denebalgedi777 | Entries tagged with wildlife

It is ironic to title this piece in such a way, since I am writing it at the tail end of a spring relapse into a winter that otherwise never really arrived. Since I pay close attention to signs and omens, I have the superstitious tendency to see rare weather patterns as a general warning of unusual currents in the tides of fate. I am rather like the ancient historians in that way, and not much akin to moderns who would dismiss all of that as so much humbug. We are mutual in our incomprehension. Anyway, the Upper Midwest’s pattern this past winter was not abnormal, it was unheard of, and that’s why I wanted to write a reflection on it while it was still clear in my memory. All across the interior of the North American continent I heard the same thing from its denizens. This was the mildest winter in living memory, and it was not even close.

The closest thing to it would be the winter of 2011-12, which also presaged a very wiltingly hot summer and dry conditions for the second year in a row. Looking back, I don’t think it would be unfair to say that the 2012 conditions seem as if they were a sinister portent as well. Many people in our circles, including the eminent John Michael Greer himself, have dismissed the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse of 2012 as a misunderstanding. I myself am no longer so sure. There has been a very strong impression of living in a cursed timeline ever since that time. The original meaning of Apocalypse is, after all, a revelation, the “taking off of the cover”, and not the abrupt end of all things. And no doubt, much has been revealed in the past dozen years or so, to the extent that I feel like I am living in a parallel dimension that has little in common with the way things were before. That feeling has only strengthened in recent years.

But back to this winter: We had very little snow, and a record number of days above 50 degrees fahrenheit. The whole winter seemed to be stuck in a pattern that would be normal for the time period between October and November. That is, it was a pattern typically observed much farther south in the USA, but as far as my reckoning goes, never once here. Consequently, there was little opportunity for the winter sports that usually draw so many people in from out of town. Farther north, I saw that they had some snowfall, as my contacts in the Brainerd Lakes area sent me pictures from time to time. Here, we had almost no such luck. There was about a tenday in January when the arctic frost descended and it felt almost like the winters of old in the Upper Midwest, after which time it rapidly reverted to the way it had been before. This was, we are told, because there was an extremely strong El Nino pattern in the Pacific, which kept both cold air and moisture on tracks well away from this region. Now, in Aries Season, this pattern is breaking down.

My friend, who spent all of January and part of February down in Florida, was sad to have missed the miniature polar vortex of January, and called me once because he wanted to keep in touch with people from home. He could scarcely believe it when, earlier on, I told him that grass was growing up green at the end of January, but I sent him pictures to prove it. His career track brought him to the Sunshine State for training, but he said he would’ve much rather been back home in Minnesota. James Howard Kunstler used to criticize the new type of urban development in neoliberalism that creates visually offensive concentrations of commercial properties – mostly franchise – in outskirts of cities and towns. According to my friend, such “Kunstlervilles” are the main form of development in Florida, and he found the experience bleak overall. However, there were some upsides to his time there, including some memorable contacts he forged during his time away. There’s usually some good to be had from journeys.

Speaking of which, we were unable so far to make one of our famous day trips, which we’ve been doing semi-regularly since one icy February morning in Aquarius Season in 2019. Last November it was canceled owing to a commitment that came up, and in February it had once again to be canceled owing to illness. No matter, it will happen one day; but the hiatus, along with the ongoing troubles in my own family, has meant that excitement has been rather lean around these parts of late. I have been relegated to doing as I have many times done before, mostly staying in and reading when I am not working, taking hikes in the neighborhood and the parks, and watching the procession of wild nature around me here in my redoubt in Western Wisconsin. There is no shortage of that and I will give a short elaboration of what I have seen around here of late, because one of the perennial topics of this blog is the natural world and how it provides a kind of eternal and archetypal counterpoint to the, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant happenings of our mortal and human affairs. Of course, wild nature is very precarious, all of its denizens always poised on the brink of disaster, but the pageant itself always goes onward.

Deer and turkeys made themselves scarce for a long time after the hunting season this year. They only came out in the dark of night. But now they are returning into the open with the coming of spring. The crows, always so independently motivated were regular visitors, as also were the ones who overwinter here – the chickadees and nuthatches and all the species of woodpeckers. We never had any pine siskins or redpolls this year, the conditions having been too mild for them to visit. Juncos however did appear whenever the weather was cold enough to warrant their appearance. I saw rather strange raven omens both here and during a visit with a friend in Minnesota back in February. Finches began to make a comeback some weeks ago, and now their song fills the forests, hundreds of them in the immediate area. In the next neighborhood over, there are now large collections of robins and grackles scavenging in the yards, just recently free of spring snows. At various points, I also saw cedar waxwings, a familiar but somewhat elusive small bird that travels in flocks around here. The bluebirds must not have fared far south this year, as late February saw their return.

Already the meadowlarks are singing in the nearby prairies, and though conditions still have a winter chill, the spring warming and rains cannot be long in coming, not in a year so singular as this one. The neighborhood is overrun with moles, and raccoons have been sighted for the first time since I moved here. Possums come to scrounge at night, and birds of prey of all kinds may be seen in the air. The ecosystem is healthy. The only creature that hasn’t yet put in an appearance – apart from the elusive red foxes that I know are around -- is the black bear, but I don’t doubt we may see one soon enough. At least on the natural front, there’s a feeling of “all is as it should be”. And this was no doubt helped by the extremely mild winter, as all the creatures around look unusually fat and healthy for this time of year. The squirrels around here are only the most obvious examples. In all, while living in the Western Suburbs of Minneapolis felt close enough to living in a wild forest, living here in the St. Croix Valley feels even more so. It wasn’t so long ago, a mere two decades perhaps, that these very neighborhoods were farms and pastures. The spirit of the wild isn’t yet fled from these parts.

Well, there is much more that could be said, no doubt, but I have to keep things within limits. However, to finish up I return briefly to the theme in the beginning. If this strange not-a-winter we have just had was a portent, then what if anything, does it portend? I am not sure, but I have a gravely uneasy feeling about all of it. The uneasy feeling, actually, has never really subsided from when I first felt it back around the time I moved in here. There are many already in esoteric circles who have noted the upcoming malefic conjunctions of the stars this month, so I won’t go into that here. But there is a very dangerous sense of the world order descending into chaos, and something new looming on the horizon. And as a man once said, chaos is a ladder, and I am not sure just what sorts of thing we can expect to climb out of it, but I know that the world we are facing in the near future is likely to look very little like the past we sometimes have found comfort in remembering.

Current Mood: productive

Attending an event yesterday in the city, the sky was cloudless and everything had a faded look in the pale November sunshine. The mercury reached as high as 68 fahrenheit. It was only a couple of weeks past an early snowfall, but in the city, there were maple trees that had not yet shed their leaves. In the meadows farther out, bluebirds still sing in the treetops and the sound of insects is still heard. The drought that began in the summer is still going strong, and even a late season thunderstorm made little impact on it. Scorpio season has arrived along with the feeling that the year 2022 has flown past in the blink of an eye. The year had no shortage of personal events, but it seems somehow quiet and unremarkable in comparison with the past few years.

I have been around to various corners of my region, though not nearly so much as on some previous years, and there are very strange things to be seen all over. The Minneapolis metropolitan area and its immediate surroundings are filled with lakes, though my current location is not. The lakes are all as low as I’ve ever seen them. Some of the ones I have visited lately included Hyland Lake, Wolsfeld Lake, and White Bear Lake. These lakes used to have very high water – small observation: the 2010s were probably historically high water periods and unusually moist years for the most part – and now they have dirt beaches that you could use to walk the entire perimeter. Nevertheless, the eagles and fish hawks remain in the area so things must not be totally dire. Perhaps the fish are easier to catch.

Owing to the high gas prices and a ridiculous amount of road work, I limited car travel during the summertime. Both of these conditions have improved somewhat. Premium fuel is back under $4/gallon, and the road closures that made transit across the region a nightmare have been scaled back to the level of a minor inconvenience. There was but little maintenance the past two years, a situation that had to be remedied. In fact, more of the same is planned for next year – the interstate is in dire shape, filled with divots holes, only some of which were fixed in the past year, and there will be much more to come. However, these conditions did not keep people inside during the summer: it was very busy on the roads. The combination of a long winter and pent-up frustration from a roller coaster two years led to frantic activity.

Still, there is a strange sense under the surface that something is not quite right. There’s a hint of desperation in all of this frantic activity. The social fabric of America was already in something of a shambles before the pandemic hit, and after it, most of the trends that were already well-established have got even worse. Sociologists have been studying the problem for some time[1], and the general condition is alienation and isolation. Friendships have withered for many people, and family formation is way down. Interacting with some younger folks on occasion, I see that social skills have attenuated to a level that would’ve been considered quite barbaric in my youth. And this, I add, is among the children of what remains of the bourgeoisie, who would’ve known better in a previous time. I do not, however, blame them entirely for this: rather, it’s an indictment of everyone that things progressed to this.

I have striven to make this space more or less apolitical, because I’ve lost faith in the ability of the political process to work in a meaningful way for average people. There is an election coming up, and American politics have turned into an ever more bizarre clown show. I half suspect this is being done on purpose to suck people back into a dysfunctional system from which they have increasingly tended to disengage. Disengagement is actually dangerous, far more so to the people benefiting from the system, than opposition or insurrection would be. There need to be participants for a spectacle to go on. I can’t blame those wanting to disengage for not wanting to be on the menu as the next sacrificial lamb in an age of violent mob hysteria and intemperance. If one thing remains worthwhile, it would probably be engagement with one’s local politics – however, a great effort has been made to divert all attention to the national scale, which seems increasingly meaningless in such a gigantic and heterodox country. Perhaps we can see ourselves as a confederation, but we are long past the point that we are really one country at all, and the largely artificial pop culture driven by centralized media in the past century is falling apart at the seams.

So at present, there’s just an uneasy feeling of watching and waiting. But in noting some of the things that have gone wrong in this country, we can also see some obvious solutions. Community is what is lacking. This is difficult to remedy when the mode of life for Americans for so long has been endless migration, like grazers from one watering hole to the next. We are not a country of peasants rooted to the land for generations (although the gods know the Amish are trying to become something like this). I was reflecting on this today before I wrote this piece. I’ve been guilty of excessive selfishness in the past, and in my own personal life, I could improve the situation by giving and helping more in the communities that matter to me. This is mainly how good will is built, and I’ve been too neglectful of that. I can make it a resolution to do my part to remedy this; however, I can’t control what the other person is going to do. However, I imagine there’s a kind of karmic exchange here and that good will is at least partly repaid from good intentions.

These are the thoughts on my mind as I watch an unusually beautiful late October Sunday unfold before me. Hunting season is coming soon and it will change the pattern of the local wildlife, but until then I can count on seeing deer and turkeys regularly at the feeder. All of the local birds are still coming in regularly. The first sign of changes ahead did, however, make itself known, with flocks of juncos (a kind of black and white sparrow that comes with cold weather) arriving with the snow a couple of weeks back. Migrants have been passing through since the autumn began in earnest, and even on a day like today there is a whisper of the inevitable winter to come. Uneasy feelings aside, the pageant of nature once again instills a sense that all is as it should be. The prolonged Indian summer, with all the local wildlife going on their merry way blissfully unaware of the troubles in the world of mankind, has added an edge of optimism to my will in spite of it all.

[1] - a recent example.

Current Mood: nostalgic

It’s almost the anniversary of my migration last year. The sun has already rolled back around to Leo. Leo is associated with the 5th house, a house of leisure and amusements among other things. Later July through late August often have this feeling of a final flurry of amusements before the world of work (6th house and sun in Virgo) reasserts itself. That has been true to an extent of the entire summer, although most of the festivities died down maybe a week after the 4th of July, but there has been an absence of the kind of high drama the likes of which we saw the past two years, so in a way it does feel like “summertime and the living’s easy”, at least for now. I’m writing this down before my life gets busier, for a few days at least.

Despite the unusually wet spring that wiped out last year’s drought, it is now one of the drier summers on record up to this date. It only took one prolonged heat wave along with a steady fierce wind to dry things out. The nearby prairie which was fantastically green all the way into July all of a sudden has taken on parched yellow highlights. Many of the previously healthy prairie flowers are now looking quite withered. The “Midwest heat dome” was all it took for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area to flip from abnormally dry conditions to severe drought. I would be tempted to say this is the beginning of a trend that will turn the climate of this area more like the plains out west, but I’m not sure. The truth is we have had such dry spells before in the 2000s, and they reversed, with some of our wettest summers coming in the 2010s.

Finally the heat broke with the coming of a major storm front a few days ago, and recently there have been wake-up temperatures in the 50s. This was a welcome relief. The skies have also been cloudier and the wind has kept up, only now the breeze is coolly refreshing. Of course, at this time of year, such conditions are unlikely to last; there are already further heat waves in the forecast, and some models are showing a hotter than average pattern lasting well into the fall. Being an almost lifelong resident of the Upper Midwest I have noted that most summers have a period at the height of summertime where a brief hint of fall can be detected in the air, although the trend is almost certain to reverse. This is one of those times.

As far as wildlife, the feeling is “everything old is new again”. The breeding season for birds completed successfully, so all of a sudden many of the species that went missing since the springtime have reappeared at the feeder. The tufted titmice have successfully raised young and visit regularly, the baltimore orioles finally returned to the jelly feeder, and we have had indigo buntings as regular visitors as well. The catbirds, cardinals, grosbeaks, doves and all the finches stayed around as well. Nuthatches and all the common woodpeckers are often battling over seed. In the next neighborhood over new turkeys have been born. This July has been very exciting to see, because in my old home of Hennepin County some of these birds were seen only as visitors or never seen at all. And I thought the nature there was actually very good, but the east bank of the St. Croix Valley is quite a bit more vital as it turns out.

The biggest controversy so far this summer involved the appearance of a black bear. Apparently they are somewhat common in this part of Wisconsin. I don’t ever recall seeing or hearing of bears in Hennepin County despite it being on the same parallel of latitude. There is a lot of contiguous woodlands for a bear to hide out in with all the hills and dales nearby. Our bear is a young male, though it already gained weight from the bounty of the settled communities around here. Bears need to gain 100 lbs for winter hibernation. The bear would come often at night or in the late evening or early morning and raid feeders. We had a suet feeder and a peanut feeder carried off and destroyed. It showed great cunning in its behavior too; while baited traps were set for it, as residents grew tired of its antics, it has so far evaded capture. The culprit, as of this writing, is still at large.

Since this blog so far has mainly focused on descriptions and musings on the local wildlife, I should note some of the differences we have with my old community too. We have squirrels and chipmunks in abundance. Both Hennepin County and Crow Wing County did as well. However, the rabbit population here is nonexistent. We had rabbits always on our property in the western suburbs. Here they are nowhere to be seen. Well, they are abundant over at the prairie, but for some reason they are not found here. I think the locals have generally gotten rid of tunneling mammals before they can find a foothold, and this includes moles too. Coyotes roam the area and dig up burrowing mammals to eat them as well. The deer have not been much in evidence lately either, though they were regular visitors early in the year. It’s possible they are hiding because of summer poachers – this is speculation but I know such activities go on.

There is not much more in the way of novelty to describe for this summer. We have had a pair of accipiters nesting in the neighborhood, but they were too far off to identify when I saw them. I saw an eagle in the prairie on July 1st but the ones in this part of the township are once again scarce. The established population down at the Kinnickinnic River Gorge have successfully raised young. With the low water from the dry conditions, they will be hunting in areas with moving water. At dusk, a wood thrush is often heard singing plaintively. Eventually the planets will be easily visible in the night sky again, and I’ll get my telescope out to go observe, and once again share the evening with the owls and the other nocturnal things. Until then, the sun is in Leo and the quality of time is leisurely. I’m going to enjoy the spell for as long as it lasts.

Current Mood: calm

In May when I last wrote in this journal, it was only at the very beginning of spring like conditions in the Upper Midwest. The rest of May had a more than average number of cool and wet days, and that persisted into June. However I do not have a full picture of the situation locally because I was out of town for more than 2 weeks since the last time I wrote. I ventured into the Lake Superior country for the first time since 2017 apart from brief visits to Duluth in the interim. This took me to Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. That experience will be worth its own entry in due time.

The spring migration this year was really remarkable. It was an endless procession of novelty and it only built from the time that I wrote the last post. However it was pretty clear by The time I left town that migration was coming to an end. We were beginning to see the species that will nest locally rather than move north. As soon as the waves of migrant warblers left, different ones moved in but they are the ones that take up permanent residence in the area. We also had transient waves of white-throated sparrows and such. As warmer weather came in, the Baltimore orioles were seen regularly, so I put out small pots of grape jelly for them.

On the novelty front, we had large numbers of indigo buntings into the feeder. In the metropolitan area, I would see these rarely during the migration time, but we had a dozen at any one time. We also had scarlet tanagers into the feeder as well, certainly a rare enough occurrence. Cowbirds started to move in and occupy the feeder in large numbers as well, and they have stayed into the summer. I have rarely had the opportunity to observe these brood parasites in the past, and they can be quite aggressive – for instance, they ran off the blue jays who would come into the feeder.

Another thing that really tells you that spring has arrived is the waves of rose breasted grosbeaks. In some ways, these oversized finches sound like robins. However, their song is more flowery and ornamental than a robin, whose song sounds plaintive by comparison. They took up residence in the spring but they have stayed into summer as well. I still hear the song of the tufted titmouse, but I see them much more rarely; undoubtedly they are on the nest. The yard also fills with the song of the house wren, a very liquid sound. And the large number of goldfinches first seen in the winter time stayed for the summer as well.

One of the more colorful visitors to the yard in summertime is the gray catbird. I first heard them while walking at the nearby prairie. Sometimes their call sounds like the meowing of a cat, which is why they are named so, but they also have a chattering improvised call during breeding season. This is an ever-changing comical stream of notes. I used to see them in the city as well, but it seems that the alternating field and thicket here is a very good habitat for them. Never could they be observed in such numbers, even at the parks in the city. We finally attracted a mating pair into the yard, and they have remained visitors this summer so far.

Summertime is oftentimes not the best season for bird watching. This is the season of the rearing of young. Trips to the marshlands looking for waterfowl might end in disappointment, as they become extra cautious at this time of year. But having a feeder makes all the difference, it scarcely matters what time of year it is, there will be a constant succession of birds through the area. The species will change along with the seasons and this is part of the fun. Walks in the area are also likely to turn up sightings. For instance, the impressive flycatcher called the kingbird can be seen in this area, never very far from the abundant patches of meadow. Once again I am impressed to note the amount of variance from my old locale, though it’s maybe a few dozen miles away and at the same latitude.

Overall, the Wisconsin side of the St Croix valley has not yet succumbed to the suburban development of the Minnesota side. This has left large continuous patches of nature for birds and other wildlife to breed in. And this reality is reflected in the much larger numbers of wildlife locally. It should be noted that urban and suburban parts of the Twin Cities still have a lot of nature relative to the development, but living here has given me a very clear illustration of just what a difference unspoiled nature makes for biodiversity in abundance. It also seems that anthropogenic landscapes like this one can be ideal habitat for a lot of different species. This is the "forest edge" biome created in agrarian regions. As I have pointed out in the past, The driftless area with its hills and valleys prevents the kind of strict monoculture that exists in some parts of farm country.

The only question mark with regard to this year is how harsh the summer will be. There was enough rain in the spring that the drought from last year was completely wiped out, and it was also cool enough that evaporation was not taking place. During that time the river was the highest I had ever seen. That has all changed now. This June has been generally hot and dry. Not quite so extreme so far as last year, but not encouraging either. Temps are several degrees above average, and rainfall is several inches below. Occasional winds have blown as well. At this rate, the Midwestern drought will return in a hurry. With July just around the corner, there is more than enough cause to be concerned. So far crops are not suffering, but the topsoil is dry, and the last thing we need this year is another piece of bad news – such as crop failure in the Midwest at a time when the world’s food supplies are already precarious.

Current Mood: calm

It is a sunny and unseasonably warm day in January as I write this. Since yesterday a front moved in, and since then, the weather is more akin to early spring than the middle of winter. The world seemed to know it too, as the entire landscape came alive with bird song and a burst of activity not seen since the warmer months. However, this being the upper Midwest, it would be foolish to assume such a condition will last for the rest of the winter. The next major cold front is only just over the horizon, and that's one assertion I will take to the bank.

However as we go into mid-January it's a perfect time for another installment of nature observations. Since starting this project I came to realize that doing weekly updates on local wildlife and conditions will greatly aid the understanding of seasonal dynamics and variations. No 2 years are alike, and in any given year part of the entertainment of natural observation is how that year represents a season in a different and totally unique permutation of events. This is even more true for my local area than many parts of the world, for we are inhabitants of one of the most changeable climates in the world. The upper Midwest in general and Minnesota and North Dakota in particular are known for extreme variability both from one season to the next and within seasons as well.

The word changeable describes the new year of 2022 quite well. The majority of the days since the New years have been frigid, however the streak was broken in the last two days by an unseasonable warm front. Locally I observed a high of 36° F yesterday and a glance at the thermometer outside shows that it is even higher today. This is a classic January thaw, and it is a more vibrant one than they actually predicted. It is premature to assume that this will herald an early spring. Another polar front is already brewing and the end of January is expected to be colder than the norm. When the whole thing is finished, I expect that the month of January will live up to its reputation around these parts for harsh conditions. Still, it is nothing like the static chill and blizzards of Januaries past like in 2019 and 2014.

Activity at the feeders picked up during the frigid days. Dozens of finches came in during that time. This also included the first sightings of redpolls for the year. During very cold fronts I have sometimes expected to see pine siskins or perhaps even a visiting northern shrike from more northerly climes. So far we have not had any of those visitors yet. On a brief trip before the new year I did see what appeared to be a flock of snow buntings northwest of the twin cities. Generally these far northern visitors are signs of a more severe winter, but so far there have only been intermittent visitors. It is a far cry from some other years when we had pine siskins staying for the entire winter owing to prolonged boreal conditions. For the most part, the wildlife has been the same as before-- The only major change is a lone male turkey has come to the feeder the past few days, while the previous visitors were a large congregation of females.

Yesterday it was nice outside, particularly after a long spell of extreme cold, and since I had an errand to run anyway, I went over to a nearby town to a city park that overlooks the river. The river appears to be largely frozen north of town, but south of the town there were large sections that were still open. In the open patches, a great number of swans were swimming around. They were occasionally sparring as well, and perhaps this aggression is a hint of the coming breeding season. Also, sitting out on the thin ice in between bouts of hunting, were at least half a dozen eagles. The afternoon air filled with the musical calls of the swans and of the eagles in flight. They were joined by more humble company, the many chickadees, nuthatches, and they always boisterous red-bellied woodpeckers, enjoying a very hospitable afternoon in the oak groves at the top of the bluff. As idyllic as this picture was, it was only a promise of the springtime to come, as we are only just entering the middle of winter in meteorological terms.

Other sightings of note included three eagles in the neighborhood adjacent to mine, and a red fox on a local trail situated in a restored prairie nearby. The former are always identifiable by their distinctive calls. We were alerted to the presence of the latter however by an unfamiliar series of barks and whines. For a number of minutes we were completely ignorant of the source, and confused as to who could be making such calls. It was only after we rounded the corner and saw the red fox out in the open that we realized. But as soon as it knew it had been observed, the wily creature disappeared into the high grass and was not seen again. It was probably stalking prey perhaps along with its family, as there are many rodents to hunt in tunnels through the snow out in the grasslands just now. Restored prairies are oftentimes home to Marsh Hawks and short eared owls but so far I've not seen any there.

The last two winters have been described as Dark Winters in political circles. But what they seem to have been, at least from the perspective of the natural world, is fairly ordinary. As I grow older, the incessant cold of the winters at this latitude sometimes seems monotonous. But even the bitter season is part of the pageant. There is always something worth seeing at this time of year. Yesterday, the bright sunshine from a sun still low in the sky, or the waxing gibbous moon rising in a bluebird sky were worth the price of admission. It has been clouding up at dusk pretty reliably, and the sun downs have been spectacular. Winter sunsets in the North country are wondrous to behold, like a fire blazing itself down into embers. As long as I am here to witness these things, I will continue to report on them. Half a winter remains, the rest before the rebirth of spring. We'll see what the remainder of the season brings.

Though I moved to my new location almost 2 months ago, I only began to feel this new place as my home in the run up to the new year. This move to a completely unfamiliar place proved to be more of an adjustment than I thought. Every other place that I'd dwelled in for a long duration was familiar in some way - the western suburbs were where I had spent much of my life, and living up north was familiar enough because I had been visiting that area since I was a kid. This area however, though at the same latitude as my home in the western suburbs, is totally unfamiliar. Settling into this area has meant getting accustomed to a new biome and landscape, a new routine, and so forth. What follows is the first nature journal of the new year, in a place I am coming to feel as my home for the first time.

The unglaciated landscape with its hills and valleys is not unlike the River valleys in the Southwest of Minnesota, but in character very unlike the glaciated mixed forests of the western suburbs. As such, there are subtle differences in both the plant and animal kingdoms here. Some have already been mentioned here, but I will add more presently. First of all, we have the screech owl. It is heard in the hills to the north every night. Many birds of prey live in the area besides. There is a great horned owl living in the neighbor's yard, a barred owl near the entrance of the neighborhood, numerous eagles living in the hills and valleys of the surrounding area, and a red-tailed hawk living on top of the hills to the north. Anytime you see this many predators it means that the hunting opportunities are quite fertile, and that by and large the ecosystem is healthy and flourishing.

A thought came to me the other day, as I watched deer come down to the feeder as they often do at dusk. Right now, we have a number of does along with a formerly 8-point buck coming regularly. I say formerly because one of his antlers has gone missing in the last few days so now he has only four points on the right side of his head. These deer are very skittish and reluctant to descend the hill very far. Wisconsin is full of hunters and they have been shot at many times this year. But somehow these proud specimens have survived. The thought I had was that these deer are very different from the ones that I remember from the 1990s. This calls for a trip down memory lane to clarify what I mean for readers who may be unfamiliar.

In the 1990s, when I was still quite young, there were deer in enormous numbers in the western suburbs. As a matter of fact, one time when I was driving with my father at night we had an unfortunate collision with one that could easily have been fatal for us, had things gone differently. It was not uncommon on the long winter nights to see hundreds of deer outside in the parks not far from where I lived. I always got the impression of a gigantic deer council meeting in the frozen marshes and snowy groves out there. This was in a time of expanding suburbia, and eventually there was a loud clamor to get rid of all the deer. So eventually they were culled in a multi-city initiative, and their numbers never even approached the prodigious quantity of the 1990s ever again.

From that point onward in fact I never recall having seen those numbers of deer anywhere in my region. The deer that did show up in the 2000s and beyond were much cagier and often came at night. Sometimes you could see bucks of impressive size, real Kings of the woods, but all in all it was a rare occurrence. They continue to be hunted in calling programs, despite there being no real need for it any longer, and also the western suburbs had by this time a viable breeding population of coyotes, who also hunted the deer. I should note for a moment that coyotes were very rare in my area though not unheard of when I was young. They only became a common sight in the later 2000s, at the same time that large flocks of turkeys were seen as well. As a child, the only turkeys I would ever see were in far southwestern Minnesota, where we would sometimes go camping. These anecdotes will make it clear that major changes have occurred in the cycles of wildlife population just in my lifetime.

My theory is that the deer of today have been subjected to very strong selective pressure in the last few decades. Hunting and culling pressures have led to a populace that is more careful and elusive. I often hear hunters complain that deer are harder to catch nowadays, and the rifle hunting season is rather short, meaning that many go away disappointed. Meanwhile our neighbors up north were successful at catching one deer during the bow-hunting season. Either in the western suburbs or here on the fringes of one of the hunting capitals of the United States, the deer are adapting to what they have come to understand is a dangerous world for them, that is, the expanding ring of civilization. Though given all that is going on in the world today, it is debatable just how long that expansion will continue. Furthermore, the deer are just one of the tales of adaptation that I've seen during years of watching the world go by. That is why I also mentioned the turkeys and coyotes, though these are two triumphant success stories that serve as a counterpoint.

When observing the natural world, it is important to remember that the original phrase for what we're doing here was "natural history.". So you can expect digressions like the ones above in my writings. I like to take an historical and retrospective look at all this stuff, as without the accrued knowledge that comes with repeated observation, experience and reflection, solid learning is hard to come by. To my knowledge, this is the first time that I have set down any of these recollections in a public form. I only pass on information that is true to the best of my knowledge. If any of it does not match your experience, do not hesitate to share your opinions. Correspondence is encouraged. And I expect to continue these nature journals for as long as I am able. I see it as part of my life's work.

It is now the night before the winter solstice. After that, the sun begins its symbolic rebirth and its northward march, and the days will grow older accordingly. Another cycle of the seasons will follow the steady ascension of the sun. But spring is still a long ways off. The wintertide is a period symbolic of endings and of new beginnings both. As such this is a very fitting time for a reflection. The phenomena of the natural world always seem to be an outward reflection of the soul of a particular moment in time. One of the realizations I had recently was that natural history used to be a common hobby of the common people of the United States. This is by and large fallen by the wayside. In particular, the writing down of the facts is not much done anymore, Even though it was a popular genre only a few decades ago. As I am right on the cusp of a new cycle of life myself, it is only fitting that I do my part to bring this cataloging of the pageant of seasons and life in the natural world back to public consciousness.

Last week, I discussed my recent peregrinations as an introduction to this new project. They brought me finally to the east bank of the St Croix River. I've already begun the process of mapping the space around me, and building a mental model of my new surroundings. My homeland was the area west of Minneapolis, a land of strongly glaciated topography and landforms. As such it was characterized by low rolling hills, woods, lakes and marshes. By contrast, the river valley, while being at almost at the same latitude, might as well be a different world. It is a part of the unglaciated driftless area. The bedrock is limestone, and there is a dramatic hill and valley aspect to the land, but wetlands apart from streams and rivers are hard to come by. This is a sort of landscape that would be more familiar to some Southerners than people from my neck of the woods, even though it's not a very great distance from where I grew up.

Along with the longitudinal change comes a change in the wildlife, though in this case the difference is more subtle than dense. Both areas belong to the hardwood belt, so oaks and maples are common, although on this side of the river there are more evergreens. Many of the same species that haunted the feeders in the Western Suburbs can also be seen here: large flocks of wild turkeys, deer in abundance, finches, woodpeckers, gray and red squirrels, blue jays, morning doves, and the ubiquitous nuthatches and chickadees. These are perennial forest dwellers no matter where you go in this corner of creation. One major difference though is that the numbers of crows in the western suburbs had sharply declined over time, while there are still large numbers of them here. I mentioned last week that I lived up north for a season, and I always heard barred owls at night. Here, the usual call is that of the great horned owl.

There are certain striking differences that stand out. In the area west of the twin cities, bald eagles had gotten steadily more common over time. There was a time when they were almost never seen in that area. But, everyday sightings of bald eagles can be expected in the St Croix Valley. The river valleys are now full of a species that were once rare in the entire United States. I should take a moment to note that this is the national bird, however due to environmental pollution and callous hunting practices, at one point in the last century there was a serious concern that it would go extinct. And yet here we are, in the 21st century, and they have never been more abundant in my lifetime. This is an illustration in real time of the principle of replenishment, which shows that in many instances the natural world if let alone it will recover in time.

In my native Minnesota there was a very famous bird watcher at one time Charles T. Flugum who wrote about[1] the many birds that visited his farm near Albert Lea, Minnesota as he went about his daily routine of farming. He kept a record for decades of the species that passed by, and I read the entire collection of columns that were made public, as it's kind of an encyclopedia for birds that might be seen in the north country. There were a number of species in this collection that I had never seen or saw only rarely in the suburbs. The East Bank of the St Croix River right now is like a transition zone between the exurbs of the Twin Cities and rural farmland. As such, there are farm species that would not be seen in the suburbs, including Brewer’s Blackbirds and Lapland longspurs. Other species that I never saw in the Western Suburbs include the cross bills and the tufted titmice, both of which can be routinely spotted on this side of the river.

It goes to show that one needn't stray far from one's land of origin before encountering novelty. The change in distance was not far, but the change in biodiversity is enough to be immediately noticeable to careful observation. I should add that the trend in my lifetime in all the places I've lived is toward more wild nature even in spite of very intensive urban development in certain parts of the country. Even the Western Suburbs, which got quite developed over the course of my life, still contained very luxurious woodland and wetland ecosystems. Though I abhorred the common practice of clear cutting woodlots and such in order to make room for new concrete steel and glass developments, there was still enough continuous wild land to support a considerable wildlife. Agrarian land can be about as bad an offender, with economic pressures tending toward optimum utilization, but in the driftless area, cutting the forests on the hillsides would lead to bad erosion, so in general it is not done and there are big refuges for wildlife as well. In the last century, very large preserves were also set aside to make sure that the biome was preserved to some extent.

2021 will probably be remembered as a time of crisis and troubles due to the wider political and economic context. But outside of the transient domain of human affairs, there is a wider world that we too often forget. It's there since long before we were, and it will be after we are gone too. What I find is that careful observation of the living earth is an antidote to anxieties and excessive self-importance. We are here but a short time, from the perspective of earth we're just flows of energies of barely a passing moment's significance. On this winter solstice, I wanted to adopt a new perspective, one that takes into account the eternal and timeless as well as the sound and fury of the folly of mankind. Noticing surroundings and recording what you see is one way to tap into this wider current of forces above and beyond the vanities of mere mortals. One can only hope that this increase of awareness leads to further enlightenment somewhere down the road.

On that note, Good Solstice to you and yours, a very Merry Christmastide too if you observe those practices, and may your kindly aspirations be realized in the year to come.

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Birding-Tractor-Seat-Charles-Flugum/dp/0690009712