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In Pursuit of a Dream

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My dreams and visualizations of capturing my beloved sandhill cranes, birds of such poetic flight and stoic stance, silhouetted within the glow of a beautiful full moon have been craved for years. Cravings that caved, especially along the Platte River in central Nebraska years ago when “uncooperative” cranes simply avoided a full moon high in the sky. This, I hoped, would be different.

When forecasts of a full moon were made a lovely Wisconsin marshland refuge beckoned. I was hopeful of having a large globe rising from the horizon, blazing with color … something quite different than that moment in Nebraska … with the cranes cruising through. Hope resonated from the colorful moon names all heard within moments of our arrival …   “Super” moon, “Harvest” moon and “Beaver” moon. Native American lore provides even more mental possibilities, dangling the names of a Whitefish Moon, Deer Rutting Moon and even Frost Moon for the November lunar show. How about a “Sandhill Crane Moon?” That, at least, was my hope.

With luck a beautiful glow and globe of a moon would appear on a clear night, and since we had free time, we meandered across the state to Crex Meadow Wildlife Area just across a paved road from Grantsburg, WI. This would be a sunset/sunrise affair, prime times for sandhill crane activity unless you opt for mundane images of grain field gatherings. 

Thousands of cranes traditionally stop at this 2,400 acre marshy refuge where each autumn they congregate for pre-migration safety they find within the numerous and large wetlands surrounded by miles of dike roads as they stock up for their long flight. 

Certainly there were cautionary concerns on our four hour drive, for Grantsburg and Crex Meadows is as close to the Eastern Minnesota border as we are at Listening Stones to South Dakota. My concern? Clouds. Be it eclipses, Northern Lights, comets and numerous attempts of photographing the Milky Way, cloud cover has been a lifelong photographic nemisis. Still, I made hotel reservations and convinced a neighbor to mind Joe Pye overnight so we might fulfill my dream of capturing the cranes cruising through a rising, neon bright “supermoon.” What was there to lose except time and money? 

Then something entirely unexpected occurred. After spotting a couple of singular cranes as the “golden hour” light descended upon us, I pushed the review button to check on the color, light, composition and selective focus to discover a totally blank review screen. Yes there was momentary panic. All the visible and magical buttons were pushed on the camera body. To no avail. 

We began by working a large “flowage” along the Main Dike Road where I’ve previosely captured successful images. As the golden hour light began to bask we had seen only a few cranes. Yes, an attendent in the main headquarters had suggested this as a possible location for capturing the rising moon. When you have but one chance on capturing a dream, nervousness settles in. Quickly a move was made to the nearby “Phantom Flowage” where we found an excellent, unobstructed view of the eastern horizon. Our wait for cranes was short as they began returning from the nearby stubble fields.

Since it sounded like the shutter was working I continued to focus and shoot. Memories of all those years of shooting film without instant review came to mind. Apparently I’m now fully immersed in the digital age and long past those long ago travels to many of the lower 48 states for magazine stories and corporate assignments, back when there was a certain confidence that my images were securely captured and saved on rolls of Kodachrome or Tri-X, that in the developing the creativity would magically appear. Would it again? Regardless, I would be “shootiing blind.”

Magically the upper crescent rim of the moon suddenly broke on the distant horizon and it slowly rose higher into a lush fullness. A moment of awe struck even without my loveable cranes. I was still hopefully pushing the review button. Mental notations were made to remind myself to keep the faith, that I had been in this situation hundreds of times back in my career days. 

Initially distant flocks crossed in front of the moon, and thoughts were made to capture various images just in case I might convince my artist friend, Joyce Meyer, to sandwich if I couldn’t fulfill my visualizations. Over the years she has made about a half dozen “sandwiches” for me due to my ignorance of post production technology.

In the midst of those thoughts a few cranes began flying much closer to us to land just a few hundred yards across the marsh. With no way of knowing if any had been captured silhouetted against the incredibly beautiful “supermoon”, I continued to keep shooting until complete darkness had settled in. 

About an hour before sunrise we returned to the muskrat lodge to await any early activity. As I stood outside the car waiting for light and bird movement, those “trumpets from the orchestra of evolution,” as Aldo Leopold poetically described their haunting calls, began in earnest. Within moments I was surrounded with an unforgettable experience of sound. From either side of the graveled road, and from above as a nearly invisible flocks flew over. This was truly a moment of auditory heaven.

Eventually morning broke and I could easily capture cranes landing near enough for some nice photographs. In time, though, the curtains closed as the cranes, little by little, flock by flock, lifted from the marshlands to head toward the stalk fields. After a breakfast of hearty pancakes we made the four hour drive back home to the prairie where we were greeted by an anxious dog and a deafening quiet away from those syncopated sounds from the marshes. 

After a few friendly pets I rushed to the computer to insert the card and was graciosly greeted by cranes bathed in golden light and far more images than I would have ever taken had the camera monitor worked. Eventually I worked my way through some 800 images, or about 29 and a half rolls of Kodachrome, a tedious process that produced 80-some keepers that included many of sandhills silhouetted against that gorgeous supermoon. Dreams granted many times over!

Afterglows

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Sometimes a colloquialism may come back to bless you, something I’ve been thinking about for a few days of receiving some of those blessings. First, with apologies, the back story:

Denver was the destination of a special 4-H award a few years before I was old enough to drive. Some 17 years or so later Denver was my destination after leaving a comfortable and supportive managing editor with the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald. An interesting tie between the two dailies was a fellow named Monk Tyson, who was nearing retirement with the Post.

As I traveled through the towns along the Mississippi River, and into the depths of the wooded hills of the Driftless on both sides of the river, from Galena to Prairie du Chien and places inbetween, many of the older people I met and interviewed for stories kept mentioning Monk’s name. We apparently covered the same beat at least a generation or so apart.

My blessing this past Sunday …

When I arrived in Denver for the second time I was initially given a freelance assignment by the ME John Rogers for the Post under none other than Monk Tyson. Yes, I finally would  meet the person behind an old and storied legend back in River County. Less than a week into that assignment I was called back to Denver and offered a full time position. Months later Tyson would have a massive heart attack in the parking lot across the street from the newspaper. A week or so later my assignment was changed. I would replace Monk as the “state side” reporter, meaning I had left the Driftless for the Rocky Mountains to continue working a familiar job.

Then on Monday this happened, initially seen while cooking dinner …

Eventually we would create a column called Country Roads that packaged a typically full page layout of my photojournalistic efforts along with a story. That meant I was spending most of my time outside of the office and Denver, rolling from town to town, hooking up with ranchers and even wine makers, farmers and lonesome High Plains characters with stories to tell. Everyone, as feature writer’s learn, has a story. 

Often in my trunk was a fly rod, a box of trout flies and a kite, the latter of which I loved to sneak onto some remote mountain cliff after work where I could play with the winds in a full 360 degrees of sky and unpredictable winds. Again, after work! After an interview in those mountainous climes I would ask for either a cliff or trout stream. In the Plains, a good steakhouse!

Often times I receive a little help from my friends, the birds!

This was a time I when learned the meaning of a new colloquial phrase common to the people among the mountains. “Afterglow.” You might be having an early breakfast in a small town cafe when you would overhear someone say, “Wow, did you catch the afterglow last night?” Their meaning finally dawned on me, for you see, there is rarely a place where you can actually catch a true sunset because of the mountains, yet the ambient colors from a lowering sun would paint the top of the peaks and those towering clouds, especially those to the east, with amazing colors. For those it wasn’t about sunsets but the afterglows.

Nowadays, living in my weird sense of retirement, sunrises from my deck or sunsets through the huge plate glass kitchen window while cooking dinner are rather common. Afterwards comes the afterglows that will often fill the cloudy prairie skies with incredible colors. Rarely taken for granted, and always appreciated, it is as the late professor, dean and essayist Bill Holm would suggest, “A horizontal grandeur!” 

Back in May, above the Big Stone Moraine …

Frankly, for me at least, sunrises are seemingly more “grandeur” than those late afternoon sunsets. Oh, but the afterglows! Yes, Colorado and the other mountainous states have those moments when the afterglows are stunning, although I might suggest that the prairie skies are far from a shrinking violet as ambient colors create vistas as stunning as any view you might visualize in the mountains. Yes, they’re such a blessing!

And I almost always look eastward away from a setting sun in search of clouds and ambient colors, of softened light, of how it might blend with what a young friend calls the “rainbow sky along the horizon.” Sometimes the reflections in the wetlands adds another entirely beautiful spectrum to an image, and when you can add the turkey feet of the Big Bluestem, there is no question that you’re in a nice patch of prairie. 

And, when reflected in waters, this the Minnesota River, the pleasures are immense …

I have nothing against mountains, yet as Holm suggested, the vastness of a prairie sky can be just as humbling as it is magnificent. When those colors paint the clouds I’m often in awe. This reminder came to me again earlier this week with two incredible afterglows I was able to capture. 

Now in a more reflective period of my life, so many memories have a way of sneaking into my consciousness. Those times along the Mississippi, and those in the Plains and mountains of Colorado, offer strong moments of a wonderful past. Sometimes those moments are visual, and happen after the sun has lowered beneath the rim of the horizon and a pallet of ambient colors paint the clouds up above. No two, it seems, are ever alike, and in their own way, each individually, offers a unique vista. So thanks to all those folks in the mountains for what was then a new word, and still a reminder that sometimes the light after a sunset is often the most beautiful of all.

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. 

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.

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.

A Backstory of Momentary Prairie Luck

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Here is what I remember from that late afternoon in August a few years back. We were heading toward one of those moments I believe seems most common in the prairie for I don’t recall experiencing what Sophia, the grown daughter of friends in the Cities who had ventured out to the prairie to work on an organic farm, called a   “rainbow sky.” This is that fleeting post-sundown moment when the prairie horizon gathers in a magical grandeur of pastel colors, graduating from orange to pinkish to violet to blue and eventually into a heavenly darkness. Such a poetic term for a fleeting moment.

A rainbow sky won’t happen every evening, and it seems no two are exactly alike. I’m not alone by being drawn to them when they occur, and on this particular afternoon, one among hundreds of such afternoons, nature called me to a wonderful patch of big bluestem to capture the rapidly maturing “turkey foot” seed heads silhouetted against such pleasing pastel colors.

While big bluestem grows abundantly in my home prairie here at Listening Stones Farm, another great patch can be found about a mile or so from here at the hilly Steen Wildlife Management Area  …  if those who oversee it haven’t taken mower and baler to the grasses. The prairie at Big Stone Lake State Park, at the lower end of our gravel road, also beckons, as it did on this particular afternoon. 

Here is the 2024 State Park windshield sticker made from a prairie saunter a few years ago in Big Stone Lake State Park.

My simple goal was to somehow capture one or several of those turkey foot seed heads silhouetted against Sophia’s rainbow sky. Not knowing what nature might offer, I was ambling through the grasses with a smaller zoom lens, one that offers unlimited and minute degrees of focal length options ranging from 28mm to 300 mm. This is rather common practice for me, for as a photojournalist I’m typically looking and reacting rather than planning and orchestrating an image. My goal was to simply find pleasing compositions that work well with the light and the ambient color being offered, featuring this iconic prairie grass. 

Surely there were numerous raw images made, although I remember selecting but two for my permanent files: One was a ghostly multi-dimensional image of numerous seed heads; and a second of a lone dragonfly perched on a strand of big bluestem. Prints were made, matted and framed for the annual Upper Minnesota River Arts Meander. That ghostly image has been made into canvases to grace a few walls. 

Life went merrily along after those few moments on a prairie photographic foray. Years, in fact. Then came an interesting email last summer involving Big Stone Lake State Park Manager, Terri Denisen, and Veronica Jaralambides, a marketing consultant with the Minnesota Parks and Trails. Apparently Parks and Trails was planning to feature the local, Big Stone Lake State Park, on its 2024 State Park windshield sticker. Locally, Terri knew I had numerous images taken at both the Meadowbrook and Bonanza portions of the park. With the park so close I’m in either one section or the other numerous times a week throughout the year. For years.

This “ghostly” image of bluestem “turkey track” seedheads was made moments after the dragonfly image, both blessed by a pastel “rainbow sky.”

The initial request was for an image that blended the beautiful and haunting oak savannas and the mature prairie of the Bonanza area, so a handful of those images were chosen and sent via email to Veronica. Then, having second thoughts, I sent another grouping that included a handful of more individually focused nature subjects including my two bluestem images. Almost immediately Veronica emailed me back to say she absolutely loved the image of the dragonfly, and that she wished to take it to her committee. She would get back to me. A week or so later came the word, that the dragonfly would grace the sticker. There was one major request … I had to be sworn to secrecy. 

So for six months I had to “bite my tongue” all while remembering my thoughts through the years of other nature artists who had a trout, pheasant or waterfowl image chosen for fishing and hunting stamps. Then, finally, late last year the 2024 sticker was introduced, and yes, they hadn’t changed their mind. The dragonfly on the bluestem against the rainbow sky was no longer a secret. 

Parks and Trails had these beautiful cups commissioned featuring the image.

Since the secret was out I’ve been blessed with wonderful press. My long time friend, canoeing and fishing buddy, Tom Cherveny, did the initial honors for the West Central Tribune and Forum Publications, then a call came from WCCO-TV for what turned out to be a fabulous multi-minute piece on an afternoon news program called The Four that used several of my images along with an interview. Other interviews followed and stories published. 

Among the questions asked, of course, was when and what circumstances were involved with capturing the image. What could I say? When your sauntering through a big bluestem prairie and you just happen to see a lone dragonfly silhouetted against a rainbow sky, you simply react by quickly focusing, framing and capturing the image. Not a whole lot of excitement there other than a pleased smile in the moment after checking to see if all those intricate connections worked in the image; nothing like the story of the murderous bear in the Colorado mountains that ended up with an artist’s rendition for a cover and several of my images being published in Outdoor Life Magazine back in the 1970s. Who am I to argue or complain? I’ve had a wonderful journalist career that has been mutated a bit since I’ve been granted entry into the magical world of prairie art.  

My personal quest is to complete this photographic journal of the 66 state parks in Minnesota, and so far 39 have been added to the journal.

I suppose making up some glorified murderous bear-like story might have been more entertaining and exciting, although I’ve never known of anyone being stalked, chased down and battered to death by dragonfly wings. I was simply doing what a photojournalistic nature photographer would do. I went for an ambient light foray with a camera, captured an image and was simply fortunate enough know the right Park Manager. Adding to that was being so fortunate that my image resonated with Veronica at Parks and Trails. 

This luck came two years after Parks and Trails shocked me by choosing three of my photographs in their annual photographic contest, two of which made their annual calendar.

Minnesota’s beautiful State Parks are quite important to me, and I’m now continuing my work on completing a photographic journal of each of the 66 parks along with my volunteering as a Minnesota Master Naturalist. To date I’ve visited 39 parks, although a few visits were before the photo-journaling began. So the adventures continue, this time with the knowledge that all those vehicles we’ll now pass in the State Parks will have displayed on the passenger-side corner of their windshields a dragon fly silhouetted on a stem of big bluestem in Sophia’s rainbow sky. I couldn’t be more pleased.