for broad-winged hawks or ospreys, another species severely impacted by DDT and still recovering. Then I saw a soaring adult bald eagle, which very likely was the mate from the Quiver Lake nest.  And still panning, I immediately saw an immature bald eagle, probably two or three years old, with little doubt, part of the local population.  Feeling the same excitement as my first bald eagle sighting four decades ago in the wilds of northeastern Minnesota, I knew that I would never take an eagle sighting for granted. 

        As I began climbing back up the bluff to the cabin, I heard a singing black-throated green warbler.  Following the repeating song, I found the bird in a small red cedar tree, alternating between singing and energetically foraging for insects.  I simply stood there watching this bird, who was unconcerned about my presence a mere fifteen feet away, minute after minute; the best sighting ever.  I could have easily begun thinking about declining warbler populations and multiple threats these Neotropical migrants face, such as loss of overwintering forests in Central America or crashing into glass-walled buildings, but I didn’t; I just watched, mesmerized, I guess, my mind a total blank.

 

References

Campbell, M.F., editor.  2002.  Finding bald eagles in Illinois.  Illinois Audubon Society, Danville, Illinois.

del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., and Christie, D.A., eds.  2010.  Handbook of the birds of the world, vol. 15.  Weavers to New World warblers.  Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

 

Links to Bald Eagle-related Posts on this Blog:

 

Bald Eagle Swims with Fish in Talons

Bald Eagle Takes Down a Canada Goose in Flight

The Eagle Quest 

Timeless Scenes Along the Illinois River

Bald Eagles on a Morning Commute

 

Following the Gold

 

I don't care for walkin' down town
Crazy auto car gonna mow me down
Look at all the people like cows in a herd
Well I like...
Birds— From the song I Like Birds by The Eels (Mark O. Everett) as featured in the movie The Big Year

 

Clouds and cold canceled a late March day trip to our Quiver Lake cabin.  So I stayed inside, shifting among reading, playing the guitar, or looking out the window.  Despite the weather, maple trees were flowering and lawns were greening up.  So why was I thinking longingly of winter days?  Ducks.  It was nearly one month ago that I last saw Quiver Lake full of ducks.

          Driving up the bluff road on a weak February thaw, lower Quiver Lake was still mostly frozen.  Hundreds of snow geese in formation filled the skies, but without open water, I expected little activity further up the lake near the cabin.  Even so, it would be nice to be on the edge of the Illinois River valley's wildness for a while, away from town life in Macomb.

 

A mid-winter scene at the Quiver Lake cabin

 

          When I slowly pulled down the gravel drive to the cabin, I saw that upper Quiver Lake was all open water, and it was loaded with ducks!  Without delay, then, I climbed down the bluff to the beach, set up my spotting scope, and proceeded to check out each of the hundreds of waterfowl.  Canvasback, lesser Scaup, and ring-necked ducks were the most numerous of the seventeen species in view^a.  After a slow, careful scan of all the birds, I settled back for some behavior watching.  Ritualized courtship activities can be especially entertaining, where poses and body movements are quick; for example, throwing the head back, lowering the head and swimming a short distance, bobbing the head up and down.  Sometimes several males, all acting like fools, surround a lone female, who usually seems to find a gap in the crowd to skitter away, leaving the males behind dazed and confused.  While all of this is very impressive, each year I become overwhelmed all over again by the deep colors and intricate patterns on the plumage of the male birds.  My appreciation for the pure artistry of these birds is only equaled by admiration for their abilities to navigate accurately over hundreds or thousands of miles between overwintering and breeding grounds, surviving daily threats and challenges; and for each species as a whole, surviving numerous back and forth climate changes over thousands of years and massive landscape alterations over the last two hundred.

          As I was lost in the joy and awe of watching these birds, a whistling sound of constant cadence sounded from above, as a small group of common goldeneyes came in for a gentle landing near several other males.  These birds were on their way to the boreal forests of the northern Midwest and Canada to build nests in holes in trees close to wetlands, lakes, or rivers.  I think of the goldeneye as a winter duck, but seeing one always causes me to recall the north woods of Isle Royale in Lake Superior.

          In my mind’s eye, I see a summer trail along the edge of Tobin Harbor, a large inlet providing access to the island’s wilderness interior, protected from Superior’s sometimes violent weather:  I walk slowly and hope to blend into the shadows of the spruce-fir forest, on the lookout for moose, when I notice a female goldeneye attempting to keep a low profile along the shoreline rocks and overhanging vegetation; there are no young about, and I think she may have lost her entire brood to predation….

          That was a golden day, a long time ago, I reflected, nearly thirty-five years; and then I noticed a bald eagle standing on a frozen portion of Quiver Lake, using its hooked beak to tear apart a dead fish.  In hindsight, the North Country has taken on an almost mythical status, so rarely have I been able to return; but the Illinois River valley also has its golden moments.  All too soon, though, it was time to leave; home was about an hour away, with sundown and dinner with my wife Julie soon to follow.

 

From a canoe on Tobin Harbor at Isle Royale National Park, 1986
 

          When I returned to the cabin a week later, all the ice was gone, and there were no ducks in sight.  With wetlands opening up, especially further north, the migrating waterfowl were less likely to be concentrated, except at high quality sites such as the Emiquon Refuge and Nature Preserve, just across the river from Quiver Lake.  I saw pine siskins and purple finches foraging on a silver maple, which still hinted of the north woods.  And yet I could not help but feel that a portion of the migration’s succession of species might have already passed my area, undoubtedly while I had been preoccupied with indoor activities at home.

                                     *        *        *

            Over the last few days at home, I’ve been seeing an eastern towhee skulking around our bare burning bush and lilacs.  And any day now I expect to hear the first eastern phoebe of the year.  The spring migration is in full swing.  But it’s not just the birds I look forward to.  Because unlike when I was young and just starting to notice birds, I now can reflect upon little scenes or stories associated with each species:  where I first saw a species; birding companions sharing my enthusiasm; the uncertainties of a younger life now resolved.  I’ve noticed this more and more as the years have gone by.

^aCanvasback, lesser scaup, ring-necked duck, redhead duck, common merganser, common goldeneye, bufflehead, ruddy duck, northern pintail, mallard, wood duck, gadwall, American widgeon, swan (tundra or trumpeter), Canada goose, greater white-fronted goose, snow goose.

 

A Sign of a Time

"There was a time in this fair land…When the green dark forest was too silent to be real"—from the song Canadian Railway Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot

 

After the back country road that I traveled on emerged from the steep bluffs and ravines of the La Moine River valley, the land became gently rolling and then mostly flat.  And the view opened up to expose miles of snow-covered agricultural fields whose crops had been harvested months before.  It seemed a lonely land, bleak and lifeless.  Then just about as that thought emerged, a large rough-legged hawk, flying not more than 100 feet from the road, caught my attention.

 

Juvenile Rough-legged Hawk (Photo by Vic Berardi, used by permission)

 

          It was on the hunt, searching for whatever small mammals might be out foraging for food scraps like waste corn or soybeans left over from fall harvesting.  I was especially excited to see this bird because while rough-legged hawks routinely overwinter in Illinois, they nest in the high arctic tundra, a land of diminutive plants, too far north for trees; an unforgiving land shared with polar bears, barren ground grizzly bears, muskox, caribou, and snowy owls.  A more different world from central Illinois it would be hard to imagine, and yet I wondered if the winter landscape in view might superficially resemble the tundra.

 

Caribou on the tundra (photo by Kyle Joly downloaded from the National Park Service

at www.nps.gov 22 February 2021)

 

          The rough-legged hawk is a link to that faraway land, a place I am unlikely to ever see in person, but which I know is there; the living rough-legged hawk is proof; and when I see one, I am always reminded that there were periods when tundra-like environments existed in Illinois:  during the Ice Age.  From about 75,000 to 10,000 years ago, the most recent glacier extended from the Arctic, for a time reaching into the Midwest and covering much of what would one day be the northeastern third of Illinois.  Steppe tundra (grasses, sedges, and herbs with few trees) and forest tundra developed along the glacier’s margin, where surely there were rough-legged hawks.

          How strange it is to imagine Illinois with tundra, boreal forest, and glaciers.  Even stranger are some of the fauna of that time, which would have included species that went extinct after the Ice Age:  mammoths on the tundra; mastodons in the nearby boreal forests; and the giant short-faced bear, larger than a polar bear, an unopposed super predator, roaming the land at will.  But that environment would have seemed normal to the few humans who coexisted, having only arrived in North America for the first time near the waning years of the Ice Age, roughly 12,000 years before the present; just as what greeted the first Europeans to see the Illinois country in the seventeenth century—extensive grasslands, open woodlands, and savanna—would have seemed normal to them; as a land of vast corn and soybean farmlands seems normal to me.  The word “normal,” though, requires an agreed upon point of reference.  Writing for Time-Life Books in 1983, Windsor Chorlton had this to say:  Human beings have never experienced the earth’s normal climate.  For most of its 4.6-billion-year existence, the planet has been inhospitably hot or dry and utterly devoid of glacial ice.  Only seven times have major ice eras, averaging roughly 50 million years in length, introduced relatively cooler temperatures; humankind arose during the most recent of those periods.

 

Muskox on steppe tundra.  A diorama at the Illinois State Museum

illustrating Ice Age Henderson County, Illinois (downloaded on 22 February

2021 from iceage.museum.state.il.us)

 

          As the climate warmed and the ice retreated back northward, so also did the tundra and boreal forest.  Individual plants would have survived or died out as the changing environment allowed; but for each species, continually shifting the boundaries of distribution along with favorable conditions; so that, gradually over many years, tundra gave way to boreal forest, with both eventually no longer able to survive in Illinois.  Deciduous forest and prairie species would then thrive where tundra and spruce forests could not.  And this reminds me that the state of nature is continually poised for change, ready to exploit or avoid a situation when the time is appropriate.  Change, in fact, in the final analysis, is the norm; not any one set of conditions that happen to be there when we start paying attention.

          Oh, where the line of thought leads beginning with a simple rough-legged hawk sighting!  Images of where that bird came from, what it might have seen in its life, and what other individuals of the species may have experienced through deep time.  Then, seeing the land in front of me not as it is, but as it had been, and what it might become. 

          But soon the spring bird migration will be underway, with species returning to Illinois from the southern hemisphere.  Where in time and place might sightings of those migrants take me?

 

Selected References

Berkson, A. and Wiant, M.D., editors.  2001.  Discovering Illinois archaeology.  Illinois Association for the Advancement of Archaeology and the Illinois Archaeological Survey.

Chorlton, W.  1983.  Ice ages.  Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia.

Illinois State Museum.  iceage.museum.state.il.us referenced on 22 February 2021.

Killey, M.M.  1998.  Illinois’ ice age legacy.  GeoScience Education Series 14.  Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois.

Pielou, E.C.  1991.  After the ice age:  the return of life to North America.  The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.

 

Falling Ice

The other night, a red fox passed through our backyard.  It barked a few times, sounding a bit like a cat trying to sound like a dog. The next morning, I saw unmistakable fox tracks in the snow among numerous rabbit tracks.  And for the next two days, I often thought of the fox and of another, earlier time when my wife Julie and I saw a fox at our Quiver Lake cabin along the Illinois River valley. 

        We were relaxing on the cabin’s screened front porch on a late summer afternoon, quietly looking out over the bluff side and lake, getting ready to head back to our home in Macomb.  Reluctant to leave, our attention was unfocused, trying to absorb the scene one last time before packing up the car.  So when a fox ran across our view, quickly out of the brush and then back into it, we both looked at each other as if to ask, Is that really what we just saw?  The sighting made the entire day stand out against an already unusual year (2020):  warm memories to reflect upon during cold winter days.  The recollection made me want to visit the cabin again, even though it was shut down for the winter.

        So on the first good day following the weekend’s winter storms, I quickly dispensed with the few errands that demanded attention and headed for the Illinois River valley, nearly an hour away.  The town roads and rural highways were clear, but the surrounding countryside was blanketed in a continuous layer of snow and ice, and the exceptionally bright morning sun glared downward, reflecting off a glistening plain of white in every direction as far as I could see across the barren farm fields.  As I approached the Illinois River bluffs, the thickness and pervasiveness of the ice cover increased.  Tree branches drooped from the weight; fallen limbs lined the roads; and with temperatures just above freezing, ice and melt water literally rained from roadside trees, every now and again crashing down in great cascades upon the vehicle’s windshield as if I were traveling through a melting glacier.

        At the cabin, raccoon and squirrel tracks ran up and down our cement walkway leading to the sandy beach far below.  But fox tracks, I did not see.  So I focused my attentions on the blue sky, the half-frozen Quiver Lake, and distant floodplain forests, all covered in ice, across the lake and at Chautuaqua National Wildlife Refuge.  A group of Wilson’s snipe, which had been foraging in the seeps along the water’s edge, took flight as I emerged from beneath tall cottonwoods; across the lake, a bald eagle perched near the top of a tree; Canada geese and greater white-fronted geese lounged on the ice; and within minutes, a group of common mergansers executed flawless soft landings in the water near the geese.  I could have stayed there all day, reveling in this classic winter scene, but cold breezes off the lake were already beginning to penetrate my thin clothing.

 

Quiver Lake with trees glazed in ice, January 5, 2021

 

        With an extra jacket and hood, I ate a sandwich on the cabin’s front porch, much quicker than I normally would have.  My bare hands became colder by the minute, but I enjoyed listening to the honking geese, searching for an elusive fox, and watching ice fall from trees.  And with every crystal changing from solid to liquid, with every drip, it was one more step toward spring, still many weeks and winter storms away.

 

Birding to a Time and Place

 

“I remember everything, things I can’t forget…” – from the song I Remember Everything by John Prine

 

In our small Macomb backyard, under warm Indian Summer breezes and falling leaves, I looked beyond the overhead electrical wires into the unblemished blue sky, thinking about great egrets.  (Egrets are large [39 inches from bill tip to tail tip] long-legged, pure white birds usually seen only in wetlands or near lake shores or river banks.)  I was thinking about them because they seemed so remote from my urban surroundings; even a flyover would be unlikely; they also reminded me of some of my favorite wild places, from which, at that moment, I was far removed.  Comforting images among the sound of leaf blowers and mulching mowers.

 

Great egret at Shem Creek Park, South Carolina, 2019

 

          I saw my first great egret in 1984 at a small wetland near Chicago.  I was back at home in Berwyn, a Chicago suburb, after living two years in southern Illinois.  Never wanting to move back, I preferred the small university town of Carbondale near the forested Shawnee Hills; but this decision was forced by personal finances, of which there was not much, with only slight improvements on the horizon (the classic boomerang trajectory).  Living in the attic again, with its low, sloping ceiling and one small window, I missed the openness and abundant public lands of southern Illinois.  And so I was often drawn to the Cook County Forest Preserves, most of which were kept in a natural state with only minimal management focused on maintaining specific habitats such as prairie, open oak woodlands, or wetlands.  There were many official and unofficial trails, and I soon had a favored route. 

        Mostly I followed an unmarked game trail heavily used by the preserve’s abundant white-tailed deer population, and rarely did I encounter people, as most folks gathered near the picnic shelters or stayed on the marked trail system.  So I was rather startled early one morning, when I thought no one else was around, to hear a man, only a few feet away, say, “Did you see the crane?  I see him here all the time.”  “No,” I curtly replied.  I never saw the man until he spoke up, so I was immediately on my guard, much as I would be if similarly approached in a dark Chicago alley.  The “crane” stood in the shallows of a marsh, just on the edge of open water.  I took a quick look at the bird and then quickly continued on my way, thinking that in the future I would need to pay more attention to surroundings, even on a remote trail; this was Cook County, after all.

        Later on, I looked up the “crane” in a field guide and saw that it was, in fact, not a crane, but a great egret.  At the time, I was only beginning to learn how to identify birds, and I was quite excited at seeing what seemed like a rare species.  That excitement stayed with me throughout the summer as I encountered many other bird species for the first time, and I had a feeling that I was on the cusp of a major life change; I see now that there was my life before becoming a birder and another more fulfilling, questioning, and aware life thereafter.

        Yet simply keeping track of the birds that I saw (the very basic definition of a birder) would not have sustained my interest for very long.  The aesthetic aspect of birds is, of course, highly appealing; and many times, especially in recent years, I will watch birds simply because they are beautiful and they make me feel good.  But what has really kept my interest has been trying to understand each species’ relationship to its habitat, and this necessarily requires watching and interpreting behavior, sometimes in detail for long periods.      

        Our cabin along the Illinois River bluffs provides the perfect setting for serious birding; there is an expansive view of the three-mile-wide river valley and access to Quiver Lake, a large backwater connected to the river and adjacent to Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.  From my perspective, once living in a big city and now in a small town, the river valley is a wilderness, and my access is through the cabin.  It’s where I can sit for hours on end to see the day unfold, to consider meanings. 

        From April to October, great egrets are fairly common at Quiver Lake, depending upon what the river is doing.  During floods, there is often little shallow water for them to slowly stalk prey (small fish), and the egrets must fly elsewhere in search of appropriate wetland habitats.  Sometimes even the forests are flooded.  But during other times, especially in August and September when the river is usually at its lowest levels, much of upper Quiver Lake, near the cabin and Chautauqua Refuge, is a series of mudflats with several shallow streams of water fed by Quiver Creek near the refuge boundary.  Fish are then easy to spot and catch in the shallow waters, and this attracts great egrets and many other large fish-eating birds such as great blue herons, snowy egrets, ring-billed gulls, Caspian terns, and American white pelicans in deeper water.  And, of course, the mud flats usually attract shorebirds from a variety of species.

 

Quiver Lake at low water, showing mud flats and seeps

 

        When conditions are just right and the river valley is teaming with birds, I’ll bring a folding chair down to the lakeside, which is lined with seeps of pure groundwater gently flowing into countless tiny channels from the sandy bluff side bottom into the muddy lake bed.  Through a spotting telescope, I’ll pick out a single bird to watch until my attention inevitably begins to dissipate or my eyes begin to strain.  There is always a reward, from the dramatic scene of an osprey diving into the water, emerging with a fish in its talons, to a small nugget of information on how an egret swallows a fish larger than its own head.  In my field notes on September 22, 2020, I wrote the following:  The egret struggled to position the fish (a gizzard shad about 6 to 8 inches long) correctly so that it could swallow, and even dropped it a few times in the water, but quickly retrieving it each time.  Eventually through sheer persistence, the egret flipped its head and neck in just the right way, and the fish moved right into its beak and down its throat.  Here the neck muscles took over, and I could see the bulge in the egret’s neck, caused by the fish, slowly move downward.  In doing this, it took frequent sips of water to help move the fish downward.  I fully expected the egret to give up, as the shad simply seemed too big to swallow; and then, after the fish had actually entered its throat, I expected the bird to choke.  But it never showed any sign of distress or impatience, obviously having successfully performed such an act many times before.

 

                                       *        *        *

        Soon after that warm November day in my urban backyard, when I was connecting to wild areas through thoughts of the great egret, I returned to the cabin, knowing that within a few days I would have to close it down for the winter.  But so far the warm weather had continued, and it truly felt like summer again; I was beginning to forget about the coming cold weather, even though fall colors reminded me otherwise.  The river had stayed low; mud flats were still there; and quite a few shorebirds were still around, but I could find no great egrets.  They had gone south for the year, and I probably would not see another one until April of the following year, which seemed so far away.  How would the world change between now and then?  I hoped that changes would be for the better, but for this year, at least, most trends were going in the other direction. 

        Later in the day, just after sundown, when the dark forest trees on the other side of Quiver Lake stood in contrast against the yellow-and-orange glare of the western sky, two great horned owls called.  One of the owls then flew to a nearby tree, and was soon followed by the other owl from across the lake.  I took this to be a positive sign for the future, and thought about my first great horned owl over thirty-five years ago, not far from that first great egret.  My mind became filled with images, as if I had forgotten not one detail over the years.  Powerful memories they were.  And I was transported in time and place.

 

Quiver Lake just after sundown, November 6, 2020
     

 

Jays in the Neighborhood

Over the last few days, while having morning coffee in the backyard, I’ve had the impression there were more blue jays in town.  Their calls seemed to be more frequent and from groups of two or more, unlike the summer months when long periods would pass with only scattered calls.  But at any season, when a hawk or owl is around, jays seem to come in from every direction to harass the patient raptor, who endures the bullying for quite a while before being chased off, usually followed by several jays and other species of birds.  After witnessing such activity, I am surprised by the actual number of birds around that until then remained hidden.  Soon, though, all of them melt back into the shadows, and all becomes relatively quiet and calm again.

 

Morning view from the back door

 

          On these late September days, there is a different feel in the air:  goldenrod is in full bloom; many trees show signs of fall colors; and there might be the occasional migrant bird from the boreal forest foraging nearby for only a short time before moving on.  On one such morning, I heard more than a few jays calling, and thought maybe they were after the local Cooper’s hawk.  As I looked upward, thirty to forty jays flew overhead in a loose formation moving toward the southwest.  They flew not in a serious energetic flight, but in a smooth almost coasting manner, flapping their wings like gentle fans rather than with high power thrusts.  It was a pace that could probably be kept up for a long time.  So from this behavior I determined that these were migrating jays—quite likely from faraway origins, maybe even southern Ontario—clearly on their way further south than my Macomb town.  Other migrant jays from the North might stay around Macomb and nearby woodlands all winter; at the same time, many of the local jays may have moved on, possibly out of Illinois entirely, or not.

          The reason why the jays engage in what might be termed “relay migration” is unclear.  If there were a lack of food resources in the area, then all of the jays should move on.  If some local jays traveled south to avoid cold Macomb winters, why would others tolerate that same winter?  If the motivation to migrate is not food availability or habitat suitability, what other factors might indicate to a jay that it has gone far enough or that it does not even need to leave its breeding area?  (Banding studies have provided some insight, but there are still many unknowns.)   

        Migrating is a risky adventure, but clearly worth the effort; otherwise, the behavior would not have been favored by natural selection.  At Hawk Ridge in Duluth Minnesota, I recall watching a constant stream of blue jays in flight around the southwestern edge of Lake Superior, clearly heading for a destination that was not northern Minnesota.  These birds were in serious power flights, warily sprinting over open areas from cover to cover.  They used caution because great numbers of migrating sharp-shinned hawks that prey on small birds also used the same flight strategy of going around the lake, rather than across, to avoid being caught in weather with no place to land.  I remember thinking of the jays as sharp-shinned hawk food, although I had not actually seen a hawk capture a jay in full flight.

 

Lake Superior at Hawk Ridge, Duluth, MN

 

          In terms of bird activity, there is always something happening in the neighborhood, especially when overwintering flocks of blue jays patrol the streets.  But to see most of it usually requires some attention, noticing small movements and sounds that are necessarily ignored or downplayed because of the myriad small demands of daily life.  If I had not taken the time during morning coffee to simply sit and observe, I would have missed the migrating jays.  Much later on that same day, I happened to look up from reading a book just as a small kettle of broad-winged hawks soared among the clouds in a patch of sky only visible between the canopies of several backyard trees; the hawks slowly circled and drifted to the southwest and out of sight in the same direction as the earlier jays.  Two important memories on the same day, and each lasted less than a minute.

 

References

Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  2020.  All about birds, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blue_Jay, referenced 24 September 2020.

DeVore, S., S.D. Bailey, and G. Kennedy.  2004.  Birds of Illinois.  Lone Pine Publishing, Auburn, Washington.

Stewart, P.A.  1982.  Migration of blue jays in eastern North America.   North American Bird Bander 7(3): 107-112.

 

Wilderness Symbols Remain

“Country is what you make it; country is all in your mind.” — Tom T. Hall

 

Earlier this summer, a Wisconsin black bear wandered through western Illinois, making his way close to Saint Louis before being sedated and safely transported by authorities to wild areas with other bears.  Though I never saw the bear, he captured my attention, and for a while he was daily in my thoughts as a symbol of the wilderness that once was Illinois.  In my mind, I clearly saw open savannas covering a rolling landscape, closed canopy forests of tall bottomland oaks and hickories along the major rivers, and treeless prairies without end.  He also caused me to recall that in my life, domesticated though it may be, there has always been a need for some type of connection to “wildness.”

 

As the bear traveled through Illinois, he attracted crowds and media attention.

(Photo credit:  Screen grab from FOX 2 News St. Louis 2 July 2020)

 

          This year, my wife, Julie, and I moved from a rural area along the Illinois River valley to the small town of Macomb in McDonough County.  Our new home is on a quiet, shaded lane with carefully mowed lawns and manicured gardens.  To move was not an easy decision; we thought about it for several years, examining the pluses and minuses of leaving the country life.  Having both been raised in urban areas, we knew what town life would mean:  being closer to neighbors, the usual commotions and noises of even a small town, placing a distance between ourselves and the cycles of nature that we had long taken for granted, replacing nature’s randomness with orderly city blocks and streets in a well-behaved landscape.  When speaking of our former home, I grew fond of telling visitors, “There are no laws out here.”  In town, there are laws with plenty of enforcers.  I also expected that a special effort would be necessary to continue to connect with nature on a daily basis.

          But to my pleasant surprise, making that connection was only slightly difficult.  For the many bird species residing in our neighborhood or passing through town on their migrations made their presence known in a myriad of ways each day.  Early on during our move, a barred owl sounded off in the middle of the afternoon, almost like a welcome, helping to make us feel our decision had been right.  I thought, If owls are common here in town, what else could be here?  And I tried to establish a tradition of beginning most mornings sitting in the backyard with a cup of coffee, listening and watching.  There were the reliable species—such as the American robin, northern cardinal, Carolina wren, mourning dove, American goldfinch, European starling—that I would see or hear nearly every day; but there was always something else to cause excitement, if I waited long enough:  the rare Cooper’s hawk flying overhead for only a few seconds of observation; a ruby-throated hummingbird visiting our newly planted flower beds; a turkey vulture flapping its long wings low over the treetops, not yet able to catch air thermals for soaring.  One day as I sat reading in the shade, I noticed a slight movement just beyond our lilac thicket:  a doe with two fawns.  I stayed perfectly still, while they calmly walked past, about twenty feet away, to rest beneath our neighbor’s redbud tree.  Such a close encounter had never happened during nearly thirty years living in the country, where deer hunting is quite an integral part of the local culture.  It was another welcome to town.

 

Doe and fawn under neighbor's redbud tree, Macomb.

 

          When I first heard about the bear (eventually named Bruno in the media), he was near the Quad Cities in Iowa, and before too long he swam across the Mississippi River into Illinois.  He was traveling in a distinctly southern direction, almost as if by an unwavering compass heading.  “Where do you think he’s going?”  Julie asked, anxiety behind and in front of every word.  “Looks like he’s heading to our house,” I calmly replied, even knowing full well that meeting up with a bear in the wild—let alone near home—was one of her long-time fears.  At a much earlier time, I might have said that a densely populated town would be the last place a wild bear would go.  But I remembered that it was only twelve years earlier when a wandering cougar, presumably from suitable habitats hundreds of miles away, showed up deep within the city of Chicago, but also not far from a narrow habitat corridor along the North Branch of the Chicago River.  Frantic residents phoned the police, who shot the poor creature dead.  So a black bear leisurely passing through Macomb on his way elsewhere did not seem so farfetched.  Fortunately for Julie, the bear only came within ten miles of Macomb.

          It makes me feel good to know that these symbols of the wilderness stand poised just beyond civilization, which they sometimes easily enter, like the timber wolf that was photographed in Marshall County along the Illinois River valley in 2009.  I associate timber wolves with some of the wildest country I’ve known:  Isle Royale in Lake Superior, Michigan’s upper Peninsula, and northeastern Minnesota.  Simply seeing these place names on the page brings back a lifetime of good wilderness memories, giving me a small jolt of the wanderlust I so strongly felt in my younger days.  And the connection to wildness is made; that’s all it takes.  Wilderness is as much a type of place as it is a perception of the land, a feeling; in a way, all in one’s mind.  I know it when I see; and I don’t require official parameters or a legal definition, as the federal Wilderness Act of 1964 provides^a, or to have someone explain it to me.  My focus is on the connection between what I see or envisage and its meaning, which may be easy to make in a place like Isle Royale, a federally designated “wilderness,” but more difficult, yet not impossible, in, for example, a small stand of forgotten timber just off an obscure Illinois back road.

 

Timber wolf in Marshall County, Illinois, in 2009.

(Photo credit:  Natural Resources Conservation Service)

 

          I may be able to think of an undeveloped island in the Mississippi River as a wilderness, but it is important for me to know that the big wilderness areas are still there, even though I may not visit them very often, and some I may never visit.  Because the day will surely come when age wins out (still many years away, I hope), when carrying a backpack full of gear to a remote campsite is no longer an option (even though I have not actually exercised that option for quite a few years), and thinking about wildness may one day be all I can do to maintain a connection with nature, notwithstanding the birds outside my home office window or in the back yard.  But more significant, those large, intact habitats keep the possibility alive for a cougar, timber wolf, or black bear to once again venture into Illinois…and again and again.

 

Isle Royale (572,000 acres) in Lake Superior.

 

A shallow interior slough at Long Island (7.4 miles long by

2.0 miles at its widest point) on the Mississippi River,

near Quincy, Illinois.  This wild island is part of the 

Great River National Wildlife Refuge.

 

 

^aThe Wilderness Act of 1964 (PUBLIC LAW 88-577-SEPT. 3, 1964) states the following:  A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.  An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

 

References

Barnum, S.  2020.  Black bear spotted in McDonough County.  Saturday, June 27, 2020, pages A1 and A2.  The McDonough County Voice, Macomb, Illinois. 

Gorner, J, J. Manier, and T. Shah.  2008.  Cops kill cougar on North Side.  Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-04-15-0804140895-story.html referenced 27 August 2020.

 

Prairie to the Horizon

On a recent afternoon, far from any chores at home, I found myself at the tallgrass prairie’s edge at Lakeview Nature Area in McDonough County.  There were several trails to choose from, but a distant, singing sedge wren soon decided my direction, for a better look at the bird.  And it wasn’t long before I saw it perching about five feet above the ground at the top of a dead shrub, surrounded by a dense mixture of wildflowers and prairie grasses. 

        While focusing on the wren, I heard the undulating song of an American goldfinch in flight, common yellowthroats from several directions, and a song sparrow from a patch of shrubs.  But as long as the wren was singing I found it difficult to look at anything else, as I rarely encounter this strictly grassland species on a day-to-day basis.  After a few minutes, the small bird flew off, and I continued the hike, freer to notice other things.  Big bluestem grass had recently begun to bolt throughout the prairie, sending its multi-pronged panicles high above the other prairie plants, perhaps five or six feet tall, commanding attention by their movements with every gust.  Common milkweed was still in bloom in places, and occasionally a whiff of its fragrant scent, like a natural air freshener, floated past on warm breezes.  And beyond the prairie and across the county road to the east, agricultural fields stretched as far as I could see below highly dynamic cloud formations reaching to great heights, possibly a sign of developing thunderstorms.  It was a timeless scene, one that might have repeated any number of times in the Illinois landscape for thousands of years—over tallgrass prairie, though, not corn fields.

 

The Lakeview Nature Area prairie, August 8, 2020.

 

[Listen to a singing sedge wren at Lakeview Nature Area by clicking the link

Download Sedge wren at Lakeview Prairie 8-Aug-2020.]

 

        The Lakeview prairie that I walked through in search of the sedge wrens was very special, especially because large patches of prairie in Illinois are few and far between.  Prior to the 1800s, just over half the land cover of Illinois was prairie of various types, but by the end of that century, most of it had been developed into agriculture or other uses.  In fact, an inventory of prairie remnants completed in the late 1970s found that only 0.013 percent of the original Illinois prairie remained, and most of this was scattered over the state in small fragments along railroad lines, at old cemeteries, on land poor for agriculture, and on steep southwestern-facing hillsides.  Donald Culross Peattie wrote about this transformation in his classic 1938 novel, A Prairie Grove:  “But we have come to subdue the grasses, to conquer the empire of locked roots.  The furrows lie even and open now, in spring and fall.  The geometry of fields rules the landscape.  It is a land turned to use, and I do not say it is not a good use, but some purity is gone.  For the fallowed field does not grow up again into prairie…nothing wholly wild is left.” 

        To be sure, I can’t really blame those first nineteenth century farmers in Illinois who broke the prairie and converted it into sustenance and profit.  Few at the time could have been thinking about preserving the prairie for its scientific value as a unique, complex system of interacting plants, animals, soil, and climate—an ecosystem, in other words.  Even fewer may have thought about preserving the prairie for its intrinsic or aesthetic values.  For reasons of survival and the practice of business, putting all of the land to work would have been the only perspective that could have made sense at the time.  What business owner, for example, would decide at some point that he has made enough profit?  Who would say:  Well, it’s eleven o’clock already, and I guess we’ve made enough money today.  Everyone go home and relax.  Indeed, I suspect most were glad to see the prairie gone, as such open land could be a dangerous place to get caught traveling on foot or by animal power during a freak winter storm or while a wind-driven autumn fire rolled across the land—the famed “red buffalo.”  And crossing the prairie in summer must also have been a challenge, as described by one W. Oliver in 1843, as quoted in The Prairie of the Illinois Country by Robert F. Betz:  “Among the novel discomforts of the West, that of insects is one of no trifling character.  The whole earth and air seems teeming with them, and mosquitos, gallinippers, bugs, ticks, sand-flies, sweat-flies, house-flies, ants, cockroaches, etc., join in one continued attack against one’s ease.”  Christiana Holmes Tillson, traveling through the Illinois prairie in 1822 further illustrates what might have been a typical perspective concerning the prairies, as she wrote that “…I could not succeed in finding anything to admire in the prospect around….”  And later in the same book:  “ …to those who have seen western prairies after the autumnal fires have passed over, leaving them in all their blackness, with an occasional strip of coarse grass or a scrubby bush, it will be needless to describe, and I think hard to gather beauties from it.”  At the same time, a notable exception to the foregoing view is that of Eliza W. Farnham in her book Life in Prairie Land, published in 1846, concerning the Illinois prairie:  “We crossed a little stream at some distance from the town, and our road thence onward, for more than a mile, wound among beautiful heights, thinly wooded and covered with the clean brown grass.  As we mounted one of these the country opened before us, and swept away to the eastern horizon, a distance of many miles—a smooth, open plain, undotted by a tree or other familiar object.  I can never forget the thrill which this first unbounded view on a prairie gave me.  I afterwards saw many more magnificent—many richer in all elements of beauty….”  One wonders how different Illinois would look today if more at the time had shared Farnham’s sense of aesthetics in nature.

        The largest and perhaps best example of a tallgrass prairie that has survived throughout all the turmoil of a continually growing Illinois is at Goose Lake Prairie State Park (2,537 acres) in northeastern Illinois, which I first visited in 1980, at a time when trees from surrounding lands had been gradually gaining a foothold over the natural prairie for many years.  Since that time, resource managers have been more consistent at conducting controlled fires to maintain the prairie and discourage tree invasion.  So that particular prairie, at least, is now in better shape than when I first saw it.

 

Goose Lake Prairie State Park, Grundy County, 1980.

 

        Prairies have also been restored on a widespread basis throughout the state, though still only in comparatively small fragments.  The 55-acre prairie at Lakeview Nature Area, in fact, is a restoration, planted over fallow agricultural fields, which were likely, in turn, once prairie or a mix of open timber and prairie, commonly referred to as “savanna.” 

        Still, the overall feeling when walking over the Lakeview prairie is the same as at Goose Lake Prairie, this sense of existing outside of the present time.  Big bluestem, being a dominant grass at both sites and a signature tallgrass prairie species, confirms that notion; because even though a prairie consists of wildflowers, shrubs, and grasses, it is the grass that truly defines a grassland.  The big sky, unobstructed winds, and the sounds of insects and prairie birds, such as the sedge wren, complete the landscape.  So there is little reason to lament that it may never be possible to restore prairie to the horizon as it once was.  For Illinois, those days are long gone (carefully staged and manipulated photographs, though, may hint at such a view).  More satisfying it is to defer chores, and to celebrate and improve what we still have.

 

Goose Lake Prairie Natural Area (photo courtesy of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources). 

 

Guzy Pothole Wetlands, Shelby County, with monarchs feeding on swamp milkweed.
  

 

References

Betz, R.F.  2011.  The prairie of the Illinois Country.  DPM Ink, Westmont, Illinois.

Farnham, E.W.  1988.  Life in prairie land.  Originally published in 1846.  University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.

Peattie, D.C. 1938.  A prairie grove.  The Literary Guild of America, Inc.,  New York.

Taylor, C.A., J.B. Taft, and C.E. Warwick, editors.  2009.  Canaries in the catbird seat:  the past, present, and future of biological resources in a changing environment.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 30.  Champaign.

Tillson, C.H.  1995.  A woman’s story of pioneer Illinois.  Originally published in 1919.  Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville.

 

If a Tree Falls

The sun had already been up for a couple of hours when I finally ventured out on the morning of July 17^th, coffee in hand, to check on the neighborhood bird life.  But the birds were not so active or vocal.  Even the robins, whose songs usually were the most dominating throughout the day, barely made a few calls.  Of course, the breeding season was winding down, and many bird species were beginning to prepare for fall migrations.  I had barely gotten used to the summer bird community of my new town, having moved to Macomb only in late February, and I now regretted not spending time outside just after sunrise listening to the morning chorus.

          The strange quiet reminded me of a time three years ago, waking up one winter morning to find the hearing in my right ear muffled and down to only about thirty percent capacity.  After a few days with no improvement, I feared permanent hearing loss.  Months thereafter followed, trying every solution in the general practitioner’s tool box, before being referred to a specialist (Dr. Gary Shaw of Graham Hospital in Canton) who suggested that nasal surgery with a tube placed into my eardrum was the only viable option to restore my hearing. 

            I was fully conscious during the tube placement, which involved drilling a hole through my eardrum; the pain was at a scale unlike anything I have ever experienced, and it sounded like ten 747 jet engines screaming at full throttle.  I tried to remain as stoic and still as I could manage; my wife Julie could not watch without crying.  And less than a year later when the tube needed to be reinstalled, she could not be in the same room.  As if that were not bad enough, soon after the initial tube placement I would find myself on a hospital cart saying farewell to Julie (there are certainly cases of patients not waking up from anesthesia), then being wheeled into an operating room full of strangers in masks; I watched the anesthetic flow into my veins, and then…blackness.  My nasal passages would be excavated and widened using surgical tools inserted through the nostril.  Recovery took weeks; and in the end, my hearing returned and I could breathe better.  I felt thankful for the expertise and knowledge of Dr. Shaw, the many years he spent learning his craft, and to live at a time and in a country where such a complex surgery could be available, attainable, and successfully completed; because it was not so long ago that a simple ailment such as a toothache might have meant an agonizing, prolonged death from infection.  So I looked forward to the following spring, when I would fully hear bird songs again, and appreciate those songs as never before. 

          And yet, it still was not long before I once again began to slip back into the old pattern of taking life’s simple pleasures and comforts for granted.  To ease my conscience, I decided that such a state of mind must be a natural tendency and necessary for a relaxed life.  Is the better alternative to live as if each moment were the last, as if everything familiar and loved could vanish without warning in mere seconds, living life always at a high state of anxiety?  And now, the COVID-19 pandemic has descended upon the world, being a grim reminder once again, like the 9/11 attacks in 2001, not to take anything for granted, not even something as simple as a reliable supply of bathroom tissue.

          So at the very least, as I lie in bed each morning, hearing the first northern cardinal of the day singing as if it knew that that song would be its last ever, I’ll take a moment to really listen.  For if I did not acknowledge this bird’s efforts, would it then be completely ignored?  I am reminded of the age-old question:  If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?  Imagine a continuous bird song chorus each morning tracking the sunrise the world over, moving from east to west across the continents, shifting each year between hemispheres;  and, wildlife notwithstanding, much of it not heard by anyone.  But the songs are still there.

 

[Audio extra:  On June 13, 2020, from a canoe I recorded the morning songbird chorus in a flooded forest along the Illinois River at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge.  To hear the recording, click this link: 

Download Sounds of a flooded forest at Quiver Lake-Chautauqua NWR 13-June-2020 ]

   

 

From a Gathering of Blackbirds

Even though the air temperature was 93 degrees F, where I sat, under the shade of a large cottonwood tree, it was pleasant, especially when the wind gusted off Quiver Lake.  There I could sit for hours watching the white caps roll, with swallows foraging for insects just above the water and turkey vultures soaring beneath billowy clouds.  But it was late in the day, and I needed to return home, an hour away in Macomb, for dinner with my wife, Julie.

 

Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, at the cabin

 

          Just when I was about to slowly stand up, several red-winged blackbirds and common grackles flew across my view, then landed in a silver maple tree just above the water’s edge.  More calling blackbirds then arrived from further up the shoreline toward Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge to join with those perching in the maple tree, but some of the original birds flew onward to other trees down the lakeshore.  This loosely knit flock was the first gathering of blackbirds that I had seen this summer.  The flocks often include brown-headed cowbirds, rusty blackbirds, and European starlings (this species, though, is not in the blackbird family), and they usually begin coalescing every year sometime in the middle of July just after the breeding season is completed.  It is a benchmark in the year, an event that I use to mark the seasonal progression, a moment when I begin to think of the fall and coming winter—though summer’s heat and humidity may be extreme—and what surprises the following year may bring, both good and bad.

          But it’s obviously easier to look backward than attempt to predict what may come to pass.  For example, one year ago, I could not have anticipated how abruptly we would move from our primary residence in the rural countryside of Mason County to the small western Illinois town of Macomb.  Such thoughts were, of course, in our minds as a distinct possibility for several years; but the fact of the move, and that it happened so quickly after the process had begun in October, shocked and transformed our placid lives in a way that has yet to return to an equilibrium.  When we return to Mason County to manage our remaining affairs or to visit the cabin at Quiver Lake, we still cannot help but feel, even after six months, that we are back home.

          Last July we had not yet even talked about taking a trip of a lifetime in the coming November to visit several southeastern states, waters with wild manatees and alligators, and to spend a late afternoon drinking wine and watching hang gliders above northwestern Georgia’s Lookout Mountain.  The thought had never entered my mind at any time in the past, let alone last July, that in recent weeks a black bear from Wisconsin would swim across the Mississippi River twice, into and out of Iowa, before entering western Illinois, all the while traveling quickly in a purposeful southern direction, passing around ten miles west of our new home in town, then swim across the river again to Missouri north of St. Louis, and all the while be tracked by the media and thousands of people concerned about the bear’s welfare (Bruno the bear he would be dubbed); in October, I would discover through an internet search that a good childhood friend, Sigi Bigelis, had been dead from cancer for five years, sadly answering a nagging question in my mind of why we had lost touch; I’m sure that few last year would have predicted the world would soon be in an upheaval from the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) and plunged into a self-inflicted, deep economic recession from governmental mandates attempting to control the virus’s spread, perhaps permanently changing the way people interact in public, from wearing face masks to social distancing to relegating handshaking as a thing of the past; and I never expected to be witness to widespread civil unrest, racial tensions, and domestic violence at scales and intensities not recalled in my memory since the late 1960s. 

        The prosperity of last summer seems more than a lifetime ago.  But from those good times, well before everything had collapsed amid the virus and social anarchy, NASA—ever optimistic about the future—announced concrete plans to not only return to the Moon by 2024, but to use the new Moon missions to establish a gateway toward sending astronauts to Mars, hopefully still within my lifetime (effects from the COVID-19 pandemic apparently have not significantly altered those plans).

          And so, the next year will unfold as it will, no matter what I do, say, or think, just as the case has always been.  But with so many negative arrows hitting their targets, it’s a struggle to remain upright and positive, even with NASA in my corner, especially with multiple daily reminders of life-threatening dangers ready to strike by merely breathing the air at a supermarket checkout line, while at the same moment attempting and often failing to stay at least six feet away from others, reminding myself not to think of them as walking contagions, and keeping my hands away from my face. 

        Under my cottonwood tree at Quiver Lake with its floodplain forest wilderness along the Illinois River, I feel safe from threats, finding solace in nature as I always have.  Surrounded by such peace, I am always reluctant to leave; but leave I must, in order to live, just as I must confront the world outside and all that it may hurl in my direction.

 

Bird Expectations

At our new home in an older section of Macomb, Illinois, I’ve taken to beginning most days sitting quietly with a cup of coffee just outside our back door, listening and watching for birds. I fully expected there to be differences in the breeding bird communities between our new urban location and our former home in rural Mason County along the Illinois River valley. In the more manicured setting of Macomb, with less habitat diversity than the country, I knew there would be less species, but I also expected some overlap. Species such as the house sparrow, European starling, northern cardinal, and American robin are simply a given for any Illinois town. So I could not help from mentally making lists of those species seen and those that I eventually expected. 

        But now that the spring migration was over, where almost any species is at least possible, I was not exactly sure which species I definitely should not expect to see. By the middle of June, I had still not logged a rose-breasted grosbeak or a Baltimore oriole, which I found surprising. So I started thinking more about habitats. I would not, of course, expect true grassland species, such as a Henslow’s sparrow or dickcissel, in town, nor would I expect wetland species like a black-necked stilt. On the other hand, Killjordan Creek, less than a block from my home, could be a wild card. I had already seen, for example, a great blue heron flying high overhead apparently following the creek through town. With that thought, a belted kingfisher is high on my list of expectations. When a flash of yellow in a nearby spruce tree caught my attention, I immediately knew it as an American goldfinch, but the deep yellow made me think of the prothonotary warbler. That was certainly a bird I would not expect in my neat little neighborhood, because if any bird can be considered the quintessential floodplain forest songbird, that species is it. I should also not expect forest songbirds that require large expanses of unbroken mature forest, such as the cerulean warbler or veery. But what about shrubland species? I had already checked off the brown thrasher, gray catbird, and eastern towhee; so more shrubland birds might be expected. Blue grosebeak? Common yellowthroat? Not yet.

        From a bird’s perspective, the in-town environment must seem like a simplified type of savanna: large scattered trees within a mosaic of grasses, shrubs, and large open areas. If that is, indeed, the case, then I should be looking for birds that can also be found in savannas and habitat edges. The key word, however, is “simplified”: much of the open area is pavement; the short-clipped lawns and trimmed shrubbery in town are a far cry from a prairie grass-forb mixture with hazelnut thickets; and the standing dead timber found in natural areas, so useful to species such as the red-headed woodpecker, does not last long in an urban environment, especially when a fall would likely be over a house, road, or overhead wires.

 

Do birds perceieve this environment as a simplified savanna?

 

        Birding in town is a challenge not just because there are less bird habitats than in the country, but because one cannot simply roam around at will pointing a pair of powerful binoculars toward wherever an interesting bird might be. I can just imagine the reaction if a not-quite-recognizable bird song made its way over from the smokebush across the street, which also happens to be in front of a neighbor’s living room window. “Officer…seriously, you’ve never heard of a white-eyed vireo?” So I’ll continue to adjust my expectations to town life, and perhaps have a nice surprise once in a while near the back door—like the hermit thrush during migration or the Cooper’s hawk that I had a glimpse of for about two seconds.

Twenty Years at a Mason County, Illinois, FeederWatch Station

By Thomas V. Lerczak

The month of March 2020 marked the end of the twentieth and final year in which I maintained a Project FeederWatch station (winter seasons) in Mason County, Illinois. Ten years before, I wrote a report (Lerczak 2010) that explained my rationale for beginning the project, as follows: In 1999, I had finally purchased my first home on about 3.5 acres in the sand hills east of Havana, Illinois. I always thought that if I ever became rooted, I would begin a long-term ecological study of one place in an attempt to gain insight into how and why changes occur in nature, especially within bird communities, over time. For my long-term bird study I chose to work with Project FeederWatch through the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. I made this decision because this project has a proven track record, beginning in 1987, with widespread participation…. The 2010 report also describes the site characteristics, the methods used to conduct the bird counts, and provides some simple data analyses. The present document provides a twenty-year summary, building on the earlier report.

        Table 1 lists the 49 species observed at my FeederWatch station, outside the living room window of my home. Eleven species were observed during every year of the project (downy woodpecker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, European starling, house sparrow, Eurasian tree sparrow, house finch, American goldfinch, dark-eyed junco, northern cardinal). Of these, only the black-capped chickadee and northern cardinal were seen on each of the 200 count periods (ten two-day count periods per winter season over 20 years). Six species (northern bobwhite, red-shouldered hawk, American kestrel, American crow, golden-crowned kinglet, chipping sparrow) were each observed on only one of the twenty years.

[Click on tables, figures, and photos to enlarge.]

        Figure 1 shows the cumulative increase in species over time, beginning with 21 species during the first year of the project (2000-2001 season), gaining 20 species over the next ten years (41 species at the 2009-2010 season), then finally adding eight species over the next seven years (49 species at the 2017-2018 season), with no new species added during the final two seasons. We can imagine that if this project were to continue indefinitely, all else being equal, more species would continue to be added, but likely not every year.

        For all twenty years, the mean number of species observed per count season was 27.4. Figure 2 shows the number of species observed during each count season (noted above each bar) relative to the mean. Seven out of the first ten years saw less than the mean, with six of the seven years being the first six years of the project; while only two of the second ten years were below the mean. Because there was a gradual increase in habitat diversity at the count site during the twenty-year project period, the greater number of species observed per season during the second half of the project is consistent with the general principle that species diversity is directly related to habitat diversity.

        The 2010 report had this to say about the count site habitat: When I first moved into my new home in the fall of 1999, the surrounding lands on my property were only slightly bird friendly. There were several large trees near the house and dense trees and shrubs around the perimeter of the acreage; but most of the land was a closely mowed lawn, with little wildlife cover. Only American robins and a few other species prefer this type of habitat. Birds had to fly over wide expanses of open area to reach the feeders near my windows from the cover that they found along the edge of the property and further away in the rural countryside with abundant woods and fields. But after a few years of only a minimal amount of mowing, trees and shrubs began to grow near the feeders, soon providing better bird habitat in terms of cover from predators (hawks) and branches for perching near the feeders. A further explanation of my habitat management “plan” can be found in an essay called “The Acorn Year” published in 2015. The two photographs below show the continued habitat changes in the direction of higher diversity.

 

Mason County FeederWatch station 13 February 2010

 

Mason County FeederWatch station, 19 March 2020

 

        The number of individual birds observed during each two-day count period was typically dominated by only a few species, which usually involved the Eurasian tree sparrow, house sparrow, house finch, and American goldfinch. Figures 3 through 6 show the mean group size of these species when they were observed. The mean group size of the non-native Eurasian tree sparrow varied quite a bit over the years, showing no obvious trends (Figure 3). In contrast, the house sparrow showed a clear downward trend (Figure 4). The mean group size for the house finch began in the low numbers during the 2000-2001 season, but then rapidly increased for several years before beginning a downward trend which continued (Figure 5). American goldfinch mean group sizes declined precipitously during the final three years of the project (Figure 6) for unknown reasons, while otherwise showing higher numbers during the rest of the second ten years of the project, which suggests that the American goldfinch may have benefited from less competition with the non-native house sparrow and non-native house finch (Figure 4, Figure 5, and Figure 6).

        Identifying patterns in the data using counts of individual birds rather than species can be problematical because the numbers observed can vary quite a bit for most species. For example, sometimes common grackles or European starlings showed up in large numbers, dominating the ground in the vicinity of the feeders and dominating the counts. But these large groups rarely stayed too long. The feeder regulars (e.g., black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker), as they might be termed, never really seemed to be much affected by these large groups. But comparing species with the five highest mean group size in 2000-2001 and 2019-2020 (Table 2), for example, shows how one group of 45 common grackles on 16 December 2000 (compared with no grackles seen for six two-day count periods and low numbers for three two-day count periods for the 2000-2001 season) can skew the overall impression of the entire count season. Were it not for that single count of grackles, the northern cardinal would have placed fifth during the 2000-2001 count season. And because the only grackle observation during the 2019-2020 count season was a single individual on 12 March 2020, this species tied for last place with a single eastern towhee observation also on 12 March 2020.

                                                * * *
        When I purchased the Mason County home, my intention was to stay there. I had already moved several times in my life, and I was weary of the disruptions and labor involved in the process. But alas, during the middle of the twentieth FeederWatch season at the Mason County site, I found myself moving to the small town of Macomb in western Illinois, illustrating very well how maintaining commitment is one of the greatest challenges in carrying out long-term studies. Researchers inevitably move on or grow old, and there might then be no one to continue the project. For my FeederWatch study, it would be great if the folks who purchase the Mason County home would continue the project, but I will not depend on that. Finally, future researchers may decide that a long-term project has run its course; they may lose sight of the original goals; or funding may be cut, and then the study ends.

        To keep a long-term study going, one must show results in the form of data analyses and, hopefully, startling conclusions. But drawing conclusions from any data can be exceedingly difficult. Accurately determining cause and effect requires much more than one simple set of data. For example, even though it is clear that the habitat structure and diversity increased over time at my site—from simple observations—I did not quantify those changes or provide a time series of photographs. So precisely tying specific changes in bird numbers to specific habitat changes becomes problematical. One example, though, is the brown creeper, which only showed up in the counts when the trees that I let grow became large enough for its use, and this did not happen until nine years into the study. The creeper was also present during three of the final ten years of the project, as the trees continued to grow.

        And what about habitat changes on adjacent properties and beyond? Were there regional influences that affected my bird counts? Was the decline in house finches and American goldfinches related to disease (Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis), as documented elsewhere by studies at the Cornell Lab? Why did counts of the house sparrow—a seemingly indestructible, highly adaptable, and competitive species—decline? Was it due to local competition with Eurasian tree sparrows or was it some other factor or combination of factors? Without a great deal of information collected simultaneously over the same time period, all I am left with is speculation.

        In the end, this twenty-year project gave me a great sense of satisfaction and insight into the complexities of nature and the reasons why drawing conclusions from limited information is a risky business. The Mason County FeederWatch study may be over, but I am already thinking about setting up a count site at my new home. I look forward to the insights that this might yield after the next twenty years.

 

Photo Gallery (click on photos to enlarge)

 

Black-capped chickadee on feeder, 10 November 2017

 

Tufted titmouse breaking seed apart on white pine branch, 2017-2018 season

 

A unique red-shouldered hawk observation, 18 November 2017

 

Red-bellied woodpecker at suet feeder, 2017-2018 season

 

Selected References

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 2020. House finch eye disease. https://feederwatch.org/learn/sick-birds-and-bird-diseases/#house-finch-eye-disease, referenced on 25 March 2020.

Lerczak, T.V. 2015. The acorn year. Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. 14:18-25. (Posted on The River Landing blog at https://theriverlanding.typepad.com/the_river_landing/2015/03/by-thomas-v-lerczak-the-day-i-moved-into-the-first-house-i-ever-owned-in-rural-central-illinois-i-planted-a-few-bur-oak-ac.html.)

Lerczak, T.V. 2010. Ten years at a Mason County, Illinois, FeederWatch station. Illinois Audubon (Winter 2010-2011 Issue):21-24. (Posted on The River Landing blog at https://theriverlanding.typepad.com/the_river_landing/2010/10/ten-years-at-a-mason-county-illinois-feederwatch-station.htm

 

[A pdf file of this post is available for download here: Download Twenty Years at a Mason County in columns.]

 

The Tree Swallow Threshold

By the middle of March here in central Illinois, signs of the transitioning seasons have been apparent for several weeks, although most are easily missed, such as the minor swelling of buds on what otherwise appear to be dormant plants. Changes in bird behavior or the sudden appearance of some species and lack of others are more obvious. But even with the birds, one has to be attentive to subtleties.

        On Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge’s Beer-can Trail, which follows the bluff top for a half-mile before dropping to the shoreline, the cool winds robbed much of the warmth from under my thin jacket. I walked quickly. Abundant lesser scaup and ruddy ducks bobbed within the white-capped waves of the refuge’s north pool; bright black and white male buffleheads occasionally stood out in contrast from the other waterfowl. Bald eagles soared over the refuge as they had all through the winter. Silver maple trees along the Illinois River showed a hint of pink from millions of miniature flower buds nearly ready to open. Though I panned back and forth with binoculars, there was little else to draw my attention. So I rested on a log for a few minutes behind a sheltering bur oak tree, picked out a bald eagle nest on the far side of the refuge, and then, because the lower shoreline return loop was submerged in flood waters, walked back on the same trail.

 

Trail intersection at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, Mason Co.

 

        Before heading home, I stopped at our Quiver Lake cabin, still shut down for the winter. Half way down the steps to the sandy beach, I trained my spotting scope on a bald eagle nest, just barely visible above the floodplain forest canopy between Quiver Lake and the Illinois River. An eagle perched on a dead branch above the nest. I looked forward to watching the young eaglets develop in the coming months.

        On the beach, I sat back in a comfortable chair, scanning the water and skies; and within a few minutes, found what I searched for all day (March 17th): the first tree swallows of the year. Several flew over the lake with more over the floodplain forest.

        The tree swallows mark a significant threshold in the spring bird migration. They are aerial insectivores, picking individual insects out of the air without a hitch as they fly up to great heights, dip down to the water level, climb back up to higher altitudes, or sharply turn as if pulled with reins—wherever an insect is detected. Energy is burned and replenished at the same time. Without the insects, the swallows would stay further south. Individuals that I saw were, in fact, the vanguard; if winter briefly returned with Arctic winds and snow, these birds would suffer, or possibly die; if not, they would have the first choice of the best nesting cavities. It’s a gamble. But this is how species adapt to expand their ranges or alter migration timing. Individuals are always testing the edge, pushing the envelope.

        More species will soon follow, now that the trees swallows have led the way. But my notes from previous years show that eastern phoebes, a flycatcher, should have already arrived. In some others years, American hazelnut began blooming in late February; this year it was mid-March. The seasonal transition seems a bit behind schedule. But is it? The timing of events in nature from year to year is an illustration of how variability is an inherent quality of nature, which is more like an ancient grandfather clock with slightly worn gears than a modern, precisely engineered Rolex watch. So taking that into consideration, this particular season seems to be right on track.

Red-headed Woodpecker Overwinters within a Central Illinois Black Locust Stand

It is well known that overwintering red-headed woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), a species experiencing a long-term population decline, are drawn to woodlands with abundant hard mast available in the fall, particularly from oak (Quercus spp.) trees. Red-headed woodpeckers store acorns in caches during the fall and defend the caches plus a small surrounding territory throughout the winter months, when they draw upon the mast for sustenance. Because of this close connection with oak woodlands, it seemed worthwhile to document observations of an overwintering red-headed woodpecker defending a territory within a stand of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) trees in the sand areas of rural Mason County, central Illinois (USA).

        Black locust is native to Illinois, but only in its far southern region; at the same time, it has become well established throughout the state, and except for southern Illinois, is considered an invasive species, and is a target for eradication during habitat improvement projects. The small black locust stand mentioned in this article (< 1.0 acre) is near the northwestern edge of a much larger tract of highly fragmented forest (approximately 400 acres) with black oak (Q. velutina) and hickory (Carya spp.); the surrounding area is mostly agricultural fields with small groups of homes or scattered home sites. Other less dominant tree species within the black locust stand include white mulberry (Morus alba), common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), Siberian elm (Ulmus pulima), and eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana). Small diameter (< 6 inches) snags are plentiful. Beyond the black locust stand is an open field where cold, north winds can blow unimpeded into the red-headed woodpecker’s territory.

        Oak woodlands experiencing mast years (i.e., unusually abundant mast) typically support higher numbers of overwintering red-headed woodpeckers than years with poor mast production. So the numbers of red-headed woodpeckers setting up winter territories in a particular stand of oaks can vary considerably from year to year (see related blog posts listed below). It follows that timber lacking mast trees would be of dubious benefit to overwintering red-headed woodpeckers.

        Because this particular red-headed woodpecker territory lacked immediately available mast to establish a sufficient cache—although travel to nearby mast trees outside of the overwintering territory must have occurred—and the territory can be exposed to the full brunt of weather systems from the north, there was a question of whether the red-headed woodpecker first observed during the fall of 2018 would survive the winter or possibly migrate before winter’s end in search of better habitat. So the presence of this bird was frequently monitored beginning in November 2018. There was a high degree of confidence that the woodpecker seen in the black locust stand on each day of observation was the same individual because overwintering red-headed woodpeckers defend territories rather than roam widely in search of food sources. [Interestingly, when a barred owl (Strix varia) was being mobbed by blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) and other species within the black locust stand, a second red-headed woodpecker was observed along with the original bird; these two birds were antagonistic toward one another, which suggested that the interaction occurred at a territorial boundary. This second red-headed woodpecker was observed several times throughout the winter, but not as consistently as the original bird.]

        By the third week of March, nearing the vernal equinox, the original red-headed woodpecker was still being observed on its territory. It was not clear if the second red-headed woodpecker was also defending its territory. Once overwintering behavior ceases, red-headed woodpeckers will likely migrate to breeding areas (open upland woods, oak savannas, floodplain forests, riparian areas).

 

Selected References

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-headed_Woodpecker referenced 14 March 2019.

DeVore, S., S.D. Bailey, and G. Kennedy. 2004. Birds of Illinois. Lone Pine Publishing, Auburn, Washington.

Leopold, D.J., W.C. McComb, and R.N. Muller. 1988. Trees of the central hardwood forests of North America. Timber Press, Portland Oregon.

Walk, J.W., M.P. Ward, T.J. Benson, J.L. Deppe, S.A. Lischka, S.D. Bailey, and J.D. Brawn. 2010. Illinois birds: a century of change. Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 31.

 

Related posts on The River Landing blog:

Record Count of Overwintering Red-headed woodpeckers 

Red-headed Woodpecker Count Plummets 

Red-headed Woodpecker Update Winter 2013-2014 

Return of Red-Headed Woodpeckers to Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve 

The Missing Red-Headed Woodpeckers of Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve 

Dead Trees, Disturbance, and Illinois' Red-headed Woodpeckers – Side Channels, Chapter 13 

 

By Thomas V. Lerczak, Havana, Illinois

 

 

First Signs

February 21

Rainy, damp weather has finally left central Illinois; clear skies and the sun have returned. The home trails have become soft and wet with water that has no place to go in the saturated ground. As I followed the trail through last year’s dry prairie grasses, an eastern bluebird sang in the distance, perched on an electrical wire along the roadside. The bird was close to the location where a month earlier my vehicle was bogged down in a deep, heavy snow drift in the middle of the road. On that day, a singing bluebird was not even on the horizon of my thoughts. Compared to when that fourteen-inch snow fell, winter days now are noticeably longer, serving as a reminder to begin searching for signs of spring, although the equinox is still a month away.

 

Home trails with standing pools of water

        Just the other day, I heard the first red-winged blackbird song of the season, although it seemed a rather tentative utterance. For me, that sound initiates the beginning of the spring bird migration, which will continue with a succession of species until late May. But an overwintering rough-legged hawk hovering over a nearby field suggests that it may still be some time before truly warm weather returns. This hawk is at home on a cold landscape; its breeding grounds are on the Arctic tundra of Canada, shared with polar bears, muskox, and snowy owls, among other species of the barren lands. Other northern birds that were at the feeders just a few days ago are further reminders that winter is still here: purple finch, dark-eyed junco, white-crowned sparrow, white-throated sparrow, and fox sparrow. These will all be long gone from Illinois by the time the prairie is in full bloom.

 

Remnants of January's fourteen-inch snowfall among prairie grasses

        While bird life hints of warmer times, plants are still dormant, although in other years, American hazelnut was already producing flowers by February 22nd. It seems like a colder, longer winter this year, with delayed bud development compared to other years. I have become fatigued by the gray days of wintry mix.
        Before heading home, I stopped to watch several thousand snow geese flying high overhead in overlapping “vee” formations, probably looking for resting or foraging areas. They will eventually join the rough-legged hawks at land’s end near the Arctic Ocean. The snow goose is a jittery species; sometimes an entire flock with thousands of individuals rises in flight at the slightest hint of a disturbance. Apparently that is what it takes for them to survive against predation. But to me, it seems wasteful of energy.
        For the next three months, as in other years, I will keep my senses trained on more first sightings and sounds of spring. In terms of timing, there is a great deal of variation from year to year, undoubtedly related to weather; but the overall behavioral patterns hold true.

A Flurry of Bird Activity

        Today’s forecast called for drizzle and freezing rain. But for the moment, the gray skies produced no precipitation. So after missing yesterday’s morning walk because of rain, I seized the opportunity to be out on the home trails again.
        The woods were initially quiet. I listened for calls of the red-headed woodpecker overwintering toward the northwest and heard nothing. Sometimes winter days are like that; birds are elsewhere or quietly perching, conserving their energy. On this first day of 2019, many cold days and snow are still ahead. And so, a successful behavioral pattern for the season would have evolved to plan for the worst. Being frugal with resources now may come in handy in a month when the ground may be covered beneath a foot of snow with trees encased in ice.
        When I passed the red-headed woodpecker’s territory, I saw a brief flash of the bird flying from one tree to another, busy keeping watch on its cache of mast or looking for dormant insects hidden within the bark of trees. As I approached a nearby stand of eastern red cedar trees, I heard a tufted titmouse; a few seconds later, two black-capped chickadees sounded off; then a white-breasted nuthatch. As I looked up, a downy woodpecker joined the scene with two blue jays following close behind. Soon I noticed a red-bellied woodpecker. I was in the midst of a mixed-species foraging flock.

 

Stand of  red cedar trees near the red-headed woodpecker territory

        Sometimes northern cardinals, brown creepers, golden-crowned kinglets, and a few other species join such a group, traveling through the forest, searching for food. So when I hear one of these species, I always stop in my tracks and patiently wait for others to show up. (Of course, the red-headed woodpeckers stay aloof, because they have a much different winter survival strategy.) Joining a guild of foraging species would seem to be much more efficient than being a loner: more eyes looking out for predators and food concentrations on multiple, simultaneous routes, covering greater areas in less time.
        Then just as the loose flock of foragers seemed to appear out of nothing, in a few moments, they had moved on. I too continued on my way, with an eye toward the open fields to the west, where a low-flying northern harrier is always a good possibility, before heading home. Just a typical winter morning out on the trails, and a good way to begin the new year.

 

The home trail and cedars at the western property line

 

In Defense of Territory

December 10, 2018

        As I stepped outside to begin my morning trail walk, the first sound I heard was a calling red-headed woodpecker.  The call came from a black locust stand at the northwest corner of my 3.7-acre rural property. The last time I had heard such a call, sounding like a short trill or “qrrr,” was ten days before, when I nervously watched a ¼-mile-wide tornado slowly moving northward along the Illinois River valley about seven miles to the west. Over the years, I have learned to interpret the “qrrr” call as either a low level territorial warning or a serious alarm, depending upon its intensity and volume. This call only seemed a bit agitated. So I continued on my walk and forgot about the calling red-headed woodpecker.
        About fifteen minutes later, as I approached the black locust stand, I heard the loud, harsh alarm call of a northern mockingbird. When I looked upward, a barred owl crossed my field of view just below the tree canopy; it flew only a short distance, though, before landing at the top of a black locust tree. The mockingbird was immediately on the owl, calling and jumping from branch to branch. The owl, of course, seemed bored, slowly turned its head and stared directly at me. In a few seconds, two red-headed woodpeckers appeared, excitedly uttering their “qrrr” alarm calls at peak volume; they joined the mockingbird mobbing the owl, but also seemed to be distressed with each other. Over the last few weeks, I was aware of only a single red-headed woodpecker overwintering territory, but I now suspected that the owl was perching in a tree near the boundary of two territories. Red-headed woodpeckers store mast (acorns, for example) for the winter in caches usually placed in standing dead trees; and while mobbing the owl, each was drawn away from protecting its cache, which then would have been vulnerable to plunder by squirrels and other birds such as red-bellied woodpeckers and gangs of blue jays that are never far away.

 

Woodpecker hole in black locust snag, likely with a cache of acorns

        So I was not surprised when several blue jays soon formed an uneasy alliance with the woodpeckers to continue harassing the barred owl, who calmly looked around a bit, but was definitely more interested in keeping its eyes on me. The added attention, though, must have been too much, so the owl flew toward a larger tract of woods on the neighboring property. With the owl gone, all of the mobbing birds rapidly disappeared into the background. A gentle breeze once again became the loudest sound. And I thought back nineteen years to a conversation I had with a conservation-minded friend just after I had purchased this property, who said, “The first thing I would do is cut down all those invasive black locust trees.” I am certainly glad that I did not listen.

 

 

What Have I Been Missing?

        Early on this cold, sunny morning, I went for a hike on the home trails, and then sat for a while with the honey bee hives. All the bees, of course, were inside keeping warm; no activity to watch. So I simply sat and listened. Soon a few blue jays and a red-bellied woodpecker called. And I could just hear a gray squirrel lightly screeching. Nearby there was a red-headed woodpecker on its overwintering territory. Official winter was still a few weeks away, but there had already been two rather substantial snow falls (rare for November in central Illinois); I resisted imagining this as a harbinger of a tough winter.
        Through the leafless black locust trees, I searched the vast blue skies for any sign of waterfowl, but could see and hear nothing except the faint sound of a truck one half-mile away on the highway. My thoughts were simple: After my coffee is empty, I’ll head back home for some breakfast.

 

Backyard at the bee hives (note the chair through the cedar branches)

        Then suddenly a dark gray, silent streak of a sharp-shinned hawk shot past at eye level only a few feet away. Hidden by a cedar tree, the hawk must not have seen me; otherwise, it would not have chosen such a close flight path. But in less than two seconds, it passed down the trail and away. If I had been facing another direction or blinked my eyes, I would have missed the hawk completely; not even the air through its wings made a sound that my ears could hear. And I wondered, How much have I missed over the years when my eyes and ears were focused elsewhere?

Morning Grackles

    The air was cold and crisp, sound carried, and fall colors radiated in the early morning sunshine. I stepped from under the back porch roof to meet the day, when, at that instant, thousands of common grackles began calling and taking flight all at once. All of the trees within several hundred feet were filled with these raucous, excited birds with more streaming in from elsewhere, just as large numbers left the area.

Back yard a few days before the grackle invasion.

    Standing still, without making a sound, I thought if I had been the factor that initially disturbed the birds, they would soon calm down. If anything, though, their loud chatter increased, as more grackles continued to arrive. When great numbers took to the air at once, they coalesced into a tight, organized formation, each bird following the movements of the others. But which bird was the leader? Or was there even a leader? Air moving through so many beating wings was a living wind, matching the complicated motions of the flock in tone, volume, and pitch; a symphony of physics. In an instant all of the chattering stopped…and then started up again all together as if directed by a conductor’s baton.
    I could have stood watching until all of the grackles flew away, but they might have stayed around for quite some time, and I was not willing to wait. Serious plans were in place for my day: run a few errands in town, check on the bee hives and chickens, walk some trails, read, tune my autoharp, read some more, and nap. So I abandoned the chaotic grackles for them to figure out their own problems, but I left with a feeling of being slightly impatient and of missing something important.

Conserving Heat

         It was around three o’clock in the morning, the outside temperature -14^o F, when I heard the coyotes yipping; high pitched squeals of excitement it seemed to me, but only for a few seconds, and then they were silent. They were wandering close to our rural Mason County home, as they often did, and perhaps came upon a bit of food, maybe a dead rabbit. Other creatures, especially small birds, were conserving their body heat against the extreme cold, clear skies, which radiated much of the atmosphere’s heat outward to space, unimpeded by cloud cover. Following that brief moment of consciousness, I soon drifted off again, sleeping away the rest of the night under a warm heavy blanket.

 

Coyotes captured on the trail camera, Mason Co., Illinois

        The next day, recalling the night before and how struggle against the cold is the normal life of wild creatures in a northern winter, I thought about a late October campsite in the Missouri Ozarks over twenty years earlier. The temperature was in the low 30s, so I sat as close to the fire as possible, and fed it often with small branches and twigs. The dry wood burned quickly, and its heat was soon lost to the air. Cottonwood twigs burned the fastest, but produced only a weak heat. Yet cottonwood was the most abundant fuel around the campsite, not far from the Current River; the better firewood, such as oak, had long before been gathered by summer campers.
        I remember sitting near the fire, thinking about heat, light, and energy. During winter’s cold, it’s all about retaining heat. That, of course, is the main purpose behind a mammal’s fir and a bird’s feathers (flight notwithstanding); the reason why wildlife can survive in the Arctic cold and why polar bears look as they do. Once heat escapes and dissipates into the atmosphere, it is gone forever. There is no way, for example, to gather together the heat lost from a campfire and store it into one concentrated place for later release as warmth.
        And what of the energy before being stored as wood that eventually ended up at my campfire? It was once, of course, light, or electromagnetic energy, produced in the sun through nuclear fusion, the sun’s gravitational pull forcing atoms together to fuse into new elements and in the process, converting mass into great quantities of energy that would radiate outward in all directions, with only a fraction intercepted by the earth and its living plants, and an even smaller fraction, orders and orders of magnitude smaller, to be stored temporarily as, perhaps, a cottonwood tree.
        I sat at that campfire long ago under layers of clothing, every gap closed with a zipper or scarf, minimizing the loss of body heat, with barred and screech owls occasionally calling, the side of my body nearest the fire being hot from the flames, the other side much cooler and cooling off. When it was time for sleep, I stopped feeding the fire, which soon became a pile of glowing embers. The tent and sleeping bag were as cold as the night air. But in the sleeping bag, after a short while, it actually felt quite warm. I breathed the cold tent air through a small flap in the bag, but otherwise, was sealed shut inside, the bag’s insulation doing a fair job at retaining body heat.

 

Morning at a Current River Campsite, Missouri

                                    *    *    *
        A few days after hearing the coyotes, the air from northern latitudes in Canada still lingered, and I spent some time watching the bird feeders through the living room window. The birds were busy foraging for black oil sunflower seeds, which I kept stocked in the feeders: pine siskins, purple finches, and fox sparrows from Canada’s boreal forest; American tree sparrows from the tundra that is even further north. I thought about earlier in the week, when I saw a snowy owl fly from its perch atop an electric pole along the highway near our home. A hunter from the northern latitudes, possibly beyond the Arctic Circle, a bird that may have looked face-to-face with a polar bear. These birds from the North came to Illinois to escape even colder temperatures, killer wind chills, ice, snow, and competition for sparse food resources. But here in Illinois such extreme weather would not last long; here, a thaw is always not far off. As long as they could find enough food to maintain energy levels, Illinois weather probably would not be a factor in their survival. As for me, I’ll remain quite comfortable in my century-old farm house, reliably heated by an efficient natural gas furnace and electric heaters. Warm nights…as long as the power stays on.

Backwater Morning – A Season in Transition

        The sun had been up for four hours by the time I arrived at the Quiver Lake cabin, but vestiges of an early July morning held on: a blue-tint calm, quiet waters perfectly mirroring the morning sky, the feeling and smell of the night’s humidity, and a fragile peace awaiting the day’s first intrusion. I placed my chair under a tall cottonwood tree and relaxed in the shade of the Illinois River valley bluffs. In a few moments, as an immature bald eagle flew over the lake, harassed by an irritated tree swallow, a Carolina wren sounded off behind me; and a prothonotary warbler, warbling vireo, and house wren sang from the flooded bottomland forests across the lake. I listened closely for singing Baltimore orioles, but heard not one; like other years, the orioles are less vocal by early July. It was a subtle sign, not hearing a bird song, but one that clearly identified the season progressing toward autumn.

        The gradually falling lake level, happening over several weeks, showed that the protracted spring flood of the Illinois River and its backwaters was in its final stages, moving toward the usual low-water period of summer and early fall. Though some bottomlands were still under shallow water, if the river continued to fall, following the normal pattern, Quiver Lake would eventually be too shallow for boats, and large expanses would show exposed lake bottom (mud flats), attractive to migrating shorebirds.

        Along the lakeshore, vegetation was recovering from weeks of being inundated by flood waters. Wild grape vines made up for lost time, beginning to cover the large piles of woody debris (large logs, branches of all sizes stripped of bark, and natural mulch created from wood being sorted and re-sorted during wave action) left behind from the floods. While it was still fairly cool, I decided to clear a pathway to the shore leading to my favorite observation post beneath a small silver maple tree and between two swamp privet thickets; there was a lot of wood to move, so I grabbed only enough for a narrow passageway to the water. Being at the shoreline reminded me that on June 27th there was a massive emergence of mayflies, with thousands of individuals covering the shoreline vegetation, flying about in the gentle lake breezes, and writhing on the ground in great numbers, just before dying; such activity must have been occurring all along Quiver Lake’s shoreline. But during this recent visit, only six days later, not a single live mayfly did I find, and the many dead bodies in the shoreline debris of twigs, wood chips, and leaves were barely discernable. In the shallows—which slowly flowed southward toward the lower end of Quiver Lake, where the lake imperceptibly merges with the Illinois River—I noticed thousands of small fish, each no more than about an inch long, the results of a highly successful spawning season during the spring flood. These fish would be drawn outward from shore with a falling lake level.

        The exertion of untangling branches and moving wood eventually sapped my energy. And the sun’s heat had clearly won its daily battle with night’s coolness. So I returned to my shaded chair to rest. I always bring several books to read when I plan to spend a few hours or a day at the Quiver Lake cabin, but not at the expense of also spending time simply observing my surroundings, trying not to miss important events that last only seconds. Even while reading I often looked up to glance back and forth; so at one of those moments, just after a john boat zoomed past, I caught sight of an osprey flying from downriver toward Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, only two-thirds of a mile north from where I sat. There is an active osprey nest at the refuge, so this bird was likely one of the pair. Later a Caspian tern flew past, making its distinctive call; not an Illinois breeder, the presence of this bird along the Illinois River valley signifies the post-breeding season for this species, another sign of the season in transition.

 

Quiver Lake with distant Chautauqua NWR

 

        And so the morning developed: a cucumber breakfast sandwich, reading a few pages, a calling pileated woodpecker, quarrelling red-headed woodpeckers, more reading, a distant American white pelican over Chautauqua Refuge, a calling yellow-billed cuckoo from the tree above; and I suddenly noticed that the bright sun at its zenith, which glared off the water and sky, had greatly diminished my shade. This signaled the time had come to move on with the day, and maybe accomplish something. So I gathered up my chair and other gear, and climbed the river bluff back to the cabin, nestled in the shade of many surrounding trees. The morning was satisfying; and although the summer was young, as a person who prefers cooler weather, it felt good to see signs of the season already transitioning toward fall.

Quiver Lake bird list, July 3, 2017

Double-crested cormorant
American white pelican
Bald eagle (immature)
Osprey
Killdeer
Caspian Tern
Ring-billed gull
Mourning dove
Yellow-billed cuckoo
Downy woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Red-headed woodpecker
Northern flicker
Pileated woodpecker
Great-crested flycatcher
Eastern wood-pewee
Warbling vireo
Barn swallow
Tree swallow
White-breasted nuthatch
Tufted titmouse
House wren
Carolina wren
American robin
Gray catbird
European starling
Prothonotary warbler
Common grackle
Red-winged blackbird
Brown-headed cowbird
American goldfinch

 

Birding Without a Sound

Even though I’ve worn glasses most of my life, I’ve always taken the full functioning of all five senses for granted, all the while knowing that at a time, so far into the future as to be of no concern, one or more of those senses might somewhat decline or even cease to function.  It has been the “invincibility of youth” syndrome on full display.  But for the last few months, during my last year of being a 50-something, I have been struggling with a persistent inner ear, nose, and throat condition; my senses of hearing and smell, and I suspect taste also, have noticeably declined.  The doctors are still running tests and trying various treatments.  But so far, there have been absolutely no improvements.  My left ear seems fine, although that is not a certainty, but the right ear continues to be below 50% hearing capacity. 

When my wife, Julie, informed me of a dead mouse somewhere in the house, of which I could not detect even the slightest odor (actually, one positive outcome of this condition), I knew something serious was happening.  Smell and taste I could probably get by without, although life would be much less interesting; but sight, touch, and hearing, I think, must be highly critical to a sense of personal awareness:  Part of the answer to the question, Who am I?

One aspect of who I am is my self-identification as a birder.  For over thirty years, I’ve worked at learning bird sounds.  From the largest eagle to the tiniest hummingbird, I’ve made an effort to identify each species by sound as well as sight.  I have much more to learn, but what a sense of peace it is to walk slowly through a natural area in spring and early summer and know what birds are around simply by hearing their songs.  As the path might meander through a complex of habitat types—grassland, shrubland, and forest—in a way I can hear the habitat before seeing it.  For example, once on a hike under a closed canopy of mature trees, a wood thrush made its gentle, flutelike song; yet in the far distance I heard a field sparrow, and I knew some large, open habitats were just ahead.  And on the same hike, a yellow-throated warbler sounded off, so I immediately began looking for a large sycamore tree…and there it was, with the warbler at the very top.  And then ahead was the song of an eastern towhee, emanating from where I expected:  a thicket of brush near the forest edge.  And thusly onward went the hike and many others over the years.

 

*        *        *

But this appreciation of sound in the outdoors I have had to learn.   Growing up in the Chicago area, I was surrounded by city noise:  the constant whirr of automobile traffic in the background, always an airplane overhead somewhere, always during warmer months a neighbor somewhere on the block mowing the lawn.  I learned to cut myself off from the surrounding environment.  I buried my sight in a book, sometimes even while walking on a sidewalk to the bus stop.  And I wore ear plugs when downtown to protect my hearing from the harshness of the elevated trains and noisy street traffic just a few feet away.  I became expert at ignoring.  The alternative was to constantly be on edge, distracted, ready to jump.

That changed when I began noticing birds.  One day in the early 1980s, I was hiking through the Palos Hills Forest Preserves in Cook County; it was just something to do on a late summer day while my employer dealt with a union strike.  But that was the hike when I first saw a northern flicker up close, plus a few other species that I had never seen before in the city: belted kingfisher, red-headed woodpecker, scarlet tanager, and black-capped chickadee.  On my next hike, I had a pair of binoculars and I was hooked on birding. 

I soon discovered the DuPage Birding Club, which led guided field trips.  On one of those field trips, someone showed me how it was possible to identify birds by sound alone, although learning to do so would take years of constant effort.  I certainly wanted to do this, but first I needed to re-attune myself with the outside world and practice selective hearing:  to hear what I wanted to hear, while ignoring the rest.

And now years later I find the simple act of hearing is beginning to become a challenge.  But I try to remain positive, enjoying amusing situations even though there may be a bit of underlying sadness.  I guess my hearing has been gradually and unknowingly declining for a while, although I have so far vigorously denied that that might be happening.  In fact, I always felt that if I could still hear the high pitched calls of cedar waxwings from an overhead flock or the begging calls of a fledgling tufted titmouse, my hearing was undiminished.  But a decade ago, Julie and I were traveling through Ludington, Michigan, located along the eastern coastline of Lake Michigan.  As we passed through town, Julie saw a historical marker.  She asked, “Did you know that Father Marquette died here?”  (Marquette was a French explorer during the 1600s, who traveled over what was to become Chicago in 1673.)  I turned to her and replied, “Whose cat died here?”  We laughed and laughed, and she claimed my mishearing of what she said was evidence of hearing loss.  I now see that she may have been onto something.  Up to that day, there may have been a gradual decline over the years, but this last January, the impact was sudden, overnight, and it has stayed with me. 

Recently, I underwent a CT (computed tomography) scan that will produce three-dimensional images of the inside of my head.  With this information, I hope to have answers and a clear pathway forward to restoring my hearing, at least to what it was only a few months ago. 

But what if the news is dire?  What if nothing can be done without expensive, invasive surgery?  Or what if truly nothing can be done, and I must face the eventual loss of my hearing?  What would life be like to never again hear my wife’s voice?   As a musician, the loss of playing and listening to music would truly be losing a part of my identity as a person.  What would birding be like without sound?  I can even now envisage walking through a forest not hearing the wind through the trees or the crunch of twigs and dry leaves underfoot; no bird sounds from the forest canopy; just the sound of infinity.  In a few weeks, I hope to know, one way or the other.

Up in the Clouds: Reflections on Hawkwatching

          As I scanned the early August skies above Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, my mind was on migrating shorebirds.  The river level was still high, but falling; so it would be at least a few days before mudflats would form and provide suitable shorebird stopover habitat.  A few ring-billed gulls soared above nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge holding my attention, just as a steadily flying double-crested cormorant came into view over the distant tree line.  At that instant, in my mind’s eye, I was abruptly transported back to the late 1980s.

          At that time, I had only recently discovered a popular activity known as “hawkwatching,” which involves placing oneself at a strategic location where migrating raptors tend to pass over, all the while scanning the skies over and over for hours, in order to count every raptor within sight.  A gathering of like-minded folks at such a location engaged in watching and counting hawks is what constitutes the phenomenon known as a “hawkwatch,” although it is certainly possible to watch hawks alone.

          My first hawkwatch experience was at the Blackwell Forest Preserve in DuPage County, Illinois, on top of an old landfill, called Mt. Hoy, that was converted to a park.  The landfill, covered with mowed grass with numerous vents that allow for escaping gases from the breakdown of garbage, is the highest elevation for miles around in the otherwise rather flat terrain of northeastern Illinois.  Fall migrating raptors from the north tend to be guided by the north-south oriented shoreline of Lake Michigan.  So Mt. Hoy, only about 30 miles west of the lake, is a good place to intercept the migration before the birds move further south and disperse into the vast Midwestern interior.

 

At the top of Mt. Hoy with gas vent.

 

          Sitting on top of Mt. Hoy, staring into the clouds for hours at a time, almost seemed like the act of flying itself.  Sometimes I would lose the sense of being on the ground and see nothing but sky.  After finding a high-flying raptor, I would keep the bird in sight as long as possible, watching it fly into and out of billowy clouds, soaring ever higher, until settling upon a purposeful glide, sometimes directly overhead, and then continuing southward out of sight.  If there were other hawkwatchers, they would continually be calling out sightings of different raptors:  “Red-tailed hawk!”  “Cooper’s hawk; I’ve got a Cooper’s hawk just over the tree line at 45 degrees.”  “Adult bald eagle!”  With many eyes and binoculars focused on the sky, it is doubtful that any raptor could pass overhead without being noticed.

          Some of the hawkwatchers are competitive; they wish to be the first to sight a bird and the first to proclaim a positive identification.  When the less experienced attempt to join in the competition, the result can sometimes be a humiliation, which is what happened years ago when I misidentified a double-crested cormorant for a migrating hawk.  “Raptor in the west,” I proudly announced.  “No, it’s a cormorant,” someone quickly and authoritatively corrected.  One soon learns to defer to the more experienced hawkwatchers; challenging an identification is not a smart move for a novice.  Sometimes the more experienced of the novices will engage in a debate, for example, discussing the finer points of differentiating between a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk.  I recall one instance when the red-tail advocate was shouting at one individual he must have deemed his subordinate:  “Look at the belly band!  Look at the belly band!”  Red-tailed hawks have a dark, mottled pattern across their otherwise light-colored underside; seeing the belly band pretty much clinches the identification.

 

A hawkwatch at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania.

 

          The social interactions and debates can be amusing, and listening is a great way to learn hawk identification.  But my preference is for a lonely, remote hillside near my home at Sand Ridge State Forest, along the Illinois River valley.  Few visit this site, except the occasional botanist looking for the unique plants that occur there.  The river presents somewhat of a leading line for hawks to follow, but it is not like Lake Michigan.  At Sand Ridge, I’ve never seen more than a trickle of raptors even on days when, according to my understanding, the birds should be moving.  At Mt. Hoy, much greater numbers of raptors over the course of a day are not uncommon.  Counts closer to the lakeshore, such as Illinois Beach State Park, are even better.

          It has been years since I have attended an official hawkwatch.  In my part of central Illinois, far from a large urban area with an energetic birding community, few seem excited by such an activity.  Even so, I’ll try to visit my favorite hillside perch at Sand Ridge Forest at least a few times during both spring and fall migrations.  This year, the first osprey of August along Quiver Lake has already signaled the beginning of the fall hawk migration.  And soon, when weather conditions are right, large numbers of broad-winged hawks will be soaring overhead.  Though I sometimes wonder what is happening at Mt. Hoy, for the time being I’m content with a good memory.  And I will never again mistake a cormorant for a hawk.

 

[To read more about hawks and hawkwatching, readers may download chapter 16, “When Hawks Fly” (Download Chapter 16 - When Hawks Fly) from my book Side Channels.]     

Waiting for the Mud

          A little over a week ago, the late July Illinois River level was holding steady at about 12.9 feet, which is more than several feet above its normal low level at this time of the year.  My hope was for falling river levels.  So I was not happy with the high water.  While a spring flood is a normal part of the river’s yearly pattern of highs and lows (hydrology), by late July into August and September, the expectation is for relatively steady, low levels, which would expose mud flats in the many floodplain lakes that flank and are connected to the river.  These flats attract migrating shorebirds, the objects of my attention at this time of year.

 

 

          A favored vantage point for observing shorebirds is on the upper end of Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater, where my small, rustic cabin is located.  Typically, I’ll find a shady spot along the shore to set up a spotting scope, and then leisurely wait for the birds to show up.  But Quiver Lake is directly connected to the Illinois River; so when the river’s level changes, as it usually does, the same happens to Quiver Lake.  Even in August, I cannot always count on seeing mud flats.

          And yet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the river’s level is projected to gradually fall through at least the middle of August.  If this does, indeed, happen, then the lake bottom will eventually be exposed all around the lake’s periphery.  And if the river continues to fall, mud flats from more exposed lake bottom will expand in area and become an irresistible target for shorebirds.

 

*  *  *   

          Since my observations about a week earlier, the river has fallen over five feet.  Along the mainland shore of Quiver Lake, sandy seeps have become exposed, feeding pure groundwater to the lake and river.  Elsewhere, further out, there are narrow strips of mud along the shoreline.  The bulk of the lake, though, is still open water.  From a quick scan of the shoreline, I counted 50 great egrets in the shallows, about a third as many great blue herons, and a few killdeer, but no other shorebirds.  Yet I know that they are in the area, because at nearby Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, which is along the northern boundary of Quiver Lake, observers on July 27^th noted 20 shorebird species (from the Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts web site, posted on July 27, 2016 by Colin and Sharon Dobson).  Shorebirds were at the refuge because within the levee system (an earthen walled enclosure) refuge managers have kept water levels low so that mud flats are exposed and marsh vegetation can grow.

 

 

          For the time being, I will remain patient and hope that our regular summer drought period begins and river levels continue to fall and then somewhat stabilize.  An examination of NOAA‘s data from recent years, however, leaves some doubt that this will happen.  For example, last year the river topped out at 27.24 feet on July 1^st, breaking the 1943 record of 27.10 feet; and the previous year, it crested at 17.34 feet on July 5^th and crested again at 14.36 feet on September 13^th.  River levels are, of course, directly related to precipitation.  And according to the Illinois State Water Survey, this year’s July was the third wettest on record for Illinois (7.12 inches).  Another year that stands out in memory is 2008; I vividly recall the summer of that year, when July turned out to be the 10^th wettest on record (see chapter 19, “As the Rivers Rise Again” [ Download Chapter 19 - As the Rivers Rise Again] in my book Side Channels).  In recent years, only 2012 provided good shorebird habitat at the Quiver Lake bottoms; but that year also presented Illinois with severe drought conditions.

 

Quiver Lake, September 23, 2015 during medium water levels.

 

          It has always been give and take along the Illinois River.  Boaters prefer the river at higher levels, so obstructions are kept well under water.  For fishing, lower levels might be better, with fish more concentrated at habitat structures that still remain submersed.  Birders looking for shorebirds should prefer the lowest river levels throughout the late summer season, before marsh vegetation grows too high; but at that point, countless flowers will provide nectar sources for migrating monarch butterflies; and in the fall, seeds from maturing vegetation will attract thousands of migrating ducks.  At the same time, one summer flood can overwhelm all of the shorebird habitat and severely set back vegetation growth.

 

Quiver Lake, 28 July 2012 during low water.

 

          And though each year is unique, I look forward to witnessing these natural repeating patterns from year to year, which are still evident despite all of our modifications to the river and its floodplain.  And that is what I intend to do in my folding lawn chair, in the shade along Quiver Lake, while waiting for the mud.

A Matter of Chance (Or A Unique Nuthatch Encounter)

        The weather forecast was for a sunny, windy day.  So while my wife left to scout for garden flowers and pottery, I headed to Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge for a muddy hike at the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers. 

        As I left my vehicle, the wind howled through the tree tops, blowing steadily at about 25 miles per hour with gusts to nearly 40.  In the stand of young, closely packed cottonwood and silver maple trees near the parking area, treetops intermingled in the wind, the sound of wood hitting wood, with occasional cracking sounds and falling branchlets.  The larger, mature trees moved less, but their canopies were in constant motion.  The big gusts sounded as if, in an instant, everything would be swept up and scattered to a thousand destinations.

        It occurred to me that a hike through this bottomland forest, with abundant standing, flood-killed timber, may not be the smartest thing to do.  But then I considered the situation from the standpoint of chance or probabilities:  the likelihood that some event may or may not happen, such as a coin toss coming up heads or tails.  What, I thought, were the chances of any particular tree or branch falling at just the moment when I would be in precisely the right location to be hit?  The chances could not be very high, even in the heavy winds, as the few branches that fell were small and random.  I have often had similar thoughts when passing beneath a widowmaker (i.e., a large tree leaning over so far, it seems just about ready to fall):  nothing about my presence beneath the tree could cause the tree to fall at that exact moment, so there would be no need to rush.  And yet, most people would never do such a thing; or if they did, would do so with high anxiety and as quickly as possible.

        So I continued on my hike, but stayed away from standing dead timber just in case.  When I reached the Spoon River, I saw that the river bank had recently collapsed.  The Spoon River in this area is an actively meandering river, where the outside curves are typically vertical drop-offs due to the riverbank collapsing and washing away; while the inside curves, or opposite bank, have a much gentler slope, where sediment is deposited.  A few feet in front of where I stood, it was a sheer 10-foot drop-off to the river below.  If the bank collapsed at just that moment, I would have been in trouble, but then I realized that the likelihood of that happening must be very low.  Still, it made sense not to get too close to the edge, for I had no idea whether or not an added 230 pounds could have tipped the precarious balance toward further bank collapse.  I stood back and gingerly peered over the edge for a quick look, then tempted fate no longer and moved back toward the forest.  The bank held…as I knew it would.

 

Confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers

 

        Finally at the point where the Spoon River joins the Illinois River, I found a comfortable place to sit beneath a large cottonwood tree (with no dead branches above) that leaned backward at about the same angle as my backyard furniture.  At this point on my Spoon River hikes, I usually make a few notes, read, or even take a nap (ten years before, I wrote my wedding vows in the same location). The wind continued to blow as hard as ever, but I felt safe under this particular tree; it had withstood worse winds and maybe even tornados during its many decades of life.  And then I was hit!  Not by a branch, but by a load of excrement dropped from a white-breasted nuthatch high above; it landed directly on the page where I was writing in my journal.  Naturally, my first thought—well, maybe my second thought— after this highly improbable event was:  what were the chances of a bird letting loose with a salvo at the precise moment when I would be in the proper place with my open journal in the path for a direct hit?  I had no idea of the answer, but I certainly hoped that the probability for such an event occurring would be orders of magnitude higher than any particular tree along the trail falling at a highly inconvenient moment. 

        I fully admit that I looked around a bit more at the swaying trees on the way back, glad that I chose to stay away from the very edge of the river bank, and a little less sure of myself than on the way out.

Record Count of Overwintering Red-headed Woodpeckers

In the fall of 2003, I began a long-term survey of the winter bird community at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve in Mason County, Illinois, as part of a baseline survey for National Audubon’s Important Bird Area program for Illinois.  I was specifically interested in the preserve’s overwintering red-headed woodpeckers, a species known to be experiencing a steady population decline in many areas of its range.

Except for 2008, I have since completed one to four counts per winter season. Background information for this survey is summarized in an article entitled The Missing Red-headed Woodpeckers of Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, which can be located on this blog by clicking on this link.  An updated chart is shown below with data from the latest count on 2 December 2014.

 

 

The numbers of red-headed woodpeckers that may be found overwintering in a given area are known to be correlated with the amount of mast available, usually oak. While I had not collected information on mast during this study, to my regret, during the fall of 2014 I did notice numerous acorns beneath all oak trees that I checked at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve and at other areas in Mason County.   So I was expecting at least an average count of red-headed woodpeckers as I completed my winter 2014-15 count.  The count was, in fact, a record high for this particular survey.  The count of blue jays, a species that competes with red-headed woodpeckers for oak mast, was also a record high.

For an update, see this link.    

Red-headed Woodpecker Count Plummets

On December 9, 2015 I completed my yearly count of overwintering birds at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve in Mason County, Illinois, with a focus on the red-headed woodpecker.  One year earlier, I counted the highest number of red-headed woodpeckers at this site since I began this survey in 2003; so I was surprised on this latest count to have detected zero.  At the same time, I try to have few expectations each year, as the number of overwintering red-headed woodpeckers tends to vary quite a bit from year to year.  It is also noteworthy that counts of blue jays declined since last year.  For insight on why this might have happened, please see previous posts on this topic beginning with this link.

Click on image to enlarge.

Other bird data from Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve can be found at www.ebird.org.  
 

Searching for Ospreys along the Illinois River

    On September 20, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) web site predicted a rise in the Illinois River of about two feet over the next twenty-four hours.  So I knew all of the mudflats at Quiver Lake, which has a direct connection to the river, would soon be under water.  That was unfortunate because the shallow water and mudflats were just beginning to attract shorebirds.  I had yet to spend much time looking for shorebirds during this particular fall migration, and so I was disappointed.  But ospreys were also on the move.  Over the last few years, I have learned that Quiver Lake, just south of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, is a good place to view ospreys migrating along the Illinois River valley.  My focus shifted to ospreys.

 

Quiver Lake, an Illinois River backwater 

 

    The next day, after a lazy breakfast, I moved a fold-up chair to the water's edge at Quiver Lake in the shade of a silver maple, and remained mostly hidden from view by a swamp privet shrub, black willow tree, and a pile of driftwood deposited in the last flood.  Tree swallows were very numerous, quickly flying back and forth at high altitudes as well as just over the water's surface.  But even more numerous, it seemed, were the American white pelicans, which engaged in all types of activities including soaring in large flocks so high they were at times almost beyond sight, even with binoculars.  There also were double-crested cormorants, great blue herons, great egrets, ring-billed gulls, Caspian terns, and turkey vultures.  The light blue sky behind high, wispy clouds with light south winds seemed a good backdrop for detecting migrating raptors. 

     For the next few hours, I alternated between reading and watching birds flying over Quiver Lake, the floodplain forests between the lake and the Illinois River, and the nearby refuge.  And yet, even after a couple of hours I saw no osprey, and I was beginning to become discouraged.  An additional factor, though, was that the majority of my attention was focused on reading a novel called Bootheel Man by Morley Swingle, and I was thinking more about southeastern Missouri and the pre-historic Mississippian Indians than the birds right in front of me.  But because I was not finding any osprey, even during September along a backwater lake with abundant fish, located on a major migration flyway, I wondered whether it was a good day for migration after all.

     Then just as I finished making some quick notes about the lack of ospreys, I looked up:  about 50 feet over the water, directly in front of me, an osprey flew past heading southward.  In less than a minute, it was out of sight; but those few moments made my day.

     And so, I went back to my book.  About a half hour later I finished another chapter and my thoughts once again re-emerged to the present time.  I put the book down, glanced around, and instantly made eye contact with an osprey that had been perching almost directly overhead on the top of a tall cottonwood tree.  The bird immediately left its perch, a bit awkwardly, I thought, and quickly flew in the direction of the far lakeshore.  Then it soon abruptly stopped in mid-air, held its wings back, and dived straight into the water, far enough away from me that there was a slight delay between the sight of the bird making contact with the water and the sound of the splash.  Immediately the osprey emerged from the water and continued flying southward out of sight.  I returned to my book, feeling a bit like the birder who was photographed looking for birds with a bird perching on his binoculars.

*  *  *

Additional reading on the Illinois River and birding can be found in my book Side Channels.  For information on the book, please link to my Amazon author page.

 

Bald Eagle Takes Down a Canada Goose in Flight

January 17, 2015

    At mid-winter, the surfaces of both the north and south pools of Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, in Mason County, Illinois, have been nearly all frozen for quite some time.  As a consequence, waterfowl numbers have been low, except for small groups of mallards, Canada geese, and greater white-fronted geese.  So on the morning of January 17, 2015, appreciating the recent above-freezing temperatures and light breezes, I patiently sat at one of the observation decks along the Chautauqua Nature Trail, near the refuge headquarters, to see what else might show up.

    Soon, two large birds, rapidly flying just a few feet above the ice, caught my attention.  My first thought was that both were Canada geese.  But after bringing up my binoculars for a closer look I saw that one bird was, indeed, a Canada goose; the other bird not far behind, however, was an adult bald eagle, and it was in pursuit of the goose.

    The eagle, though, quickly closed the gap and then passed in front of the goose.  I thought this was strange, because it looked as if both birds were actually racing toward some common destination.  And then in a flash, faster than I could detail the movements, the eagle attacked the goose with its talons and caused it to abruptly crash down hard onto the icy lake’s surface.  The goose seemed momentarily dazed, like a fighter after being hit with a clean knockout punch.  The eagle wasted no time, and quickly landed on the ice; now, with both birds standing, facing each other with outstretched wings, the eagle attacked again and again.  But the goose held fast and fought off the eagle’s advances.  At this point, the eagle must have sensed that it no longer held a significant advantage over the goose:  it took flight and hastily left the scene. 

    Now the goose stood alone on the ice.  I trained my spotting scope on the bird and saw that it stood on one leg, its other leg gingerly held above the ground.  As it attempted to walk, it limped.  So the goose was clearly wounded, perhaps from its hard fall.  When I left, about fifteen minutes later, the goose still stood on its one good leg.  The eagle did not return, but I had little doubt that it was watching not far away.

_________________________________________________________________ 

    To read more stories about birding along the Illinois River, please see my book, Side Channels:  A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir, available at selected locations and from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

 

Bald Eagle Swims with Fish in Talons

December 13, 2014

        The recent mild weather has allowed ice cover at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, in Mason County, Illinois, to dissipate; so open lake water is once again widespread, as it had been before November’s freak Polar front.  With open water, more bald eagles and waterfowl are attracted to the refuge.  From one of the observation decks along the Chautauqua Nature Trail, I was watching six bald eagles (2 immatures, 4 adults) standing close together on the narrow levee-island that runs through the center of the refuge’s south pool.  Floating nearby on the calm waters was a large fish carcass.  Closely watching this scene, I had a feeling that some type of interaction among the eagles, involving the fish, would soon commence.  My attention, though, was quickly commanded by hundreds of snow geese flying and calling overhead.

 

Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, South Pool

 

        As my gaze shifted to the snow geese, a steeply diving adult bald eagle, with talons extended, crossed my line of sight and diverted my attention from the snow geese.  The eagle came down hard, directly onto the floating fish carcass, and then promptly sank into the cold water, looking almost as if it were surprised to find the water’s surface was not ice.  Because I could not determine the water’s depth, it was not clear if the eagle was floating or standing on the muddy lake bottom.  During all of this action, the six eagles on the levee-island maintained their positions, making no attempt to approach the partially submerged eagle.  I wondered whether I was about to see a bald eagle drown.

        After a few minutes of standing and looking around, the eagle began aggressively flapping its wings, attempting to take flight.  But it was as if a weight were holding it down, and so it eventually settled back down into the water.  Following this unsuccessful flight attempt, the eagle remained partially submerged for a few more minutes, and then began using its wings to swim toward the levee-island, at a location further away from the watching group of eagles.    

        When it eventually reached shallower water, the eagle awkwardly climbed onto the partially submerged levee-island.  At that moment, I saw that the eagle still held the large fish carcass in its massive talons, the underwater weight that earlier must have prevented it from flying.  After reaching the highest part of the levee-island, which was barely under water, the eagle threw back its head and emitted a high-pitched call.  Then, still holding the dead fish in its talons, the eagle began tearing at the carcass, ripping off flesh with its hooked beak.

BOOK REVIEW: Two Books on Illinois Birds

Kleen, Vernon M., Liane Cordle, and Robert A. Montgomery.  The Breeding Bird Atlas.  2004.  xviii + 459 pp; black and white species photographs; 16 figures; 12 tables; 11 appendices; literature cited; index of common names.  Illinois Natural History Survey Special Publication 26.  Soft Cover.  ISBN 1-882932-07-2.  Price:  US $25.95.  Available from Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL 61820.

DeVore, Sheryl, Steven D. Bailey, and George Kennedy.  Birds of Illinois.  2004.  376 pp; color species illustrations; appendix; select [selected] references; glossary; checklist; index of scientific names; index of common names.  Lone Pine Publishing, Auburn, Washington.  Soft Cover.  ISBN 1-55105-379-9.  Price US $19.95.  Available from Lone Pine Publishing, 1808 B Street NW, Suite 140, Auburn, WA 98001.

 

          The publication of both The Breeding Bird Atlas (hereafter referred to as the Atlas) and the Birds of Illinois has made 2004 a benchmark year for birders at all levels.  Because each book has a different purpose and special features, one may appeal more to a somewhat different audience than the other; each book is considered separately and then together to help explain this assertion.

          The “Preface” to the Atlas by the noted ornithologist Dr. Scott K. Robinson presents an only slightly optimistic future for many of Illinois’ bird populations.  Next, a lengthy “Acknowledgments,” lists all individuals who contributed to the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas Project which resulted in this publication, that is organized as a standard scientific monograph.  Subsequently, the brief “Introduction,” with a clear goal statement (“…to conduct a comprehensive and systematic statewide survey of breeding birds to document their distribution and status in the state…”) and a list of eight objectives, is followed by chapters entitled “Methods” and “Results and Discussion.”  The latter attempts, within the space of merely six pages, to make sense of all the data of the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas Project, which was collected from 1986 to 1991 by 945 individuals, from 1,286 10-square-mile blocks spread across the entire state; this herculean effort generated 74,288 species records from 216 species.

          This quite voluminous database is summarized in a series of tables and appendices of the Atlas, some of which are rather lengthy.  While having access to the actual numbers may be important for archival purposes, searching large tables of numbers for patterns and trends can be daunting.  At the same time, the explanatory text does point out highlights of the tables, which are sometimes obvious.  For example, in Table 4 (page 7), a list of 22 species is shown in rank order by the number of priority blocks in which the species occurred; the authors explain that “The five most frequently reported species were the Red-winged Blackbird, American Robin, Mourning Dove, House Sparrow, and Common Grackle;” that is, the first five species listed in the table.  It is here, in the presentation of data summaries, that the authors might have effectively used more computer graphics and thus, designed interesting an creatively organized figures where broad patterns might be easily discerned by the reader at a careful glance.

          The data collected during the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas Project published in the Atlas provides a baseline for comparison with future similar studies.  Furthermore, Kleen, Cordle, and Montgomery have gone beyond simply the presentation of information relating to the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas Project by including long-term information from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS); this helps place the Atlas within a temporal context.  The BBS methods and data summary, with BBS data collected throughout Illinois along standardized route from 1966 through 2000, are presented in a special chapter of the Atlas.  Here data from 133 species are grouped within a table by breeding habitat guild (woodland, grassland, etc.) and population trend (i.e., positive or negative).  A further analysis considers migration status.  But the authors offer only limited discussion of the data presented in these tables.

          Seven land cover maps (e.g., forest cover, natural divisions) are briefly discussed in a chapter entitled “Physical Environment of Illinois.”  The purpose of presenting this information was to provide a background by which to interpret patterns in the data summaries.  Although such analyses are mostly left up to the reader, with numerous caveats given concerning the limitations of the data, it is convenient to have these maps (which have appeared elsewhere in various publications) available in one place for easy reference.

          The bulk of the Atlas is, of course, the 183 individual species accounts.  Each species account includes a black and white photograph and a full map of Illinois, with county outlines, showing locations of sampling blocks for which the highlighted species was recorded as a breeder (marked:  confirmed, probable, or possible).  Also, each species account provides basic notations on its population status and breeding biology, as well as historical information and a variety of interesting facts.  A chapter entitled “Guide to Species Accounts” helps facilitate ease of interpreting the descriptive information.

          For species where sufficient data are available, the BBS trends from 1966 to 2000 are shown graphically as statewide annual indices of abundance.  Because of the wide latitudinal range of Illinois and the fact that certain species distributions have changed over time, it would have been useful here to divide the state into northern, central, and southern regions (a convention established in earlier studies [e.g., Graber et al. 1970]) to show the annual indices of abundance for each region.  In addition, presenting BBS trend data for Illinois’ natural divisions (Schwegman 1973) could have highlighted relationships between population trends and habitat preferences, much like Jacobs and Wilson (1997) showed for BBS data in relation to Missouri’s natural divisions.

          Where the Atlas might cause readers to think of more in-depth data analyses that could have been presented; in contrast, the Birds of Illinois takes the reader in the opposite direction—toward the aesthetic appreciation of birds.  The first impression one gets, before ever turning a page of the book, is that of an exceedingly colorful field guide.  But the liberal use of color is the basis of a highly effective quick reference system to the major groups illustrated in the book.  The reader then searches for color matches, which are readily seen, rather than thumbing through numerous pages.  And because unidentified birds in the field are notorious for quickly flying out of view, the sooner one is on the proper page of the field guide, the better.

          The Birds of Illinois begins with a short introductory chapter which defines some of the unavoidable technical terminology used throughout the book as well as concepts and activities associated with watching birds (e.g., composing lists and observing/recording feeding habits).  Devore, Bailey, and Kennedy suggest studying behavior, conservation issues, and bird-habitat relationships to enhance bird watching.

          When discussing bird habitats, they refer to a colored map which shows the 14 natural divisions of Illinois, which for some reason they refer to as “bioregions.”  This map is also used to located 100 of the top birding sites in the state, 20 of which are given a more extended treatment with information on location, bird habitats, and bird species to be expected, especially rarities.  Here better directions and special information for visitors may have been better emphasized rather than attempting to list a few commonly expected birds or rarities which one may have a very small chance to see; for example, in reference to Illinois Beach State Park, they write that “Warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks and flycatchers occur in fall and spring, ….” This statement could apply to nearly any medium-sized wooded area in Illinois.  For the Morton Arboretum, they mention the Townsend’s Solitaire, even though in the many decades that birders and ornithologists have been keeping records throughout Illinois, there have been only 19 Townsend’s Solitaire sightings documented.  It is obvious that the authors wish to recruit more people to birding, but setting up beginners with unrealistic expectations could have the opposite effect.

          The Birds of Illinois covers 319 species expected to be seen in Illinois on an annual basis.  Each species account, one per page, has an introductory paragraph in which the authors relate unusual or otherwise interesting facts about the species in Illinois. These accounts are creatively written, and will likely be interesting to and enjoyed by beginning birders as well as experienced ornithologists.

          Each species account includes an artistically depicted color illustration of the species showing the plumage in which the bird is most likely to be seen in Illinois.  This may be a disadvantage of the book, however, for birders seeking to identify species with very different spring and fall plumage (e.g., warblers) or species that have a different plumage for several years before attaining the definitive adult plumage (e.g., gulls).  Not finding a bird in the field guide is sure to be a frustration for beginning birders, causing them to search through one of the more comprehensive guides.

          Small colored maps of Illinois (about 3 cm high) are included with each species account showing ranges for breeding, year round, winter, and migration.  These maps combined with the section labeled “Status” provide a quick summary of current knowledge for the species in Illinois.  DeVore, Bailey, and Kennedy do not cite the Illinois Breeding Bird Atlas Project in the “Select References,” even though the raw data for the Atlas publication have been on the Illinois Natural History Survey’s web site since 1998.  Each species account also includes a summary of information on identification and biology plus suggestions on the best sites to see the highlighted species.

          Because the Atlas and the Birds of Illinois were written with different goals in mind, direct comparisons, for the most part, are not justified.  But while the scientific Atlas may satisfy the needs of ornithologists and the Birds of Illinois may be suited more to new birders, experienced birders will likely find both publications useful and interesting.  Areas of overlap between both books occur within the species accounts, which is not surprising.  In short, both books complement one another.  And each book offers certain unique information and insights.  Of course, the quantitative nature of the Atlas sets it quite apart from the Birds of Illinois.  But together, they represent the best and most comprehensive compilation of information on Illinois’ bird populations since Bohlen (1989).

 

Literature Cited

Bohlen, H.D.  1989.  The birds of Illinois.  Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.  222 pp.

Graber, R.R., J.W. Graber, and E.L. Kirk.  1970.  Illinois birds:  Mimidae.  Illinois Natural History Survey Biological Notes No. 68, Champaign, Illinois.  38 pp.

Jacobs, B., and J.D. Wilson.  1997.  Missouri breeding bird atlas:  1986-1992.  Natural History Series, No. 6.  Missouri Department of Conservation, Jefferson City.  430 pp.

Schwegman, J.E.  1973.  Comprehensive plan for the Illinois Nature Preserves System.  Part 2.  The natural divisions of Illinois.  Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, Springfield, Illinois.  32 pp.

 

[This review was originally published in the Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science, 2005, Volume 98, pages 89 - 92.]

  

Review by Thomas V. Lerczak, author of Side Channels, A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir.  Many of the chapters in Side Channels are about birding in Illinois at several of the sites mentioned in DeVore, Bailey, and Kennedy’s Birds of Illinois.

 

BOOK REVIEW: The Minds of Birds, by Alexander F. Skutch

 

 

    While reading The Minds of Birds (1996; Texas A&M University Press; 183 pp.; $29.95) by Alexander F. Skutch, I was reminded of a birding experience at Lake Michigan.  A cold, brutal north wind blew off the lake.  I found it difficult and almost painful to face into the wind and horizontally blowing snow for more than a few seconds.  Yet out over the fantastically rough seas, ring-billed and herring gulls soared on the winds.  What could induce them to be on the wing in such terrible conditions?  They did not appear to be foraging for floating fish or performing pair-bonding flight displays.  Feeling frustrated, I reluctantly concluded that the gulls were simply having fun in the wind.  After finishing The Minds of Birds, I felt more comfortable with my conclusion.

    In The Minds of Birds, Skutch synthesizes over 60 years of his bird behavior watching.  Skutch’s interpretations of bird behavior are backed up by numerous citations from the scientific literature, where he has also made substantial contributions.  In addition, the book is enhanced with 42 excellent illustrations by Dana Gardner.  Skutch asserts that birds in general have emotions that can be categorized similar to emotions exhibited by human beings, and that birds are much more intelligent and aware of what they do than we humans have commonly acknowledged.  Skutch states at the outset of the book that “If we believe…birds suffer and enjoy somewhat as we do, we have stronger motives for protecting them.”  I agree with this sentiment; in the foreseeable future, I cannot imagine that birds will need less protection.

    Throughout the book, parallels are drawn between bird and human behavior.  It is important to note that Skutch is careful not to rate bird intelligence in relation to that of humans; rather, he points out similar mental processes involved in making decisions and expressing emotions.  For example, birds can exhibit mental conflicts such as being torn between opposing actions, much like humans.  Skutch indicates that this implies conscious decision making.  In the chapter entitled “Emotions” Skutch suggests that pleasure, distress, and the show of affection are emotions readily exhibited in birds.  There is an entire chapter devoted to examining the aesthetic sense in birds, where one conclusion is that birds must enjoy singing their songs much as we enjoy music, and that “if they find no joys or satisfactions in their lives, all their efforts to survive and reproduce are barren.”  At times throughout the book, Skutch does tend to make such unsupported claims.  But if his six decades of observing birds in the wild cannot support his claims, there is probably not much that can.

    Bird intelligence is examined more fully in chapters that discuss tool using by birds, social interaction, abilities to remember events and anticipate the future, and rudimentary counting abilities.  Problem-solving by birds is addressed in topics such as why birds sometimes act as if they are primarily ruled by inherited behavioral patterns with little flexibility.  As Skutch points out, although most bird behavior is innate, in many situations birds also exhibit behavioral flexibility by learning and building upon innate patterns.  But he also stresses that certain situations created somewhat recently by humans may demand behavioral responses too far removed from innate patterns; we, therefore, find birds flying into panes of glass and being attracted to and flying into tall buildings with bright lights.  And yet, studies of cooperative breeding species—where non-parental but closely-related individuals help raise young—provide evidence that birds are not simple creatures.  According to Skutch, the complex interactions (such as the recognition of individuals and relationships) that must occur in a breeding colony to avoid conflict and inbreeding indicate that “birds’ minds are capable of fine discriminations and establishing order in complex situations.

    The chapter entitled “Play” has the most relevance to my observations of gulls at Lake Michigan.  Skutch describes barn swallows playing with a feather:  “A swallow would drop down, seize a feather in its bill, then swoop upward to circle above the other swallows and drop the plume.  As it floated down, another caught it.  So the game continued while with marvelous grace the birds traced wide arcs through the air.”  As plainly stated, Skutch’s interpretation is that the swallows were playing a game.  In the same chapter, he describes a scene involving herring gulls soaring in the breeze along the coast of Maine that was very similar to what I observed at Lake Michigan.  Being unable to suggest another motive for their activity, Skutch concludes that the gulls were playing.

    Of all the things that birds do, long distance migration from point to point across oceans or deserts impresses me the most.  Consider that an airplane pilot requires sophisticated navigational abilities and technology to know where he or she is located in three spatial dimensions plus time.  Yet a warbler, for instance, can fly off the Atlantic coast of North America, over the open ocean beyond sight of land, and arrive in South America!  The next spring, it can make its way back north to the same breeding area.  Of course, this is an example of inherited behavior; but still, behavioral flexibility allows birds blown off course to re-orient to the correct course.  Skutch states that the minds of birds must be highly developed for information processing and decision making in order to successfully solve all the variety of problems encountered during a long-distance migration.

    The Minds of Birds is a very readable and enjoyable book written by a man eminently qualified to interpret bird behavior.  I hope the book succeeds in bringing humans and birds closer together, to foster understanding on our part, so that we may all continue to coexist on our troubled an rapidly changing planet.

 

[This review was originally published in Illinois Audubon magazine, Spring 1997 issue, pages 20-21.]

 

Review by Thomas V. Lerczak, author of Side Channels, A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir.

 

Great Lakes Birding Trip: A Reading from Side Channels

In 2002 I took a birding trip around Lake Michigan.  Illinois Audubon magazine then published an article that I wrote about the trip called “From a Great Lakes Journal:  Of Sand, Glaciers, and Birds.”  I included a slightly revised version of the article as Chapter 27 in my book Side Channels:  A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir, which was published in 2011.

Follow this link to hear a reading of a portion of Chapter 27 from Side Channels:  

Download Side Channels Reading CH27

 

 

Side Channels is available for purchase from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Bookstore, and a variety of other online sites.

Red-headed Woodpecker Update - Winter 2013-2014

In 2003, I began a winter bird survey at Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve in Mason County, Illinois.  The purpose of this survey was to collect information on overwintering red-headed woodpeckers for Audubon's Important Bird Areas program in Illinois.  Other than 2008, I have continued to do these counts at least once every winter season.  Results of the first summary, called "The Missing Red-headed Woodpeckers of Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve," were published here on this blog and in the Summer 2010 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine.  I posted the first update to this survey on this blog on June 1, 2011.  Here is another update.

Click on image to enlarge.

Other data from the site are at www.ebird.org.

 

For those interested in reading more about red-headed woodpeckers and Sand Praire-Scrub Oak Nature Preserve, please download Chapter 13 ( Download Side Channels Chapter 13), Dead Trees, Distrubance, and Illinois' Red-headed Woodpeckers, from my book Side Channels.

 

To purchase a copy of Side Channels, please go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble.