Tag Archives: nature

Prairie Harmony

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A delightful hum is providing us new music here at Listening Stones Farm. It comes from near a sidewalk from four years ago, and it comes from a native prairie garden we created beside the sidewalk a year ago. Across the adjacent patio are a pair of “strip” gardens of native plants where “blanket” flowers have created a mid-summer dominance, Across the patio is our “triangle” prairie garden where compass plants have for years bullied their way to crowd out nearly everything else. Tall and rising from the square stems are the yellow blossoms.

Bees and other pollinators have come in droves to feast on the multitudes of pollen from these plantings. Before all of this color and blissful natural harmony our lawn, a boring landscaped carpet of green covered our yard. We would have a few weeks of sparkling yellow dandelions dotted with bees. That was about it other than our nearby prairie restoration.

Initially elusive, the yellow swallowtail eventually allowed some photographic moments!

Adding to these gardens are a couple of shaded pollinator plantings alongside the house where in the past we would have had an early flush of beautiful red columbines. Initially these native plants hugged the north side of the house, then I took a spade and transplanted a few inside a little space existing inside an ancient sidewalk someone years ago laid into the soil next to our solarium. I don’t know how far the sidewalk extends. When planting the shade-friendly prairie plants we purchased from the Lac qui Parle SWCD last summer I realized a lot of the sidewalk was buried beneath the lawn, and that the concrete walkway reached at least to where our rooted horseradish dominates.

We also have our terrace garden that stretches along the west side of the house that faces the county road. Huge granite boulders were plugged into the landscaped rise where various prairie natives were planted in a narrow nook of exposed soil that is separated from the lawn with landscape fabric. Like a prairie, every year is different, and like the other plantings, weeding is constant chore.

A pair of monarchs tantalized before landing near one another.

So we have bees and other buzzing pollinators completely surrounding our home. That’s the music we hear. A hum of a natural orchestra highlighted by a variety of songbirds, from wrens to a pair of yellow warblers with a catbird and mourning doves adding a sense of sweet percussion.

Yet, I’ve not even mentioned the butterflies, whose flights might be inaudible to human ears. At least mine. 

Right now we have numerous monarchs flitting around that were recently joined by a beautiful Eastern tiger yellow swallowtail. It seemed the red admirals settled in first, sneaking in quietly, along with a variety of fritillary species. Other random species have been in and out, and I’ve found it difficult to keep up with all these beautiful visitors. Dainty cabbage whites, with their little dots displayed on the wings, have sneaked in as well

A view of three of the gardens … our new one to the right planted a year ago, the “triangle” to the left with the tall compass plants, and the peeking strip garden next to the studio.

So many of the native flowers are now in bloom that our eyes feast on color from yellow to white, bright orange to glittery purple, so when you add all of these flitting, flying colorful blossoms of butterfly wings with the hum created by the variety of bees, it is all a wonder to behold.

As mentioned, we also have eight acres of grassy prairie basically surrounding our home, although since a misguided though “helpful” neighbor mistakingly mowed down a post-burn incredible flush of flowering natives years ago, some of the joy is missing. Those flowering plants have never recovered. Oh to have retained all that incredible color within the mix of both cool season and warm season prairie grasses, our prairie would be a wonder. This was an unfortunate mistake that has haunted me ever since.

Red admirals were our first butterflies in our new pollinator plot.

Hopefully we aren’t done with our pollinator efforts. A house-long narrow strip of lawn exists between the house and terrace garden that is begging to be converted. This section is barely wide enough for the mower and simply looks awkward and, well, a bit naked. This has been a transformative strip for years. Initially a couple of large bushes existed beneath the kitchen window that we pulled out to make way for blueberry bushes. Those new plantings never caught hold, and it’s been barren except for lawn grasses ever since. 

Hopefully someday one of my favored native prairie plant friends will come for a visit to offer advice for selection and placement of plants for that area. My reaching out hasn’t worked so far, although I’m still hopeful. Why? One only needs to look at our newest pollinator plantings along the sidewalk to understand why. Because of my ignorance that patch is completely backwards. Huge bushy plants are so dominate along the sidewalk that many of the smaller species have been crowded out, or are hidden in the background. Anyone with knowledge of those plants would no doubt guffaw as did a carpenter who witnessed my first attempts at hanging drywall. 

While the butterflies add joyous color, the bees and other pollinators create the hum of the orchestra.

Fortunately the butterflies and bees don’t mind, even if we humans are crowded off the sidewalk en route to my art studio. Yet, there are those moments utter joy. 

Earlier this week I took a momentary break on our newly refurbished deck with a cup of cold sun tea when I noticed the swallowtail hovering over the blossoms. Over the past weekend I had noticed it and went to fetch the camera, though when I stepped off the deck with camera in hand it lifted quickly to fly in flitting defiance to parts unknown. Now it was here, painstakingly maneuvering through the blossoms. A pair of monarchs were traipsing between the various enclaves, and I caught sight of a red admiral on the closer blossoms.

This strip of lawn just above the terrace garden will hopefully be transformed into another vast prairie planting yet this late summer or fall.

So I fetched my camera. This time all of the butterflies were cooperative, including the moody swallowtail, and so were some bees. Our plants? They seem to bask in their respective glory, posing time after time. Eventually a round was made to each of the various gardens as a lovely calmness eased over me. With it came with the realization that over a short period of time we have created so much more than that springtime flush of dandelions, and that we can now count on hearing the hum of pollinator music over and over again, accented with our bevy of birds, creating a natural symphony as sweet and soothing as a Bach’s concerto.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? 

The Balm of Dawn

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Initially I was rather discouraged, and perhaps “rather” isn’t quite strong enough to convey my feelings. You see, I had visualized an image for a week or so after we discovered that the beautiful meadow of cone flowers in the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge had bloomed, long enough ago that many blossoms were already showing their age. Crinkled petals, some showing brownness on the edges of the delightful pink. In short, there wasn’t much time left to capture my idea.

My intentions were rather simple, for I’ve envisioned a simple softness of fog with the defusing warmth of a rising sun providing a bit of hazy backlight to this expansive meadow of pink. Summer fog, which happens frequently in the lowlands of the prairie, isn’t uncommon over the wetlands and prairie around dawn much like it does in the Boundary Waters, rivers and lakes. This meadow is just up the rise from the broad waters of the West Pool, which is a flooded basin managed for protection of waterfowl and other aquatic avians.

A Cormorant skips across the waters of the West Pool with a dawn breakfast in its beak.

Then, there’s this: It has been awhile since I’ve ventured out for pictures before dawn, somehow losing the habit of being up to greet what the late naturalist and photographer Edwin Way Teale called “nature’s finest balm.” Yes, dawn. Perhaps it’s an “age thing.” 

My dream of a foggy image is somewhat different since I’ve photographed these cone flowers religiously since moving to Listening Stones Farm a dozen years ago. After a scorching day the thought of a rising fog had me up and into the pickup about a half hour before sunrise. My intensions and excitement took an immediate hit because a dense cloud bank was covering the eastern sky. Since I was already up and headed to the Refuge, why turn back? 

Despite my disappointment I still eased from the truck with my trusty Nikon and wandered through the grasses and flowers making a few half-hearted images. Hardly anything worth remembering. My files are loaded with cone flowers from this meadow, including a really nice senior picture of the daughter of friends. Which wasn’t the point. My visualization was the point.

I could spend hours watching Black Terns ply the waters.

Perhaps Teale’s entire quote is worth noting: “For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature’s finest balm.” Taking this to heart would be my new challenge. 

After a deep breath, birds of various species were seen skimming across the still waters of the West Pool while above me Cormorants were scurrying by to their secret potholes, prehistorically shaped fishers silhouetted against the colorful, cloudy canvas of sky. Solitary Great Blue Herons made curved-neck flights across the muted skies. The skies were alive! It was then I remembered catching the gaping mouth and awkward warnings from a female Night Hawk on a distant outcrop. This didn’t have to only be about cone flowers and fog.

At the far bend of the motor trail I caught a Cormorant bounce-splashing across the surface with a small fish firmly captured in its beak. Kingbirds and a Bobolink moved across the grassy prairie trying to hide from the cameraman. Ring-billed Gulls and Black Terns provided nearly an hour of entertainment at the bend of the motor trail, playing in a nice reflected, colorful light. Terns were attempting their athletic poetry of dipping their bills into the waters as they sped across the surface. This alone can capture my attention for time on end.

Flights of White Pelicans are usually delightful to observe.

Of course, being in the refuge meant White Pelicans were around, although far fewer in numbers than the cormorants. The two fishing pals make an interesting contrast in almost all ways … color, shape and beauty of flight. They seems to ply the same spaces in search of nourishment with the Cormorants diving out of sight and the pelicans often teaming up to corner their prey. It was here at the bend of the motor trail where both frequent. Last autumn I caught hundreds of pelicans in military-like formations crossing the West Pool in murderous mayhem. Squadrons of them, numbering several across, all easing eastward across the waters. The next day there wasn’t a pelican in sight. Apparently I’d stumbled upon a last feast before migration.

Eventually it was time to move along so I drove around the last big bend toward the riverside parking lot hopeful of catching perhaps a wood duck. This portion of the Refuge is along the debris choked Minnesota River. I would find a single Pied-Billed Grebe in a limb reflection and a Green Heron that posed beautifully for me. All that remained was that protective Night Hawk.

It’s always a joy to see a Green Heron, and usually they’re more skitterish.

This was certainly a delicate mission for you don’t want to unnecessarily rile up nature, and particularly such a rare bird. We had initially spied her over the weekend when we had stopped at a flat outcrop to show a former exchange student ball cacti and were confronted by the “hissing” female. While Night Hawks are graceful and incredibly stunning in flight, hovering high in the sky before diving at nearly breakneck speeds, on land their extremely weak legs make it a challenge to move. 

She was still there and immediately flopped across the granite to defend her well hidden nest. Hastily I made about a half dozen images while standing several feet away where I hoped not to be considered a serious threat. Although I tried to be quick and unobtrusive, I had no desire to cause her unnecessary strife and tension. 

The increasingly rare Night Hawk, awkward on land, defends her nest near the outcrop.

Thanks to the various birds, including the awkward Night Hawk, my dawn foray was delightful and successful. Teale’s “balm” had worked wonders. And since my dear mother once gifted me with his “Journey Into Summer” as a teenager, here’s one last Teale passage that perhaps summed up my feelings: “Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors. Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.” 

Amen!

That Hue of Blue

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Several years ago while driving toward Blackbird Trail, that winding sweetheart of a drive through the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge near Detroit Lakes, my eye caught a lone beauty of an interesting flower that I couldn’t believe was either “native” or “wild.” Yet there stood a beautiful lone blue iris, radiating and standing tall against the greenish nearby native marshy plants … with exception of the adjacent gangly cattails.

Was this some sort of garden remnant? Did someone luckily hoist a bulb into the marsh from the graveled road? 

After returning home a little research confirmed the identification, noting that Minnesota actually has two closely related “Blueflags” or native blue irises with territories divided on a loose geographic border drawn horizontally across the state from our largest city. Iris versicolor is the northern and predominant species from the Twin Cities up into Canada while Iris virginica similarly reaches from the Twin Cities south toward the Texas coast. 

According to the scientific explanation the upstate species is typically more richly pigmented on the outer sepal edges, fading lighter towards the “throat” with veins prominently tinted toward a faded greenish yellow. While microscopic characteristics might cause a botanist to giggle, the northern iris is typically a darker blue than its faded cousin. There! Science has spoken. 

Now here is a bit of poetry, thanks to Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” — “Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat’s ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they’d not long since been rooted out.” 

Science, or blown glass like a pastel splash of velvity water, these beauties stand awash in the nearby greenery of Tamerac, catching a wandering eye like a thin metal washer drawn instantly to a demanding magnet.

While we had a free day and a will of once again hopefully capturing blooms of both the yellow and showey ladyslippers that bless this northern refuge, I also held hope that we might catch the wild blue of irises in bloom. All three wild flowers came through splendidly along with a host of other colorful wild flora. We were blessed. 

Not so much by the fauna, however. Not one songbird, including the fluttering and shy warblers, allowed me a moment. While the swans were cooperative, we had some near misses along the way: a grouse with three chicks slithered like spies deep into the trail grasses before scooting out to escape my hungry lens into the dense woods. This was just moments before I caught sight of a beaver in my rear-view mirror tugging a six foot willow branch by the clamp of his teeth while charging across the motor trail in a beaverish waddle. Like the spy-like grouse, it dragged the branch through the dense woody underbrush while successfully remaining obscured by the leafy branches. We then came over a rise to find a bald eagle posed perfectly on a branch of a dead tree. I quickly raised the camera although apparently not rapidly enough. My image was of the perfectly weathered grayish branch, a bunch of blue sky and the feet and butt of the rising raptor. Ah, but those wild irises!

It was in the midst of all that commotion that we finally came across the irises. In three distinct locations, each marshy, each different and distinct from the other. On our last sighting a broad curved broad grassy looking leaf of a plant would have made a nice arc over two near perfect younger blossoms. Without hip boots, though, my idea of making an image with a composition of the plants beneath the arc of leaf simply didn’t work. A thought of wading into the marsh with the hordes of mosquitoes was as much of a deterrent as was the possibility of sinking knee deep into the muck. Even laying onto the gravel didn’t provide the angle I envisioned. It was what it was. Welcome to nature. And those were the last of the dozens of irises we came across.

Our first batch was quite numerous, and I actually let out an exclamation of delight when they initially came into view. Time had played a role in their aging, however, with spent blossoms hanging blackish along with those struggling to grasp their fading beauty. What can one do when faced with these situations in nature? You simply do what you can. Between this incredible array of blossoms and those arching above the arc, we found another set that hadn’t aged so distinctly. Being partially shaded, it seemed, might have helped. This batch allowed me to play with light and depth of field, those tools of our odd trade. Perhaps too much time was spent attempting to create a bit of art from such a wonderful blessing of nature.

Yes, it was delightful to once again see the rich blues of the irises, along with the white and pink of the showeys. Those vivid colors of the yellow ladyslippers and the bright crimson of the columbines added joy as well. My partner, Roberta, suggested on our way home that I was smiling. Internally there was certainly a sense of peace and joy, that those six hours of drive time had been well worth the effort. 

Sometimes these seasons I photograph, be they birds, trees, prairie grasses or native flowers, help me check off a mental list. Do I need more images of wild turkeys fluffed in sexual desire, or the first poking of pasque flowers through dormant grasses after another long and dreary winter, or of those lady slippers I chase from the prairie to the northern woods as was the reason for this drive, or even the pastel waters of little black cat’s ears in the sun? As a naturalist and photographer, though, these are seasons of life, of nature, of the knowledge that for one more year all is surviving nicely in the natural world. Myself included. So yes, I was smiling! 

Flirting With Destiny

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Was destiny in the cards? Serendipity? On a morning when I felt it best I be out of the house I ended up in familiar digs, leaving a favored fishing spot to raise my camera once again in nature. Funny how that works. This venture began with an eye toward an eagle’s nest near the Marsh Lake dam, one I’ve photographed a few times over the past several weeks. This is a haunting setting, a nest built high within the branches of a weathered and whitened row of cottonwoods alongside the wetland. Weathered and whitened cottonwoods line both sides of the slough.

Although the rain hampered the vision somewhat it was still easy to see the eaglets that are now perhaps as large as their parents. Both were hopping on the gigantic wooded nest, stretching their broad wings high and wide. Briefly I wondered if one would actually take flight. Across the wetland the parents were perched side by side keeping eyes on the youngsters across the way.

Swallows were buzzing around, and I loved the old log and its reflection. Would a swallow do a dip? Yes! `Stark and simple.

Then it was to the dam itself where I quickly became engrossed in trying to capture Black Terns dipping their beaks into the surface of the Minnesota River. A few weeks ago at the Sand Lake NWR I just missed capturing a swallow doing the same. In the midst of working the terns a glance skyward caught a huge pod of white pelicans gliding gracefully overhead toward Marsh Lake. Trying to capture an image from inside the cab of the pickup tested my recent lack of yoga. 

An umbrella of densely packed clouds were joined by rain pelting the windshield as I headed up the rise toward the fish-bone-surfaced gravel road. A quick glance across the lake revealed a vast horizon of acres of deep green vegetation stretching across the formerly carp infested shallow waters. A shrouded haze stretched across the vegetated waters as my thoughts turned to capturing a long string of gliding pelicans, their white bodies and black wing tips easing across this plain of aquatic flora, contrasting with the green foliage and bluish haze.

It was author Shiva Negi in his “Freedom of Life” who suggested that intention determines destiny. Would this be the time and place?

A sunset over the headwaters of the Minnesota River was blessed by two swallows, an anxious wait since the sun was sinking quickly.

While holding that thought I tucked tail and headed past the eagles toward down the county gravel. Thanks to my dear partner, Roberta, and her desire for “new roads,” I took a left at the “T” thinking I might be closer to the highway home than if I took my normal route. It was a dead end, so I maneuvered the pickup around and headed back toward the Marsh Lake road. Does intention determine destiny? There it was again, so I turned back onto the dam road to see if perhaps another pod of pelicans might glide across the lake toward the island they inhabit. That mix of stark green and bluish haze was just too strong to pass up. After  arriving at the dam, I backed the truck down the pathway on the dike and eased the window down to wait.

Within moments another long and sweeping pod of pelicans came easing across the windshield, stretching long across the horizon just as I had imagined. And, yes, they were headed up the lake in a near perfect composition. Destiny? Serendipity? Nature in perfect symmetry and harmony; an image that spoke of natural poetry!

Serendipity, for this was simply a beautiful surprise finding the swallows so perfectly placed!

Moments later, as I was heading home, thoughts of how various species of birds have blessed my images over the years by inexplicably turning mundane landscapes toward a higher level. Each time, I recalled, it was a matter of melding the natural composition with the help of some natural avian enhancement. Over the years I’ve had great help from swallows. Twice near the headwaters of the Minnesota River, and again on a foggy morning over Stoney Creek just east of Ortonville. 

Two old photojournalism adages came to mind: Animals, be they human, birds or otherwise, are creatures of habit, so if they do something once they most likely will do so again; and, always be prepared by planning your image around available light and composition. Those pelicans were a case in point, but so was focusing on a floating log believing a swallow would once again dip to sip nearby. Could I await the cruising swallows during a beautiful and calm sunset at the headwaters of the Minnesota River?

Serendipity? I believe this differs from destiny because it is typically just blind luck. Which brings me to the sweet swallows that somehow miraculously appeared in my Stoney Creek image. It wasn’t until I was back home processing a morning shoot that I actually noticed two swallows perfectly situated within the image. Even without their help, the composition, lighting, snaky fog hovering over the bend of this shallow creek would have made a fine image. That pair of swallows took it to another level. Pure luck!

Destiny? As if Negi was correct on his definition of the word, the pelicans appeared to ease across the Marsh Lake horizon!

That, I believe, is the difference between the two. There isn’t much you can do about serendipity while destiny requires knowledge, patience and a will to succeed. Certainly there is some luck involved. Would another pod of pelicans come back over Marsh Lake that morning? Having seen two different pods fly in that direction gave me hope that another on might come through. I was more than willing to wait awhile, and truthfully, it was less than a minute after I’d parked. This was one time when patience wasn’t needed. I knew the image I wanted and had placed myself in position if and when it might happen. 

Just as Negi had proposed. My intentions had won out resulting in a pleasing image. No, this wasn’t the first time where my feathered friends have helped me create an image that I’d mentally conceived, and I can’t thank Mother Nature enough for all these gifts and blessings she has granted me through the years. Certainly I’ll take serendipity when offered, yet I’ll opt for destiny when intensions are warranted. 

Hope Within Mourning

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This wasn’t an intentional gathering of us “brothers from different mothers,” although we were together to honor the passing of a special woman we considered as one of the “mothers” of our shared advocacy and love of a muddy and polluted Minnesota River. We stood in the commons area of the church, some in our jeans and worn, aged shirts probably scanned an hour beforehand to see if they were stain free. 

Several moments into our mutual greetings and acknowledgments of our few fishing stories, Audrey Arner, another long time clean river advocate, walked up to suggest,  “Guys, this is like old home week.” Indeed, we were a familiar bunch, had been for years. All around us were so many others who have been part of the advocacy.

Among them was Butch Halterman, a long time “river rat” who was well respected as a Montevideo senior high science teacher for his unrelenting knowledge, spirit and resolve; a man who for several years escorted groups of high schoolers in canoes from the headwaters all the way to its confluence with the Mississippi. 

An overview of the siltation from both Hawk Creek and Yellow Medicine rivers that have choked off the original channel to the right, leaving a deep siltation between that and the new channel to the left.

There was Ron Hanson, who has written a few tough songs he must be persuaded to play, who lives alone in the nearby prairie where he grows some impressive long-thorned cactus plants. A narrow but simple path snakes through the rooms and narrow hallway past the seemingly hundreds of evil looking cacti, and a dire warning that this isn’t a place to bend over emerging from a bath.

Up from New Ulm was Scott Sparlin, who was instrumental in organizing a clean river group called the Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River. Butch, Ron and I had at one point served on the board of a sister river cleanup non-profit called Clean Up the Minnesota River (CURE). Noticeably absent on this day of mourning was its long time CURE leader back in the day, Patrick Moore, who recently had moved to Montana with his wife to be close to the families of their two daughters and grandchildren. 

Back in the “old days” when dozens of canoes and kayaks were on the prairie rivers in May.

Our church gathering was to honor the late Shirley Werhspann, wife of Del. Collectively they were as responsible and as active with the Minnesota River cleanup efforts as the rest of us. Moore actually credited Del as the muse for creating CURE, initially under the auspices of the Land Stewardship Project. All this organizing came in conjunction with a ten-point action agenda to save a threatened river offered by then Gov. Arne Carlson. It was a heady and strong effort for more than 20 years.

“I no longer feel apart of the river,” Butch admitted, although he still has a cabin of sorts and a landing just downriver from Preen’s Landing. Yes, he still fishes both in the open currents and on the ice. “Used to be a brotherhood, a family of us, and we were all on the river. No more.” 

Nowadays, not so much. Perhaps age is part of it, moves another. So has the politics and change in the direction of CURE. “It’s now electric cars,” he laments. “Not so much about the river.” 

An evening of catfishing on a bend of the Minnesota River.

Indeed, not much has improved since all this started back in the early 1990s. Indeed, the river seems to face even greater threats. At Skalbakken County Park, for one example, standing in the picnic shelter back then would have seen the river channel ripe against the tree-lined north bank to the far right of the shelter. Heavy boulder riprap was peppered along the bank beneath the shelter to protect the park from being washed away by the incoming flow. Thanks to some extremely wet years, patterned tiling and an insistence on flushing spring melt from fields of commodity crops, the channel is now to the far left as siltation several feet deep has closed off the original channel. Between the former and present channels, this thick “island” of silt now has emerging willows and prairie weeds sprouting. Further down river the increase of flow has sliced a new channel through the riverine prairie, speeding waters past many of the former serpentine bends to create shallow oxbows.  

So much change, so rapidly, that Heraclitus’ statement, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man” rings both too close and truthful. Yes, the river has changed and so have we, as we, individually, enter the last one percent of humanity. In a few words, “We’ve grown old.”

“River rat” buddy, Tom Kalahar, fishing on a Minnesota River sandbar.

There we stood, the group of us along with some other grayed river advocates, awaiting an official mourning of a woman known as an “animal whisperer” and forceful advocate of a cleaner river and environment. Our little group had met numerous times in her kitchen talking river politics over her delicious home baked cookies, of how to better our efforts and how to remain strong while surrounded by a seemingly uncaring and unbending agricultural community. At one point she worked on Congressman David Minge’s statewide staff working as a local organizer and scheduler. Shirley was as strong politically as she was so kind hearted to us, and to her horses and other pets. For years she and Del ran a boarding kennel that was highly praised thanks to her tender and loving care.

Minge, it should be noted, helped craft perhaps the strongest soil conservation program along with Iowa Senator, Tom Harkin, called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program that placed nearly a million acres of vulnerable farm land into perpetual retirement. He was also on the original CURE board of directors.

A closeup image of clean water from a protected tributary as it enters the muddy Minnesota River.

In time we ambled in for her last rites, taking seats, singing hymns and offering prayers. Later, in the church basement over a lunch of a tatter-tot hotdish, our conversations continued. Among them came the offerings of new promise, of a river wide conference scheduled in Mankato, where the muddy and polluted river takes a severe turn northeast toward the confluence with the Mississippi. Like in the past, the “old” Butch, Audrey and Richard Handeen were all encouraging us to once again to join together with Scott and the downriver folks to inspire change and better conservation efforts — some 35 or so years since the first such efforts.

While the effort is hopeful, is there still enough fight and resolve to make a difference? Perhaps Scott Sparlin has a new youthful grouping than we found in the church that morning. In the old days, when we were young, those resolves weren’t even a consideration. We simply made up our minds and took to the river, in canoes, in meetings, gatherings at various county parks, and group paddles on not just the “mother river” but also the five tributaries. We fought with protests and in the courts, and we took our battle to St. Paul. We worked with other down river groups all the way to Lake Pepin on the Mississippi.

An evening moment on a quiet bend of the Minnesota River.

Back home on the rivers, my late wife, Sharon Yedo White, one of our exchange students (Luise “Lucy” Hille of Germany) and I all earned our “Prairie Paddlers” patch then granted by CURE — a colorful cloth patch signifying that we had successfully paddled all six of the upper prairie rivers.

Those were the days. On a single weekend in May we would gather in dozens of canoes and kayaks to paddle the rivers, then in September we would close the paddling season with a relaxed fall trip just as the leaves would be coloring, which they seem to do earlier close to the river, when the air would be a bit crisp with the approaching waters reflecting a blueness and sense of clarity we all hoped would someday be normal. Back when the river was a part of each of us. Now, perhaps, a new hope will emerge.

On Thursday, June 12, the 17th Annual  Minnesota River Congress will meet at the Kato Ballroom in Mankato starting at 6 p.m. Sparlin continues the batttle as the facilitator of the event, which besides two strong panels will feature Joseph Barisonzi, Minnesota state vice president of the Izaak Walton League, as a speaker. His topic: “The River Can’t Wait.” Barisonzi also is curator of the chapter’s Kouba Gallery in Bloomington, MN, where my current exhibit, “Haunted by Waters” is now on display — a fitting coincidence. 

Grasping Joy

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Can someone find joy in the South Dakota mudflats? It was Dutch theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen who suggested that joy doesn’t simply happen, rather that is it is something we must choose. Or, find. This thought surfaced recently and caused me to think of what in nature could give me joy. Nature is where I typically turn when that spark of joy is necessary for soothing the soul. 

This thought happened to occur in the midst of a conversation about American Avocets I was having with our head librarian, Jason Frank, who is a dedicated birder and naturalist when he’s away from the stacks. We were chatting about my inability to find one of my favorite shorebirds when he suggested the mudflats around Sand Lake NWR about two hours west in NE South Dakota. With an empty afternoon ahead of us, we headed west.

First came the Avocets, which we found in a flooded field depression not far from Houghton just a few miles from the Sand Lake Refuge. That pair would be the first of a beautiful handful of shorebirds that would occupy our afternoon, and yes, all contributed to blissful joy.

Ah, an American Avocet — our target in the search for joy!

Yet, it was the Avocets that drew us across the prairielands. I’d been missing them. Literally. Earlier this spring there was a brief gathering at the Big Stone NWR where Frank had spotted and photographed a flock he found wading alongside the river. Knowing my love, he had alerted me the following afternoon with his photographs and pinpointed where they were wading. I rushed to the Refuge only to find a locked gate and smoke rising from the thousands of acres of prairie grassland. A spring burn was underway, and continued for the next day or two … just enough time for the flock to fly elsewhere.

Refuge biologist Brandon Semel noted a week or so later that we are actually on the very eastern edge of their natural territories. This was after I had spent a few trips searching the area wetlands where I’d photographed them last summer. Which led me to this more recent conversation with Frank. Like, “Where can I find Avocets?”

Nearly all the flats had sandpipers.

My attraction to these beautiful waders is a strange love story. Back when I was in a forgettable career stretch with a Minneapolis-based ad agency, I found a piece of cottonwood at the studio of a wood artist friend, procured a few wood carving tools and went to work whittling away both wood and ad agency aggravation — whittling away the late night hours when I should have been sleeping. It was during this hobby moment I came upon photographs of this brown-headed beauty of a shorebird with the thin, upcurved bill. My carving was of a rather non-nondescript assemblage of a shorebird and nowhere close to an Avocet. One slip of the knife would have quickly made their narrowest of bills another shaving.

The sandpipers continued to fly first one way, then back.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago while on the annual Salt Lake Birder’s Tour that I saw my first real life Avocet, thanks to Lac qui Parle SWCD manager Rhyan Schicker. Just before the annual kickoff breakfast she told me there were several wading in a flooded farm field just east of Marietta, home of the annual birding mecca. I rushed out and there they were, even more beautiful in person than in the guide books and magazines. I returned over the next few days for more photographs. Then, the next couple of summers they hovered around here, particularly near some mudflats up by Barry, MN. Not this year, though. We’ve had no rain so the lowlands are bone dry.

Frank suggested the Sand Lake possibility. Over the years this interesting refuge has yielded some nice images, although many hours of stalking the “teapot” flying Woodcocks went sorely unfulfilled. Although our little afternoon foray started with a bit of disappointment when we discovered a formerly quite active Blue Heron rookery abandoned. Finding the Avocets turned the tide. Fortunately no highway patrol came upon us, and that the motorists who whizzed by were so understanding and kind. We had parked as close to the road ditch as possible with my lens sticking out the window, yet half the car was still in the road.

Finding this Black-necked Stilt was an unexpected joy!

Our luck and joy would continue. As we came upon the eastern edge of the Sand Lake Refuge we found different flocks of Sandpipers, each being skitterish and prone for quick flights and returns. Then we happened upon a solitary Black-necked Stilt. Far more common to the American Southwest, the guidebook offers only a pencil thin width of territory this far east. We were in it. Joy!

Between the Stilt and the Sandpipers we were enjoying all the offerings as we crept along the shallow waters. When Sandpipers can wade without the water touching their bellies, they’re wading in quite shallow waters. With the taller birds like the Stilt and Avocets it’s difficult to judge the depths. So we merrily wiled away the afternoon before we happened upon pair of White-faced Ibis further down the road. 

As a final capture were the White-Faced Ibis, sharing a mudflat with a sandpiper.

With our past years of wet spring weather the Ibis seemed fairly comfortable around our area of Minnesota. On that Salt Lake tour a few years ago numerous Ibis were seen at several sites, their bills, unlike the Avocets curved  downward. They flew in mini-V formations from one standing water site to another. This  year? Not a single sighting until we happened upon them in the Dakota mudflats, where they meandered thoroughly unconcerned with the odd guy with the long bazooka of a lens sticking through the car window. Nor was the solitary Sandpiper keeping them company.

Perhaps it would have made wonderful sense to stick around until sunset. However we decided to move on toward home and leave the birds behind in their shallow mudflats. We had been greeted by an Avocet prelude and given benediction by the Ibis, which might mean very little to many. For us sitting in our car on this roadside nave, there was a thorough sense of joy within the high skies of this prairieland “cathedral.” As Nouwen had suggested in his writing, we had chosen our sense of joy and had gone to find it.

Oaken Moments

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Two women stood in front of a canvas I’d titled “Oaken Umbrella.” They conversed somewhat secretly it seemed, sometimes raising fingers to perhaps camouflage their conversation. Other Meander customers were coming forth with credit cards offered and various images in hand. 

After glimpsing the two leave the image, then return, time after time, again speaking in huddled conference, I finally found a moment to chat with them. “Would you like to take it down to move it into better light?” I offered.

No, said one. “We love this but it’s more than we can spend,” said the other.

I briefly remembered the moment the picture was taken. This beautiful oak was on the Griffin Land on a hillside overlooking Lake Gilchrist, with its wide and staunch limbs stretching protectively wide to encompass the undergrowth along with thoughts and memories of this and other proud and stately oaks. It was much like the Heath Gunn poem of “The Spreading Oak” … broad and thick, and handsome trunk, supports the mighty branches, arching, spanning, spreading as if like Medieval lances … “

This image, Oaken Umbrella, served as a memorial for a woman who embraced oak trees.

That is the thing about oak trees, which my partner, Roberta, refers to as “Halloween Trees” thanks to the often ghostly looking stark limbs that seem to jut from the trunks, limbs that are quite visible about now as the late fall has denuded many of the trees. Gnarly and stately trunks of especially the older trees, some dating more than a century in age, offer forms of visual poetry that nearly always grasps my eye.

About 11 years ago the Bonanza portion of Big Stone Lake State Park was introduced to me by a young woman friend, a night when a full moon beckoned in the sky far above the hillside prairie of the park. There, standing all alone away from a small oaken savanna in an abbreviated ravine, was an oak I’ve since photographed numerous times. By now the tree is an old friend, one you feel you should reach out to now and then just to see how things are going.

There it stood, a “Halloween Tree,” the grasses golden in the prairie beyond.

Stoic and strong, standing in the text of time, there isn’t much of a shared conversation. Yet, even one-sided I can feel the strength and independence of the lone oak. A few years ago a devastating derecho came in off Big Stone Lake to raise havoc with many of the aged-old oaks both along the lakeside and there in the ravines of the prairie hillside. All that damage is still quite visible as most was left in place thanks to this being a “natural act of nature.” Yet, this single oak suffered no damage.

Just a few days ago we were ambling through the Bonanza searching for possible deer images when the afterglow of the prairie sunset painted an incredible orangish blaze in the grasses beyond the limbs of yet another old oak nearby. Roberta’s “Halloween” look of the old limbs snaked poetically from the trunk, somewhat silhouetted against the vivid color of the late sun-kissed prairie grasses that provided a splendid background. 

Emerging leaves from the staunch limbs on trees in a small oak savanna during a Master Naturalist hike near Redwing caught my eye.

Oaks have long sought my eye. Where I was raised in the hilly northeastern portion of Missouri,  the oaks on our farm were as dynamic to me as the shagbark hickories, and both were so unique and visually beautiful. Sometimes I would stop my horse to rein in that picturesque beauty, or if I was on a tractor mowing the hillsides, I would momentarily stop in awe. Now deep into retirement I still find an excuse to drive back onto the land now farmed by my nephew just to soak in the views of those old trees once again. And yes, most still grace those grassy hillsides all these years later.

On a Thanksgiving weekend evening a few years back, one of those old oak trees defied its  forestal surroundings with broad shouldered limbs defining its existence, limbs emerging from the dabbing of purplish leaves all around. My camera was raised to record this moment of late afternoon beauty. 

Back on the family farm in Missouri, this old oak stood apart from its forestal surrounding.

It didn’t take much imagination for me to close my eyes and have a running mental “film” rush though my memory of dozens of other encounters with various oak trees besides this one on the Griffin Land. Not long after my introduction to forest bathing a few years ago, that mix of nature with meditative breathing and awareness, i was on a Master Naturalist field trip in a Driftless forest near Redwing, MN, when I realized I was standing beneath an incredible theatre of oaken beauty. Leaning against a trunk and looking upwards into the branches and twigs, small immature leaves were starting to break from the buds. Almost involuntarily my breathing slowed and the meditation and kinship eased over me. 

Yes, I lifted the camera to take a few images of the canopy, and moments later trying to catch up with the rest of the tour, I found myself turning to gaze back at what was now stoic and strong old friends, taking different pictures of the oaks from various angles, even from a distant hill where the leader had taken us. I wasn’t a very attentive student, I’m afraid, although my guess was that the guide would have thoroughly understood.

The Bonanza ravines provide a home to small oak savannas that draw me in.

So the two women were back at the canvas of the Griffen oak when one said, “We looked through all your matted prints for a smaller one, something closer to our budget and couldn’t find one.”

“You see,” added the other woman, “a few months ago a dear friend of ours died of MS, and to her there was nothing more beautiful and meaningful than an old oak tree. Like this one. We were considering this as a memorial tribute to her.”

I asked if they had a few moments, that I would run down to my workbench and make them a print. As much as they seemed pleased with the gesture, there was a sense of kinship with someone I didn’t know who must have understood the lure of the beauty of such strong, stately and beautiful trees … the oaks. 

Then JAGs Came Calling

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T’was a moment when my memory of JAGs surged forth, and it seemed as if his voice was right there in my ear. James A. Geladis was our Managing Editor at the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald back when I started working at my second daily newspaper in the late 1960s. He had this way of looking down his nose at you, his eyes peering over his half-lens reading glasses in what we in the newsroom called “the stare” as he offered a kindly bit of advice. 

Although you might be subject of a stare from time to time, you never wanted to have JAGs offer the same suggestion a second time. In his defense, JAGs was a fine man and just the type of ME a beginning journalist relished. Creativity was essential, and every once in a while you would see him standing at his big window facing the newsroom before he wiggled a finger in your direction. That meant being summoned, and that perhaps he had an idea. 

Moments after my battery died, two tall and gangly sandhill cranes emerged from the grasses to amble down the road in front of us.

Over my two years I got more than a few summons. “What do you think of us starting a youth’s page?” he asked. Calls were made to area high school art and English teachers and a full newspaper page featuring young contributors was created. Or, “We have a lot of very lively elderly people in town, and in the hills and valleys around here,” he said another time. Shortly thereafter I was writing a column we called Lively Elders. Fun stuff. Now I’d be considered a candidate! Although I didn’t get many “stares,” I certainly remember the first one.

En route to a fire out in the distant hills of the Driftless northwest of town right around sunset, I crested one of the hills coming up from a valley, which was common in the Driftless, when I passed by a farmer on a tractor silhouetted by a huge red sun ball. I nearly stopped before remembering the assignment and hurried on toward the fire. Yet, I couldn’t get that silhouette out of my mind, and some 50 years later I can still visually see it. Missed images are sometimes like that.

A pair of sandhill cranes and their youngster forage through the Refuge.

By the time I arrived at the scene the fire was already doused, so I did some interviews of fire chiefs and grabbed a few images and headed back to Dubuque in the dark. After developing the film and making the prints, I wrote a short story that would basically be a cutline. The next afternoon I made a mistake of recounting the passing of the farmer and the red ball sunset. JAGs lowered his chin, looked over those half-frame glasses and said, “Never ever pass up a picture!” 

I’ve used his advice ever since, and have had a decent history of giving my photo editors some nice feature images over the years, and twice came in second in the annual regional “clip art” contests of the NPPA while working at the Denver Post. 

Besides the sandhill cranes, picturesque swans offer many photographic opportunities.

Now in the present; we were at the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge Monday morning where I had just finished capturing an image of a pair of swan pens (the technical name for a female swan) and their cygnets easing through the cattails when my camera battery suddenly expired. My camera was dead. No problem, for I’ve always carried a charged spare in my camera bag. Except this time. I felt inside all the compartments and even turned the bag upside down to give it a good shake. Yes, I had faithfully charged the batteries but somehow failed to place them into the bag! And good ol’ JAGs came calling!

We were only about halfway through the Refuge motor trail when I realized I was done for the day. Then, as I dejectedly started the car, a pair of sandhill cranes suddenly popped out of the grass not 15 feet away to waddle down the graveled loop road in front of us like a pair of tall, gangly drunken chickens. They would not yield the right-of-way, and waddled on for about 60 meters before eventually veering off the road and into the grasses. I was being dissed by sandhill cranes! 

Despite JAG and his imagined nagging and stare, I did what any sane fellow would do in the 2020s … picking up my cell phone and trying to make do. It was a sad “make do” by the way, for I didn’t opt for one of those incredible cell phones destined to make cameras obsolete. 

We pulled into the Refuge the evening before where this “blue hour” image was captured. What a beautiful evening to be wandering through the Refuge!

To make matters even more dire, we continued to pass picturesque swans, a pair of bald eagles high in a deadwood moored tree in the swamp (that was reflected in perfectly stilled waters) and even more sandhill cranes on a rise just around a distant bend. Not only did we have a beautiful hue in the stilled waters, Sherburne is known for having both ample swans and sandhill cranes, and both were why we had rented a nearby motel room the night before. 

Indeed, my sunset images from the night before were cool, and so were all the flowers we captured in bloom. A couple of songbirds were caught, too, including a warbler. Our photo foray up to that point had been excellent, even as the sun was setting the night before. We even had a blue light image of a pod of sleeping yearling swans! And, if there was time, we had designs to venture further north to see if we could capture some yellow and showey ladyslippers. 

All of which was for naught. 

A pod of yearling swans asleep in the “blue hour” after the sunset.

Once home I found my two fully charged batteries on the desk of my studio office Guess where they are now? One is in the camera, one is the bag, and my third is on the charger! 

And JAGs had thankfully eased back into his office chair with his half smile, fully confident that this would never happen again. While it was darned good to hear from the old editor after all these years, and to note that his advice was spot on, my mind was cluttered just a bit with all those missed images back at Sherburne. I can only hope I won’t be as haunted of the misses as I’ve been through the years of missing that red ball sunset! 

Calls of the Wild

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As soon as the distinctive call echoed across the wood-rimmed rolling hills, I rolled to my side and glanced toward the sky my camera ready. So familiar, so beautiful. Vivid, yet hidden. A mystery, yet none at all. They were there. Somewhere. A few years back I was sitting a mere few feet from where I was prone when the same sounds broke over the prairie and I was fortunate to capture one of my favorite images of sandhill cranes in flight, one that so portrayed their Pliocene existence. They seemed so prehistoric in flight.

Would I be so fortunate once again?

We had ventured here to the Lake Johannas Esker to once again mingle with the prairie smoke wildflowers that flourish on this rise come May. Years ago Morris naturalist Dave Jungst introduced me to the esker at a time when the white pussytoes and reddish-pink prairie smoke comprised a sparkling carpet of alternate colors on the rounded prairie rise below the husky shoulders of the prominent esker, and since I’ve made point to revisit annually. While once again impressive, there has not been a view quite so compassing as found on that first May visit so many years ago.

Yes, I’m a prairie smoke addict, and these blooms always captivates me.

Yet we were once again surrounded by beautiful spring prairie flowers. Those glorious yellow blossoms of fringed puccoon poked a welcomed greeting from the dried sage and dormant grasses, along with brilliant chickweed that seemed so white that it beaconed from the prairie. A whiteness smiling with glee. Tucked away was the purplish ground plum, blossoms not unlike the explosion of a sky high fireworks that peeked through the grasses. All of that plus the prairie smoke offered us a mounded prairie of brilliant color. How could one not be impressed?

Distant to the north of us stood the tall esker, an abandoned glacial stream bed now cloaked by sodded grasses and brush. A snake-like ridge offering a staunch backbone to the lower prairie, rising high in the distance. Here a few years ago as I sat in rest and reflection on the esker itself, a wild turkey popped up from behind a sage bush not five feet away before attempting to secretly sly away. Our brief glances seemed as much a surprise to the turkey as it did to me.

As we ambled up the rise the first patch of prairie smoke appeared, tendrils yielding to the wind. Closer to the esker we came upon a carpet of smoke, a quilt of blossoms in all stages of maturity. Laying low with my lens focusing through the offerings, it could have been mistaken for a forest of reddishness, with the smoky tendrils reaching out from the star-like blooms, many pointing downward while others defied gravity. All stages of the plant’s life cycle seemed evident.

There is little that is more interesting to me than laying on my stomach and focusing a long telephoto through that foot high jungle of pinkish beauty in search for interesting imagery. It was there where years ago I heard the calls from the Pliocene, Aldo Leopold’s “trumpet in the orchestra of evolution.” Hearing the sandhills brought on a whole new level of energy and excitement, a complete jumble of creative focus. From that point forward I would continually peek from the smoky forest to glance over my shoulder in anticipation of a possible flight. Sandhill cranes will do that to me.

Aiming my large telephoto through the “forest” offers a wide gallery of imagery.

Eventually we would have a brief flyover … of cormorants rather than cranes. They were noticed thanks to my hopeful glances for the sandhills, and I rolled to focus as quickly as possible. Were they from the nearby rookery? Just north of the esker, and beyond the adjacent Ordway Prairie, itself a feature of the Nature Conservancy, cormorants have commandeered a tree studded small island in Lake Johanna as a rookery. From the apex of the esker you can make out the collections of stick nests in the canopies of the denuded trees. With their hooked bills, which is quite a bonus for their fishing capabilities, cormorants look much more prehistoric to me than cranes. If one can make an argument about birds being evolutionary cousins of dinosaurs, cormorants could serve as photographic proof. Their rapid flyover hardly diminished such an argument!

Yes, my eyes were open for the sandhill cranes I heard calling before the cormorants did a flyover.

Still, we had come for the prairie smoke, and despite the welcomed interruptions, I would again be consumed with my intent of gazing through the grasses and the smoke searching for interesting angles and individual flowers. A search that never tires. Prairie smoke is one of my “seasons” of an emerging Spring. They are why I come to the esker much in the same vein as I make a drive to central Nebraska for the annual sandhill crane migration, or drive around Big Stone County’s numerous surviving potholes seeking huge drop-in flocks of snow geese. This is one of my rites of spring, and one I’ll continue until I’m unable.

My image of the sandhill crane flyover in 2019 at the esker.

No, the esker has never let me down. This 800-acre floral paradise is nestled some two miles east of the Ordway Prairie and is dominated by the serpentine rocky esker that rises some 70 feet above the prairie where I laid. Well hidden within the surrounding tree-lined hills between Brooten and Sunburg, it is also close to the Little Jo WMA and the Moe Woods. Driving to the esker acreage takes you through a tree-lined, graveled paradise of a road that includes a few hidden potholes and possible swan sightings.

Yet, once you’re at the esker you’ll find an expansive natural floral “garden” that will likely captivate your imagination. Such were among my thoughts as I lay prone with my long lens, focusing through the incredible color while listening and hopefully awaiting more calls and even a flyover from the evolutionary past. I can’t imagine spending a Sunday afternoon in a more delightful environment.

A Break in the Silence

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Her “wuk … wuk” cries of alarm and the flutter of feathers as she crossed the lawn to one of our islands of trees would have been equal an overhead flight of a jet airliner only a few days earlier. Despite their secretive nature, an aroused pileated woodpecker has a way with sudden alarm.

This unexpected visit on our suet feeder brought an end to my concern I’d felt earlier after  my two mile walk on our gravel road late last week when barely a sound was heard beyond the crunch of my footsteps on the gravel and crusted snow. Were we this alone here in the vast horizontal grandeur? Were the sounds of the skeins of geese flying overhead days before nowhere to be seen nor heard? Where was the sudden burst of flight from the flock of snow buntings that have captured the edge of the graveled roadside? Even the cattle at a farm to the north were not lowing to break the silence of a cold, stilled winter morning. Walking in such silence was strange and unsettling. 

My walk seemed a prelude to the polar vortex now settled in over the entire continent. By this past weekend it was considered unsafe at any age to be outside and especially on a two-mile walk. Perhaps the countryside was even more silent in those days since. Nothing much was moving, not even a mouse. Joe Pye would have noticed.

This week we were pleasantly surprised by a pileated woodpecker that came to wrap itself around the suet feeder on our deck.

The sudden and unexpected flight of the pileated was certainly an exception, and a wonderful surprise a day or two later. It began after I had decided to brew up a pot of split pea soup for dinner, which necessitated a walk out to the studio/garage to our freezer for a hunk of pork hock. When I stepped through the door a batch of birds lifted from beneath the feeder tree. A junco or two, sparrows, a red bellied woodpecker and a pair of nuthatches. All lifting with as much fashion and form as a well tuned choir collectively standing to sing. 

Above the flutter of the choir, though, was the escape of the lone pileated woodpecker, huge and black, it’s beautiful red head bobbing as it squawked and beat its wings in its telltale undulating bouncy flight away from the feeder tree to fly across the lawn. There is no mistaking a pileated woodpecker.

After our first sighting, it flew to one of our tree islands where this image was made.

This prompted the gathering of my camera with the long lens to hoist from the studio along with that hunk of pork. I excitedly told Roberta of the pileated, and we began doing surveillance at the various eastern windows near the feeder while I pulled together the soup. About a half hour later she came rushing into the kitchen with a stage whisper, “It’s here! On the deck feeder!”

Sure enough, and I grabbed the camera with the 600 mm lens. Our octagon window in the bathroom was an excellent “blind” and several images were made before it decided to dip and dive off to the beautiful aged-old elm tree hugging the east side of my studio. There it bounced up and down the trunk, stopping briefly to look around before facing the bark where it seemed to note something of interest.

My first thought was, “Oh, no! Not my elm!” You don’t have to walk too far into the oak savanna at Bonanza to see the damage a pileated can do to a tree. I’ve often considered setting up a blind adjacent to the trail to capture an images at that tree, and the major drawback is there hardly seemed to be any fresh chips being added to the pile.  

Our bathroom window is an excellent “blind,” a mere few feet from the feeder.

All of which brought back a memory from so long ago. While working as a stateside photojournalist with the Denver Post, I had just covered an environmental conference in Crested Butte where one of the presenters was Nina Leopold, daughter of one of my guiding “lights”, Aldo Leopold, author of “A Sand County Almanac.” His writing helped guide me back toward nature and wild things. Nina had a flight back to Milwaukee and I was driving home to Denver, and she had accepted my invitation for a ride to the airport.

Among the topics discussed in that long, wintery drive was pileated woodpeckers, along with my desire to finally see one. Though they were rare in the early 1970s, perhaps they’re more so even now. Nina painted some beautiful mental images for me, perhaps from her years of visiting her father’s sand country farm that is now a historical site near the foundation she helped form. 

Several years later after we had moved to Minnesota for an editorial position with Webb Publishing, I would finally see one along the Mississippi backwaters near where we had moved. Sightings have been nearly non-existent since, and have always been a noted moment in the years that followed.

Initially I thought, “Oh, no! Not my elm!” after it grasp the bark of the tree next to my studio.

Other than a brief glimpse while driving down the Lake Road, or at an artist’s home along the lake, I actually spied one in our grove one morning a few years ago through the kitchen window while brewing a cup of tea. A worker once said he had spotted one along the edge of the grove although his comment was met with disbelief. Yet, with our acreage of old trees we might have some prime pileated territory. If so, why have our sightings been so rare?

Perhaps they have already settled in since pleated are noted for their covert shyness. Our feeder bird is quite attentive, flying at the slightest sound. We’ve seen it numerous times since, either on a nearby tree or on the deck feeder where it will grasp and circle itself around the little cage of suet to peck away. Hopefully this is an omen, for according to legend pileated woodpeckers are said to be bearers of good fortune and luck, two wonderful attributes a person can always use.