The Marsh Project Week #38

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I am on an afternoon hike; I have picked up the pre-cooked turkey dinner, the ingredients for the traditional green bean casserole with the fried onions that I have to have for Thanksgiving dinner (but don't make at any other time of the year), and my freezer is stocked with delicious frozen chocolate pies from the grocery store.  I am all about the low maintenance Thanksgiving dinner.

The water release from the dam has diminished, and the marsh trail is open again although it is muddy and it is obvious from the recently drowned vegetation how high the water had been in certain places.  Not much is going on; it's likely a bit too cold for snakes, although a pair of turtles are sitting on a log out in the pond; as I walk by on the boardwalk, which is littered with leaves, they slide back into the water.  A few variegated meadowhawk dragonflies land on the boardwalk and then fly away again; a bright orange question mark butterfly lands on some of the browning vegetation and opens its wings, sunning in the waning late afternoon light.

I walk down the boardwalk to the small blind, and am struck by the lighting amongst the cattails.  I pause for a minute.  I am thankful, grateful, full of awe, to be in this moment in this place as the early winter light strikes the cattails and shines through it. I take a photo, knowing that the results will be only a weak depiction of what I am seeing, but needing to document it anyway.  This is the day before Thanksgiving, after all, and it is a time to consider what we are thankful for.  I am thankful for many things but in this moment I am filled with gratitude for my mud-caked boots, for the winter sparrows chirping in the distance, for the osprey flying overhead carrying his own early Thanksgiving dinner of a fish, for the cold but fresh air, for the sunlight filtering through the cattails, for this moment of peace in a chaotic world.

Later, when I look at my pictures, I will see the light illuminating the individual strands of the cattail spike, along with tiny seeds that were not visible to my eyes on the trail.

As I continue on, I see some American coots on the water;  as I get closer, one flies away and then the others, equally startled by my presence, take off.  In the distance, I can see what could be gadwalls, but I can't be sure.  I leave the marsh behind and head into the wooded upland portion of the trail; here the sparrows are plentiful, and a pair of bright red Northern cardinals fly from branch to branch, evading a clean line of sight.  Just as I move to continue my walk, a beautiful white-throated sparrow alights on a branch and I get my photo.  A few months ago, the indigo and painted buntings were in the same tree, but now they are gone.  Winter is nearly here.

I look down and see some feathers on the ground; I wonder what goes on around this trail when people are not here. I hear rustling near the trail, and look up; what has to be the largest armadillo I have ever seen is rooting around in dead leaves.  As the armadillo moves on, a brown thrasher appears under a nearby tree and then flies off as I proceed towards the trailhead and my car; the preserve will be closing soon and it is time to get home; green bean casserole preparation awaits.

The Marsh Project Week #37

The dam is still releasing water at a stunning rate, so the trail to the marsh is still flooded.  I was out of town this past week, but was able to get to the nature preserve over the weekend; on Saturday morning, it was not to hike but to participate with the Son of Never Stops Eating in a trash cleanup, and then Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning I was able to get some hiking in.

The Son of Never Stops Eating was appalled at the amount of trash- especially glass bottles, beer cans, and fishing line- that we managed to pick up.  He kept asking me why people just couldn't put their trash where it belonged instead of tossing it on the ground or in the bushes, because didn't they realize that Mother Nature doesn't want their trash?

 As we were working with other groups to clean the area up, I came across another American white pelican that had suffered a fatal encounter with some fishing line.  When I showed this picture to people, several people felt that the answer to the problem was to stop allowing fishing.  That would probably solve the problem, but I'm not completely comfortable with that- the birds have great value to me, but fishing is also a valid recreational activity.  For some people, it's dinner.  For others, it's quality outdoor family time;  I remember how excited my kids were to catch their first fish.   I took a philosophy of environmental ethics class years ago and it just about broke my brain; what is the value of a pelican and is it worth cutting off access to another recreational activity that also has value?  I hope that there is an answer that allows for both; I just don't know what that answer is, especially when I see the damage firsthand to a bird species I love.

It was cool and cloudy Saturday and then Sunday it was just cold.  That didn't seem to bother some of the winter birds that have arrived; it's time once again to start working on the identification of the "Little Brown Birds" that are suddenly everywhere.  I'm starting to learn a few of them- there were plenty of white-throated sparrows near the entrance to the flooded marsh trail, and they were hopping on and off branches and then going to ground while I stood mostly helpless with my camera hoping that one would decide to hang out in clear view on a branch for a few minutes.  I finally met with success after several minutes of patient, quiet waiting.

The brown thrashers were also plentiful and lively, and hard to find as they moved around on the ground- but after more patient, quiet waiting I was able to get a fairly decent shot (as in, good enough for ID) of one.  The main theme for winter bird photography seems to be patient, quiet waiting- and good eyesight; unlike the herons and egrets, which are usually easy to find (except for those tricky green herons, which hide along the shoreline or amongst the lily pads) and photograph from a distance, these winter birds require a lot of work.

The dragonflies and butterflies were not in evidence this past weekend- except for one or two hardy variegated meadowhawks and some common buckeyes.  I'll be looking forward to seeing them again next spring.

The Marsh Project Week #36

I'm getting a little behind in my marsh project documentation, and some of it is my fault, but forces beyond my control are also playing a role- we've had a huge amount of rain, and the marsh area has been flooded and inaccessible.  Fortunately, I was able to access the trail for a short afternoon walk yesterday, and it was a mess- leaves and branches everywhere, and lots of mud.  I was really glad I was wearing my waterproof boots.

This area is located right below a large dam, and sometimes water is released from the dam at a rapid rate, and it attracts pelicans, cormorants, egrets and herons to feed on the fish.  The pelicans wait just past where the rapids of the water coming out of the outlet gates subside; they are entertaining to watch as they fish, bob on the water, and defend their fishing grounds from other birds.  However, the area is also popular with the two-legged fishermen.  Usually we can all co-exist together, but unfortunately sometimes challenges emerge- sometimes birds get entangled in the plastic fishing line, and they cannot always free themselves.

On Friday, a nature-loving friend of mine posted on his Facebook page that he had seen an American white pelican get entangled in line below the outlet gates, and the pelican had to be rescued by the local fire department.   I've cleaned up enough fishing line in the last few years to fill up several large trash bags, and I've developed a loathing for the stuff.  I wish I knew the magic formula for getting people to pick up their fishing line (and other trash) but I don't, and it seems so unfair to the birds who unwittingly get tangled up in fishing line and have to fight (sometimes unsuccessfully) to get free.  We can't fix all the world's problems, but picking up trash and fishing line is always a step in the right direction.

I was expecting not to see much wildlife on my hike, except perhaps for some gulf fritillary butterflies, some winter sparrows and some late fall dragonflies- the last few Eastern pondhawks, a few common green darners, and the variegated meadowhawks. What I wasn't expecting to see was a red saddlebags, hanging on.  Of course, it had chosen a perch with lighting not conducive to great nature photography, but I did my best.

I had another surprise waiting for me as I got closer to the end of the trail- a cottonmouth snake, curled up on a fallen tree trunk.  The striking thing about this snake was that it had different coloration than what I'm used to seeing.  I got several photos (from a respectful distance, as always) before it slithered off the log to go about its snakey business.

This morning, the outlet gates were being opened further, so the trail will be inaccessible again, but fortunately there are other trails to explore; the winter birds (the kinglets, the sparrows, the wrens) are coming; I can hear them tweeting in the branches, so we'll be playing hide and seek all winter.

The Son of Texting

Last weekend, the Son of Never Stops Eating reached yet another new developmental milestone.

If you're thinking that he went out on a date, you'd be wrong;  he bought himself a smartphone. He'd been insisting that he needed a smartphone so that he could text pictures of his Lego creations to his besties, and he finally decided that the need was urgent and compelling enough to part with some of his saved-up Lego cash to buy one. So after our usual Saturday breakfast, off to the store of the mobile devices we went.  I set some ground rules: if he lost it or damaged it, he was paying for the replacement.  No watching Simpsons You tube videos or playing with the phone during school. He was responsible for making sure it was charged at night.

Mom, he sighed, I know what to do.

As soon as we got home, we started entering phone numbers into the contacts list: me, the Dad of No, the Grandpa of No, The College Student.  I showed him how to text, and told him to practice by texting me.

Son: Hi Mom it's me!
Me: Hello!
Son: I love this phone Mom you rock.
Me: You are my favorite son!
Son: Did you put $20 on my card?

It appeared that he'd mastered texting along with the essential teenager survival skill of hitting your parents up for cash.

The next day, I got another text:

Mom I may have some thing in my ear can you clean it out for me when I get home please

Um, sure, ewwwww, but ok...….

Then I got a phone call from him at school.  Someone from the phone store had called him, he said, and wanted his zip code.  I was absolutely befuddled.  Why would someone from the phone store be calling him for our zip code?  And why was he answering his phone during school, when he was supposed to be focused on learning?  I'd told him that while he was in school he needed to put the phone away and not use it for anything.

One of his teachers got on the phone and explained to me that the phone had started ringing, so The Son of Never Stops Eating had answered it and then had gotten up and walked into the hallway. She'd followed him out and had stopped him from giving out any information.  Then he'd called me. He was worried.

That's weird, I said. I wonder who it was.  Probably someone telling him he had a credit card balance due on a fake credit card account, or asking if he wanted to buy a timeshare at Disneyworld, or the IRS telling him he owed them money and he needed to send it in right away on a gift card.  I was  certain it wasn't the phone store.  I couldn't think of any reason they'd be calling him.   We hadn't really talked about scams and solicitation phone calls yet.

OK, I told him.  Don't answer the phone if you don't know who it is.

Son: What did they want?
Me:  I don't know. Information.
Son: I don't have any information! I just have a hamster!
Me:  Well, don't give anyone anything over the phone, like your debit card number.
Son: (indignantly)I would NEVER give anyone my debit card number! That's stealing! They better not take my money!

After I told him not to answer the phone unless it was a number he knew, I realized that when he started applying for jobs, he might be getting legitimate calls from numbers he didn't know.  So the next challenge awaits: knowing when to answer the phone if you don't know the number, and setting up voice mail.