A new year, a new day, and a new beginning.

I have sorely neglected my postings on this blog.  I had meant it to be a more creative outlet than my other blog, but this one fell by the wayside.  This year, I have resolved to do a bit more writing. The resumption of keeping up this blog will be one of the ways I will accomplish this. So after hiatus of nearly two years, I will do my best to keep this up and attempt to portray through quotes from the Sand County Almanac and various essays of my own, the essence of the beautiful world we live in.

I hope that if you follow this blog, it will help convey some sense of wonder of the natural world.


--Chris W, "Sand County", Wisconsin

An interesting spring

I haven't posted for a long time now. Mostly because April and May are birding months. If you read my other blog, you'll know how much birding I've been doing. Almost too much to post on the SW WI birder.

This spring has been an interesting one. I rather wonder what Mr Leopold would have thought of it.
It's been cold this spring with temperatures far below what they should be. We actually came close to having frost last night. That's unheard of for this time of year here. Our latest frost date ever was May 15.
The climate this spring has affected everything. Trees leafed out late this year, birds returned late, even the insects haven't really gotten going yet. This spring has been a silent one in comparison to others. Few species of birds are singing and of those that are, very few individuals. It's as if everything is rushed and they don't have time to stop and sing. Even the nights are silent. The spring peepers are done and there is nothing to take their place. Very few other frogs and even fewer crickets are calling at night.
Even the other nighttime insects aren't making any noise.
It's a sharp contrast to last year at this time. Last year was a Cicada year so the woods were quite loud.
This year, with them gone, it seems as if many things have gone with them.

But, things change over time. Although, I often wonder how much of this change is natural, and how much is caused by people and their careless ways.

A long winter

Winter is a very fickle season.  It can be short, or it can be long.  It can be cold, or warm. It can be harsh, or mild.  It knows no bounds and can throw a surprise at you when you least expect it.  There have been many winters in the history of our earth and all have been different. Each one is unique to it's year.  This year is the to be know as the winter of the deepest snow.  Some quirk of the seasons and old man winter threw more snow at us than we can ever remember.  Was there another winter like this? of course. somewhere, once upon a time old man winter threw even more snow on the ground than he did this year.  Just, this is the one we remember.   

Aldo Leupold knew some harsh winters. But he also knew some mild ones.  Harsh ones when the animals went without food and birds froze and the land became desolate.  but also mild ones when animals had plenty to eat and made it through the cold with ease.  This winter has been harsh, but not as harsh as some.  Winter is a very fickle season. 

January.

"Each year, after the midwinter blizzards, there comes a night of thaw when the tinkle of dripping water is heard in the land. It brings strange stirrings, not only to creatures abed for the night, but to some who have been asleep for the winter. The hibernating Skunk, curled up in his deep den, uncurls himself and ventures forth to prowl the wet world, dragging his belly in the snow. His track marks one of the earliest datable events in that cycle of beginnings and ceasings which we call a year.
The track is likely to display an indifference to mundane affairs uncommon at other seasons; it leads straight across-country, as if it's maker had hitched his wagon to a star and dropped the reins. I follow, curious to deduce his state of mind and appetite, and destination if any."

This is the first paragraph from Aldo Leopold's "A Sand county almanac". Where he starts, I start too. In January. The start of every year. It is a month of extremes, both in tempurature and precipitation. Last year, new year's day produced rain and 40 degree temps. This year, new year's day was a chilly 26 degrees with a beautiful 2-foot coating of snow on the ground. You never know with January, what it will throw at you. We've already had one day that came close to a record temp and a few days that produced record cold and the entire month has broken the record for snowfall.

The animals don't seem to mind. The go about their business day to day as if they could care less. At first glance it may seem so. A closer look reveals just how much they do pay attention. On sunny days, it's all a mad scramble. Every creature trying their best to pack in extra food to last the cold harsh winter. Squirrels area active, running from tree to tree in their search for caches stored last fall. Birds are busy at the feeders packing in seed to help them sustain their energy. The little nuthatch is by far more clever than the others. He comes down, eats his fill and then carefully caches the rest of what he takes. He is planning ahead for a day when the feeder may be empty and a storm is about to hit, when he can't find food elsewhere, he knows that he has a little stash to tide him over until he can replenish his supply. Funny how he always knows exactly how much seed to take. Always stashing just enough to last until he can gather more. Never expending more energy than necessary, never having too much, always, just enough. It's as if he knows just how long he will have to go without stashing more.

On cloudy stormy, snowy days, the animals sit and wait it out. It can be a long wait with nothing else to do but wait they must, for to venture out on a day like that would mean expending valuable energy that they might need later on. Expending little is better than expending too much. Expend too much, and the waiting predator will take advantage and strike!

"A Rough-legged Hawk comes sailing over the meadow ahead. Now he stops, hovers like a Kingfisher, and then drops like a feathered bomb into the marsh. He does not rise again, so I am sure he has caught, and is now eating, some worried Mouse-engineer who could not wait until night to inspect his well-ordered work.
The Rough-leg has no opinion why the grass grows, but he is well aware that snow melts in order that Hawks may again catch Mice. He came down out of the arctic in hope of thaws, for to him a thaw means freedom from want and fear."

Well, January is a month a extremes, and survival. Those that make it past winter's toughest month have but one left before they are free from winter's frigid grasp.
This winter has been a hard one. Especially January, with it's frigid arctic temps and winds. Those that make it past this year, surely prosper in the spring.

intro and first post.

In this blog, I will post my musings and thoughts about living in WI. This blog is dedicated to Aldo Leopold and I will often include excerpts from the book that is the namesake of this blog. Most of my posts will also follow along the same lines of Leopold's book. Aldo Leopold was a great and influential writer and naturalist. One of my favorite quotes comes from his book, from the section entitled "Sketches here and there". "On the monument to the Passenger Pigeon". He wrote it almost as an epitaph to a species that suffered under the foolishness of mankind. If you do not know the story, I will fill you in.

The passenger pigeon was once the most numerous of birds in N America and probably the most numerous species in the world. There were so many that a single flock often took days to pass over. Wilson himself once saw a single flock estimated to contain over a billion birds. There were so many that they darkened the skies.
The pigeon had two problems, they ate grain and destroyed a farmer's crop, and they were good to eat. In less than 10 years, their population was cut in half. By the 1890s, less than 10 birds remained in the wild. The last wild Passenger Pigeon on the face of this earth, was shot in 1899 at Babcock WI.
After the last wild pigeon was shot, it was only a matter of time before the zoo birds slowly died.
Martha the passenger pigeon, the last of her species, the last of her kind that will ever fly over this earth, died alone at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sept 1, 1914. Approximately 30 years after commercial hunting of these beautiful birds began, the entire population of birds, was wiped off the face of the earth forever.

J. J. Audubon wrote, perhaps prophetically, about the Passenger Pigeon: "When an individual is seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer, it passes like a thought, and on trying to see it again, the eye searches in vain; the bird is gone."

Never again will a Passenger pigeon be seen flying over the hills and valleys they once roamed. All that is left is a memory, and a monument. Only one pigeon is left, eternally to watch over the days and years. many species will pass, but no pigeons will pass for there are no pigeons save the flightless one, graven in bronze on the monument that sits above the Missisippi river at Wyalusing State Park. Where the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers meet. Where the pigeons would have made their decision either to go North, or East. Now, we can only imagine what they might have done.
We can only imagine what they must have looked like. Now, none are left alive who have any living memory of the pigeon.
It is truly a memory, and a reminder, that will always be there to remind us of the consequences whenever we think of doing such a thing again.


Many safe travels to you and I hope you enjoy my posts as I attempt to portray living as a naturalist in modern day WI.

--Chris