The River Landing

Essays, scenes, and opinions interfacing the natural world, especially life along rivers, and modern society

Introduction

  • How to Purchase a Copy of Side Channels: A Collection of Nature Writing and Memoir
  • Notes from the Fourth Phase
  • Side Channels E-Book
  • The River Landing

About

Mississippi River at Palisaides State Park-1978
Mississippi River Backwater, NW Illinois

Recent Posts

  • Beginning with a Small Yellow Flower
  • Ten Essential Songs (One Man’s Opinion)
  • A Big Dark Bird on the Wind
  • Tending the Beast
  • Town Walking
  • The Last Old Oak
  • What Didn't Happen
  • For Future Reference
  • On a Search for the Floodplain Warbler
  • Wheelbarrow Blues

Categories

  • A View of Nature (13)
  • Bird Book Reviews (13)
  • Birds and Birding (61)
  • Canoeing (9)
  • Chautauqua National Willdife Refuge (24)
  • Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge (7)
  • General Articles Travel-Nature (12)
  • Illinois River (50)
  • Literary Essays (9)
  • Music (10)
  • Natural Areas (28)
  • Notes from the Fourth Phase (46)
  • Outdoor Notes (38)
  • River Reading List (1)
  • Side Channels Notes (17)
  • Stories from the Cabin (31)
See More

River Scenes Photo Gallery

  • La Moine River, McDonough County, Illinois

Illinois River Photo Gallery

  • Towboat pushing a barge with wind turbine blades, Aug. 14, 2021

Mississippi River Photo Gallery

  • Mississippi River at Andalusia Slough

Hill Prairie Photo Gallery

  • Sangamon River and Revis Hill Prairie Nature Preserve

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021

More...

Favorite Web Sites

  • Sobatka Literary Magazine
  • River Teeth
  • Purchase a Copy of Side Channels
  • Midwest Writing Center
  • Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway
  • Harvesting the River
  • Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary NonFiction
  • Big River Magazine
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© Thomas V. Lerczak
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Member since 05/2008

Side Channels E-Book

Side Channels Front Cover
Author's e-mail address:  tvincl@comcast.net

 

Cover Page, Copyright, Dedication

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Table of Contents

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Foreword by Debbie Scott Newman

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Introduction

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Part One - River Life

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Chapter 1 - An Affinity for Rivers

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Chapter 2 - A Sense of Place

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Chapter 3 - Slow and Steady:  A Life of Encounters with Illinois' Great Blue Heron

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Chapter 4 - Starved Rock and the Illinois River's Locks and Dams

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Chapter 5 - An Illinois River Canoeing Journal:  Nature's Ways on Illinois' Busy Waterway

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Chapter 6 - Illinois' Continental Divide:  Mud Lake and the Chicago Portage

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Chapter 7 - Timeless Scenes Along the Illinois River

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Chapter 8 - Bald Eagles on a Morning Commute

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Chapter 9 - The Eagle Quest

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Chapter 10 - Wings Over the River

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Chapter 11 - First Glimpse of the Upper Mississippi River Valley

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Chapter 12 - A Lesson in Nature's Dynamics:  Barton-Sommer's Woodland

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

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Chapter 14 - From the Misery Index to Havana

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Chapter 15 - The Shorbirds Among Us

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Chapter 16 - When Hawks Fly

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Chapter 17 - Carrying on an Electro-shocking Legacy

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Chapter 18 - Nature Along the Margins at Cooper Park Wetlands

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Chapter 19 - As the Rivers Rise Again

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Chapter 20 - The Gizzard Shad in Nature's Economy

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Chapter 21 - In Praise of Sitting and Staring

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Part Two - Travel

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Chapter 22 - Pursuing the Blue Goose Across Illinois

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Chapter 23 - Eulogy for an Oak

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Chapter 24 - Drawn to Antiquity

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Chapter 25 - A Western Birding Excursion:  Of Wind, Rain, Rocks, and Renewal

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Chapter 26 - Ties

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Chapter 27 - From a Great Lakes Journal:  Of Sand, Glaciers, and Birds

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Chapter 28 - Encounters with the Niagara River

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Chapter 29 - Taking in the American Bottom

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Chapter 30 - Isle Royale:  A Wilderness Island in Lake Superior

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Chapter 31 - Epilogue:  Thoughts on Twenty-five Years as a Naturalist

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Acknowledgments

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