Journal « The Steve Grant Website

February 25, 2010

At Fellsmere, Florida

More than 10 years ago I devoted two mornings searching for the red-cockaded woodpecker in ideal pine forest habitat in north Florida. I don’t recall seeing a woodpecker either time, never mind the red-cockaded, which is an endangered species now found in only 11 states mostly in the southeastern U. S. The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates there are perhaps 14,000 of the birds, a tiny fraction of what their numbers were centuries ago and a dangerously small number for a bird species.

I decided to give the red-cockaded another try on my latest Florida visit. While many birders would love to see every species in, say, the U. S. A. and Canada – there are more than 900 – most of us know it isn’t going to happen. We may over time see 400 or 500 species, but getting to 900 requires an extraordinary commitment of time and money. I won’t come close. But seeing every North American woodpecker species? Possible. A couple of years ago I set myself that modest goal, which is manageable. Why woodpeckers? Maybe because I’ve seen quite a few of them already, and seeing the rest of them might happen in just a few years, assuming I take a vacation or two or three in the West, where there are easily a half dozen species I’ve yet to see. After the woodpeckers? Maybe all the ducks or owls or sandpipers. For now, finding the endangered red-cockaded would be a great addition to my woodpecker list.

Searching the Internet, I learned of a state park where the red-cockaded might be seen. It was not much more than an hour from where I am staying. I arrived at the Saint Sebastian River Preserve State Park in Fellsmere late morning and stopped by the park office, where I was told the odds of seeing the birds were best along the trail blazed in yellow, one of four major hiking trails in the preserve. The woman I spoke with said the birds were most often seen very early in the day.

Never mind if I was a little late on the scene, if I had driven this far I was looking for the red-cockaded. Anyway, for a birder, part of the thrill in adding another bird to one’s Life List of species seen is the pursuit. If finding a new species involves some real effort, perhaps some research into habitat and habits, too, that just makes discovery that much more satisfying. I also think, from experience, that the birds that require time and concentration leave the most indelible memories. You learn the bird. You remember exactly where and when you saw it, somehow come away with a feel for the species. Travel with a group to some distant place where a guide takes you straight to this or that otherwise hard-to-find species and the experience isn’t as rewarding. You don’t truly learn the bird; it is figuratively put before you on a platter, no further thought required. I wanted to find the red-cockaded woodpecker on my own, on what now was my third day looking for the species. It was unusually cool for a late February day in south-central Florida, and windy as well. A wore a long-sleeve shirt with a chamois shirt over it. An advantage of the cool day was that I largely had this expansive park to myself. If there were red-cockaded woodpeckers along the trail, it was unlikely some other hiker would spook them before I came along.

Much of the preserve is a forest of longleaf pines, widely spaced, the habitat the red-cockaded needs and a habitat that, like the woodpecker itself, is but a fraction of what it once was in the southeast. The trail was sandy and wide, almost like a beach in places. I took the recommended yellow trail, and a spur that passes through a section of forest where the birds are known to nest in the spring. I walked perhaps 2 1/4 miles with no sign of the birds before turning around to retrace my steps. I had the feeling this was to be another day without seeing the red-cockaded. I told myself I should be pleased that I had seen a crested caracara. But about 90 minutes into my hike several birds flew across the trail and into the pines. They were a good distance away, but I saw the undulating flight pattern common to so many woodpeckers. Off the trail I went, raising the binoculars. The field guides point out that the red-cockaded has distinctive white cheeks with a black and white ladder pattern on the back. I got a reasonably good look at one bird. White cheeks. Ladder back. No mistaking this bird. The red-cockaded is not a particularly colorful bird despite its name. It is a black-and-white bird, though the male has a very small red “cockade” that is not often seen, according to the field guides. I saw nothing but black and white. The red-cockaded in fact is not all that different from two other mostly black and white woodpeckers of the East, the downy and the hairy. But with its ladder back and white cheeks, the red-cockaded is just different enough, never mind its very specific habitat needs. So, I was not just seeing another monochrome woodpecker, I saw a species that over many centuries evolved in a habitat once dominant in the southeast.

I saw three of the birds, and, I think, another two or three nearby though I did not get a good look at those birds. All the birds were wary and moved anytime I approached closer than 40 feet or so. But, with a 500mm telephoto lens, I even got a photo.

And a real sense of the red-cockaded.

February 25, 2010

At Fellsmere, Florida

More than 10 years ago I devoted two mornings searching for the red-cockaded woodpecker in ideal pine forest habitat in north Florida. I don’t recall seeing a woodpecker either time, never mind the red-cockaded, which is an endangered species now found in only 11 states mostly in the southeastern U. S. The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates there are perhaps 14,000 of the birds, a tiny fraction of what their numbers were centuries ago and a dangerously small number for a bird species.

I decided to give the red-cockaded another try on my latest Florida visit. While many birders would love to see every species in, say, the U. S. A. and Canada – there are more than 900 – most of us know it isn’t going to happen. We may over time see 400 or 500 species, but getting to 900 requires an extraordinary commitment of time and money. I won’t come close. But seeing every North American woodpecker species? Possible. A couple of years ago I set myself that modest goal, which is manageable. Why woodpeckers? Maybe because I’ve seen quite a few of them already, and seeing the rest of them might happen in just a few years, assuming I take a vacation or two or three in the West, where there are easily a half dozen species I’ve yet to see. After the woodpeckers? Maybe all the ducks or owls or sandpipers. For now, finding the endangered red-cockaded would be a great addition to my woodpecker list.

Searching the Internet, I learned of a state park where the red-cockaded might be seen. It was not much more than an hour from where I am staying. I arrived at the Saint Sebastian River Preserve State Park in Fellsmere late morning and stopped by the park office, where I was told the odds of seeing the birds were best along the trail blazed in yellow, one of four major hiking trails in the preserve. The woman I spoke with said the birds were most often seen very early in the day.

The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker

Never mind if I was a little late on the scene, if I had driven this far I was looking for the red-cockaded. Anyway, for a birder, part of the thrill in adding another bird to one’s Life List of species seen is the pursuit. If finding a new species involves some real effort, perhaps some research into habitat and habits, too, that just makes discovery that much more satisfying. I also think, from experience, that the birds that require time and concentration leave the most indelible memories. You learn the bird. You remember exactly where and when you saw it, somehow come away with a feel for the species. Travel with a group to some distant place where a guide takes you straight to this or that otherwise hard-to-find species and the experience isn’t as rewarding. You don’t truly learn the bird; it is figuratively put before you on a platter, no further thought required. I wanted to find the red-cockaded woodpecker on my own, on what now was my third day looking for the species. It was unusually cool for a late February day in south-central Florida, and windy as well. A wore a long-sleeve shirt with a chamois shirt over it. An advantage of the cool day was that I largely had this expansive park to myself. If there were red-cockaded woodpeckers along the trail, it was unlikely some other hiker would spook them before I came along.

Much of the preserve is a forest of longleaf pines, widely spaced, the habitat the red-cockaded needs and a habitat that, like the woodpecker itself, is but a fraction of what it once was in the southeast. The trail was sandy and wide, almost like a beach in places. I took the recommended yellow trail, and a spur that passes through a section of forest where the birds are known to nest in the spring. I walked perhaps 2 1/4 miles with no sign of the birds before turning around to retrace my steps. I had the feeling this was to be another day without seeing the red-cockaded. I told myself I should be pleased that I had seen a crested caracara. But about 90 minutes into my hike several birds flew across the trail and into the pines. They were a good distance away, but I saw the undulating flight pattern common to so many woodpeckers. Off the trail I went, raising the binoculars. The field guides point out that the red-cockaded has distinctive white cheeks with a black and white ladder pattern on the back. I got a reasonably good look at one bird. White cheeks. Ladder back. No mistaking this bird. The red-cockaded is not a particularly colorful bird despite its name. It is a black-and-white bird, though the male has a very small red “cockade” that is not often seen, according to the field guides. I saw nothing but black and white. The red-cockaded in fact is not all that different from two other mostly black and white woodpeckers of the East, the downy and the hairy. But with its ladder back and white cheeks, the red-cockaded is just different enough, never mind its very specific habitat needs. So, I was not just seeing another monochrome woodpecker, I saw a species that over many centuries evolved in a habitat once dominant in the southeast.

I saw three of the birds, and, I think, another two or three nearby though I did not get a good look at those birds. All the birds were wary and moved anytime I approached closer than 40 feet or so. But, with a 500mm telephoto lens, I even got a photo.

And a real sense of the red-cockaded.

A Harlequin on the Farmington

February 9, 2010

At Farmington, Ct.

About a month ago, a harlequin duck appeared in the Farmington River on a stretch of water that parallels Garden Street. It is a most unusual place for the harlequin, winter or summer, and the question now is, how long will it remain?

Harlequin ducks spend summers in the far north, often well above the Arctic Circle, and prefer rushing, broken water. I’ve seen them in whitewater on the North Klondike River in the Yukon Territory. In winter, they prefer rocky coastlines, where they can be seen bobbing among the rocks even as the surf crashes around them. They are, it appears, very hardy creatures. In southern New England, one fairly reliable place to spot a harlequin is Sachuest Point in Rhode Island, where a small flock can often be seen in winter.

A sighting in Connecticut is highly unusual, and especially on an inland river in winter. Hundreds of birders have come by to get a look at this single, male harlequin, which is easily identified. Male harlequins have a most distinctive pattern, with lyrical swooshes of white plumage and white dots.

Mergansers, mallard ducks, and Canada geese are abundant along the Farmington River in winter, and this solitary harlequin sometimes is among them. We are left to wonder where in the north it spent the summer, and where it was headed before it decided to stop on the Farmington. Did it somehow get separated from a migrating flock of harlequins? One assumes so, and the harlequin of Farmington most likely is one of nature’s little dramas.

February 9, 2010

About a month ago, a harlequin duck appeared in the Farmington River on a stretch of water that parallels Garden Street. It is a most unusual place for the harlequin, winter or summer, and the question now is, how long will it remain?

Harlequin ducks spend summers in the far north, often well above the Arctic Circle, and prefer rushing, broken water. I’ve seen them in whitewater on the North Klondike River in the Yukon Territory. In winter, they prefer rocky coastlines, where they can be seen bobbing among the rocks even as the surf crashes around them. They are, it appears, very hardy creatures. In southern New England, one fairly reliable place to spot a harlequin is Sachuest Point in Rhode Island, where a small flock can often be seen in winter.

The harlequin duck on the Farmington River

A sighting in Connecticut is highly unusual, and especially on an inland river in winter. Hundreds of birders have come by to get a look at this single, male harlequin, which is easily identified. Male harlequins have a most distinctive pattern, with lyrical swooshes of white plumage and white dots.

Mergansers, mallard ducks, and Canada geese are abundant along the Farmington River in winter, and this single harlequin sometimes is among them. We are left to wonder where in the north it spent the summer, and where it was headed before it decided to stop on the Farmington. Did it somehow get separated from a migrating flock of harlequins? One assumes so, and this harlequin of Farmington most likely is one of nature’s little dramas.

The Lyrics of the Landscape

December 12, 2009

Paddling my kayak on Dunning Lake in Farmington, Ct., one day late last year I passed close to shore near an apartment complex and happened upon a middle-aged man crouched at the edge of the water. He was washing a paint tray and roller. In front of him was a milky-white plume easily 15-feet by 15-feet and expanding. I was outraged, and my face showed it I’m sure. We made eye contact. I stopped paddling and stared. He turned his head away, waited a few moments as I glided by, and plunged the roller back in the lake. I caught it out of the corner of my eye.

Lake Dunning is small body of water, perhaps three-quarters-of-a-mile long, maybe a half-mile wide at most, fed by springs, rainfall and a tiny inlet brook. Water from the lake flows west to the nearby Farmington River, then on to the Connecticut River and eventually the sea.

I thought of the incident as I read another new book on the Connecticut River, “Where the Great River Rises: An Atlas of the Connecticut River Watershed in Vermont and New Hampshire,” edited by Rebecca A. Brown and published by the University Press of New England. ($35.00) Its stated purpose is to heighten understanding of the Connecticut and its watershed, to increase awareness of “the whole interrelated fabric of the region.” After all these years, after the Clean Water Act, after so many Earth Days, after so much progress, we still need books like this atlas.

People still do stupid things.

Governments and businesses do stupid things, too, though far more subtly than the guy with the paint tray. Not always – as I said, there is progress, significant progress – but rivers like the Connecticut even now are too often abused, as the Atlas documents. True, factories and municipalities no longer flush untreated wastes through a pipe directly into the Connecticut, but at the same time there is little improvement in controlling the insidious runoff pollution from the ever growing volume of paved surfaces in the watershed, which drains parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Not to mention the other problems, like global warming, mercury deposition, and the degradation caused by dams, 14 of them on the Connecticut still functioning, another 3 slowly crumbling.

The Atlas is a project of the Connecticut River Joint Commissions, created by the legislatures of Vermont and New Hampshire to coordinate efforts to protect the Connecticut’s upper valley. Experts at Dartmouth College assisted with the book. The upper valley is a big area, nearly 7,000 square miles, draining places like Vermont’s rugged Northeast Kingdom and the westerly slopes of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, including part of Mount Washington. There are essays on the upper valley’s geology, forests, plant and animal life, agriculture, fisheries, and recreation. Other essays trace the impact of Native Americans, explore population trends, assess water quality, document the cultural history of the valley then and now. There are graphics galore – including one showing public access points in the upper valley. Handy.

There is graceful prose in places, but mostly this atlas is a kind of Upper Valley textbook with workmanlike, explanatory writing. Nothing wrong with that. There is an enormous amount of information about the river and its watershed between these covers, and it is the kind of vetted, reliable, factual matter that is valuable and needed. Connecticut River afficionados will snatch it up and add it to their increasingly sagging shelf of Connecticut River literature. We’ve been seeing a couple of Connecticut River books a year in recent years.

That is, I think, because there is something about the Connecticut River that rings an emotional bell with some people, I’ve met dozens of people over the past few decades who feel proprietary about the river, who can’t spend too much time on it, near it, reading about it. I’ll count myself among them. What we Connecticut River groupies have to hope is that others will discover the Connecticut – or discover and fuss over the brook nearby that feeds the stream that feeds the Connecticut.

Rivers are not just moving water, they are the lyrics of the landscape, singing a song that measures our stewardship better than anything else I know. A plume of paint-stained water draining to the Connecticut is, if we keep things in perspective, an example of the work still to be done.

December 15, 2009

Paddling my kayak on Dunning Lake in Farmington, Ct., one day late last year I passed close to shore near an apartment complex and happened upon a middle-aged man crouched at the edge of the water. He was washing a paint tray and a roller brush. In front of him was a milky-white plume easily 15-feet by 15-feet and expanding. I was outraged, and my face showed it I’m sure. We made eye contact. I stopped paddling and stared. He turned his head away, waited a few moments as I glided by, and plunged the roller back in the lake. I caught it out of the corner of my eye.

"Where the Great River Rises" is a newly published atlas of the upper Connecticut River valley. Jacket image courtesy of the University Press of New England.

"Where the Great River Rises" is a newly published atlas of the upper Connecticut River valley. Cover image courtesy of the University Press of New England.

Lake Dunning is small body of water, perhaps three-quarters-of-a-mile long, maybe a half-mile wide at most, fed by springs, rainfall and a tiny inlet brook. Water from the lake flows west to the nearby Farmington River, then on to the Connecticut River and eventually the sea.

I thought of the incident as I read another new book on the Connecticut River, “Where the Great River Rises: An Atlas of the Connecticut River Watershed in Vermont and New Hampshire,” edited by Rebecca A. Brown and published by the University Press of New England. ($35.00) Its stated purpose is to heighten understanding of the Connecticut and its watershed, to increase awareness of “the whole interrelated fabric of the region.” After all these years, after the Clean Water Act, after so many Earth Days, after so much progress, we still need books like this atlas.

People still do stupid things.

Governments and businesses do stupid things, too, though far more subtly than the guy with the paint tray. Not always – as I said, there is progress, significant progress – but rivers like the Connecticut even now are too often abused, as the Atlas documents. True, factories and municipalities no longer flush untreated wastes through a pipe directly into the Connecticut, but at the same time there is little improvement in controlling the insidious runoff pollution from the ever growing volume of paved surfaces in the watershed, which drains parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Not to mention the other problems, like global warming, mercury deposition, and the degradation caused by dams, 14 of them on the Connecticut still functioning, another 3 slowly crumbling.

The Atlas is a project of the Connecticut River Joint Commissions, created by the legislatures of Vermont and New Hampshire to coordinate efforts to protect the Connecticut’s upper valley. Experts at Dartmouth College assisted with the book. The upper valley is a big area, nearly 7,000 square miles, draining places like Vermont’s rugged Northeast Kingdom and the westerly slopes of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, including part of Mount Washington. There are essays on the upper valley’s geology, forests, plant and animal life, agriculture, fisheries, and recreation. Other essays trace the impact of Native Americans, explore population trends, assess water quality, document the cultural history of the valley then and now. Color photographs and graphics are plentiful in this large-format paperback - including one showing public access points in the upper valley. Handy.

A canoe camper makes breakfast along the Connecticut River near Brattleboro, Vermont

There is graceful prose in places, but mostly this atlas is a kind of Upper Valley textbook with workmanlike, explanatory writing. Nothing wrong with that. There is an enormous amount of information about the river and its watershed between these covers, and it is the kind of vetted, reliable, factual matter that is valuable and needed. Connecticut River afficionados will snatch it up and add it to their increasingly sagging shelf of Connecticut River literature. We’ve been seeing a couple of Connecticut River books a year in recent years.

That is, I think, because there is something about the Connecticut that rings an emotional bell with some people. I’ve met dozens of people over the past few decades who feel proprietary about the river, who can’t spend too much time on it, near it, reading about it. I’ll count myself among them. What we Connecticut River groupies have to hope is that others will discover the Connecticut – or discover and fuss over the brook nearby that feeds the stream that feeds the Connecticut.

Rivers are not just moving water, they are the lyrics of the landscape, and their songs assess our stewardship of this planet better than anything else I know. A plume of paint-stained water draining to the Connecticut is, if we keep things in perspective, a reminder of the work still to be done.

Maine’s Best Idea

November 14, 2009

Perhaps the closest thing we have to wilderness in New England is the vast forest overspreading much of inland central and northern Maine. It is rugged, mountainous land thick with spruce and fir, laced with clear streams and rivers and dotted with deep, cold lakes. Here you will find birds like the no-longer-common common loon and the spruce grouse, along with abundant moose. Much of this forest is five or more hours driving time from metropolitan New England, so you might assume it will stay what it is: trees, water and wildlife.

Unfortunately, no. Long drive or not, the appeal of pristine waterfront property is powerful. Meanwhile, the economics of the forest products industry changed over the past two decades. As demand for weekend homes accelerated, even in these remote areas, large timber products companies discovered that the waterfront properties within their vast holdings are worth far more as residential real estate than as a platform for growing trees for pulp. So the pressure is on, and it is an issue, at least in Maine. It ought to be an issue taken far more seriously in the rest of the region. This is in effect New England’s last frontier. Must every inch of waterfront be seen through a window?

Strange then, that an announcement a few days ago from the Appalachian Mountain Club received so little attention.

The AMC bought a 29,500-acre parcel of land – a genuine missing link – that creates a 63-mile corridor of conservation land stretching from a point near Greenville, a small town at the southern end of Moosehead Lake, all the way to Baxter State Park, itself a massive holding permanently set aside as wild land that includes mile-high Mount Katahdin.

This newly acquired parcel, known as the Roach Ponds Tract, is bounded to the north by state of Maine land, and to the south by another large AMC-owned property, the Katahdin Iron Works Tract, which is 37,000 acres. Those properties, along with others owned by The Nature Conservancy and the state are within an area known as the 100-Mile-Wilderness, a recreational playground for those who cherish nature as it wants to be. The new purchase provides a 20-mile buffer of deep forest for a section of the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, which passes through the 100-Mile-Wilderness.

Central and northern Maine forests are regularly logged by the paper products companies, and much of the area has been working forest for the better part of two centuries. They were cutting trees in Maine’s north woods when Henry David Thoreau visited in the mid-19th Century. But even with the industrial cutting, these forests are about as close to pristine wilderness on any large scale as you will find in New England.

To give you an idea: In heavily developed southern New England, a day of heavy rain typically causes streams and rivers to rise rapidly with runoff from cultivated and paved surfaces. Streams that flow clear in dry weather are murky for days after. The Roach Ponds Tract includes the upper reaches of the West Branch of the Pleasant River, as unspoiled a stream as you can expect to find in New England. Its banks are forested, its waters clear. It holds wild, native brook trout and the native shiner, the fallfish, and that is about it. What happens after big rain? The West Branch of the Pleasant River might rise 6 inches overnight. But it won’t be raging. It will flow clear as it does every other day. I’ve seen it. The West Branch is buffered – protected – by thousands of acres of forest, like streams were centuries ago.

The Roach Ponds Tract was purchased for $11.5 million from Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc., all from private sources, no public money involved. It is hard to imagine how this purchase will not be increasingly appreciated as the decades go on. It always seems to be that way with conservation lands. Look at the national parks.

Plum Creek, however, happens to be the same corporation behind a massive residential development project planned for the shores of Moosehead Lake, one of Maine’s biggest lakes with many miles of wild shoreline. It is a stone’s throw from the Roach Ponds Tract. Plum Creek plans three resorts and more than 2,000 residential units around Moosehead. Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission approved that development last month. The Natural Resources Council of Maine, long a critic of the Plum Creek development, already has appealed that decision to the Maine Superior Court.

November 14, 2009

Perhaps the closest thing we have to wilderness in New England is the vast forest overspreading much of inland central and northern Maine. It is rugged, mountainous land thick with spruce and fir, laced with clear streams and rivers and dotted with deep, cold lakes. Here you will find birds like the no-longer-common common loon and the spruce grouse, along with abundant moose. Much of this forest is five or more hours driving time from metropolitan New England, so you might assume it will stay what it is: trees, water and wildlife.

The Appalachian Mountain Club preserved a key piece of the 100-Mile-Wilderness in Maine. Map courtesy of the AMC.

Unfortunately, no. Long drive or not, the appeal of pristine waterfront property is powerful. Meanwhile, the economics of the forest products industry changed over the past two decades. As demand for weekend homes accelerated, even in these remote areas, large timber products companies discovered that the waterfront properties within their vast holdings are worth far more as residential real estate than as a platform for growing trees for pulp. So the pressure is on, and it is an issue, at least in Maine. It ought to be an issue taken far more seriously in the rest of the region. This is in effect New England’s last frontier. Must every inch of waterfront be seen through a window?

Strange then, that an announcement a few days ago from the Appalachian Mountain Club received so little attention.

The AMC bought a 29,500-acre parcel of land – a genuine missing link – that creates a 63-mile corridor of conservation land stretching from a point near Greenville, a small town at the southern end of Moosehead Lake, all the way to Baxter State Park, itself a massive holding permanently set aside as wild land that includes mile-high Mount Katahdin.

The West Branch of the Pleasant River in Maine in Winter.

This newly acquired parcel, known as the Roach Ponds Tract, is bounded to the north by state of Maine land, and to the south by another large AMC-owned property, the Katahdin Iron Works Tract, which is 37,000 acres. Those properties, along with others owned by The Nature Conservancy and the state are within an area known as the 100-Mile-Wilderness, a recreational playground for those who cherish nature as it wants to be. The new purchase provides a 20-mile buffer of deep forest for a section of the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, which passes through the 100-Mile-Wilderness.

Central and northern Maine forests are regularly logged by the paper products companies, and much of the area has been working forest for the better part of two centuries. They were cutting trees in Maine’s north woods when Henry David Thoreau visited in the mid-19th Century. But even with the industrial cutting, these forests are about as close to pristine wilderness on any large scale as you will find in New England.

To give you an idea: In heavily developed southern New England, a day of heavy rain typically causes streams and rivers to rise rapidly with runoff from cultivated and paved surfaces. Streams that flow clear in dry weather are murky for days after. The Roach Ponds Tract includes the upper reaches of the West Branch of the Pleasant River, as unspoiled a stream as you can expect to find in New England. Its banks are forested, its waters clear. It holds wild, native brook trout and the native shiner, the fallfish, and that is about it. What happens after big rain? The West Branch of the Pleasant River might rise 6 inches overnight. But it won’t be raging. It will flow clear as it does every other day. I’ve seen it. The West Branch is buffered – protected – by thousands of acres of forest, like streams were centuries ago.

The Roach Ponds Tract was purchased for $11.5 million from Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc., all from private sources, no public money involved. It is hard to imagine how this purchase will not be increasingly appreciated as the decades go on. It always seems to be that way with conservation lands. Look at the national parks.

Plum Creek, however, happens to be the same corporation behind a massive residential development project planned for the shores of Moosehead Lake, one of Maine’s biggest lakes with many miles of wild shoreline. It is a stone’s throw from the Roach Ponds Tract. Plum Creek plans three resorts and more than 2,000 residential units around Moosehead. Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission approved that development last month. The Natural Resources Council of Maine, long a critic of the Plum Creek development, already has appealed that decision to the Maine Superior Court.

The Two Connecticut Rivers

It is as if there are two Connecticut Rivers.

There is the beautiful Connecticut, picturesque, spanned by covered bridges, framed by mountains, rich with cultural history, with large and luxuriant marshes at its mouth.

There is, too, the Connecticut that is choked by 17 dams, still fouled at times by poorly treated sewage, its forested banks increasingly pocked with commercial and residential development.

Call it the contradiction of the Connecticut. Two new books illustrate this dichotomy nicely.

“Two Coots in a Canoe: An Unusual Story of Friendship,” by David E. Morine, (Glove Pequot Press, $22.95) is a sprightly and revealing account of a canoe trip Morine and his old college buddy, Ramsay Peard, took on the Connecticut in 2003 when they were 59 and 61 respectively.

“The Connecticut River: A Photographic Journey Through the Heart of New England,” (Wesleyan University Press, $35.00) is a visual tour of the river in 136 full-page color photos taken by Al Braden.

The Braden book is for the most part a celebration of the river, one that mostly gives us the scenic Connecticut, the one we all cherish. It does not, however, ignore the other Connecticut – Braden’s captions address thermal and sewage pollution head on, and an afterward by Chelsea Reiff Gwyther, executive director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, an environmental group devoted to the protection of the Connecticut, is a plea to address the problems facing the river.

Having said that, if you want the Connecticut in all its sparkling glory, grab the Braden book. You’ll understand why people like Peard and Morine wanted to paddle the whole river. Whatever the issues, much of the Connecticut is still easy on the eyes.

Two Coots gets to the nitty-gritty of the Connecticut in an account that is at times funny, at times angry, at times poignant. When Peard called Morine and suggested they canoe the Connecticut, Morine agreed with one condition. No camping. They would rely on strangers along the river to welcome them into their homes. They would mooch their way down the river.

They pulled it off. The Watershed Council put out a news release and e-mailed its membership. Morine and Peard were inundated with offers of lodging for a night. Those nights with strangers along the 410-mile length of the Connecticut are literal and figurative windows into life along the river, and enrich Morine’s book.

For two decades Morine was the head of land acquistion for The Nature Conservancy, and he well knows the harm that dams do. “There are seventeen dams on the Connecticut River. All the dams are degrading, but the one at Holyoke is the worst by far: dirty and disgusting, like a ball of hair clogging up a drain.”

As for the marginal water quality in some sections of the Connecticut and many other American rivers, Morine says: “One of the great fears of Homeland Security is that terrorists will contaminate our water supply. If clean, potable water is so important to our homeland security, why aren’t we aggressively cleaning up our rivers?”

But Two Coots is no jeremiad. It is an honest, enjoyable, playful and ultimately insightful account of their trip, one in which the highs and lows of each day – and a long river trip will have many highs and lows – leave us with a real feel for the river – both rivers.

November 4, 2009

It is as if there are two Connecticut Rivers.

There is the beautiful Connecticut, picturesque, spanned by covered bridges, framed by mountains, rich with cultural history, with large and luxuriant marshes at its mouth.

There is, too, the Connecticut that is choked by 17 dams, still fouled at times by poorly treated sewage, its forested banks increasingly pocked with commercial and residential development.

The Connecticut River near Littleton, N. H.

The Connecticut River near Littleton, New Hampshire

Call it the contradiction of the Connecticut. Two new books illustrate this dichotomy nicely.

“Two Coots in a Canoe: An Unusual Story of Friendship,” by David E. Morine, (Globe Pequot Press, $22.95) is a sprightly and revealing account of a canoe trip Morine and his old college buddy, Ramsay Peard, took on the Connecticut in 2003 when they were 59 and 61 respectively.

“The Connecticut River: A Photographic Journey Through the Heart of New England,” (Wesleyan University Press, $35.00) is a visual tour of the river in 136 full-page color photos taken by Al Braden.

The Braden book is for the most part a celebration of the river, one that mostly gives us the scenic Connecticut, the one we all cherish. It does not, however, ignore the other Connecticut – Braden’s captions address thermal and sewage pollution head on, and an afterward by Chelsea Reiff Gwyther, executive director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, an environmental group devoted to the protection of the Connecticut, is a plea to address the problems facing the river.

Having said that, if you want the Connecticut in all its sparkling glory, grab the Braden book. You’ll understand why people like Peard and Morine wanted to paddle the whole river. Whatever the issues, much of the Connecticut is still easy on the eyes.

Two Coots gets to the nitty-gritty of the Connecticut in an account that is at times funny, at times angry, at times poignant. When Peard called Morine and suggested they canoe the Connecticut, Morine agreed with one condition. No camping. They would rely on strangers along the river to welcome them into their homes. They would mooch their way down the river.

They pulled it off. The Watershed Council put out a news release and e-mailed its membership. Morine and Peard were inundated with offers of lodging for a night. Those nights with strangers along the 410-mile length of the Connecticut are literal and figurative windows into life along the river, and enrich Morine’s book.

For two decades Morine was the head of land acquistion for The Nature Conservancy, and he well knows the harm that dams do. “There are seventeen dams on the Connecticut River. All the dams are degrading, but the one at Holyoke is the worst by far: dirty and disgusting, like a ball of hair clogging up a drain.”

As for the marginal water quality in some sections of the Connecticut and many other American rivers, Morine says: “One of the great fears of Homeland Security is that terrorists will contaminate our water supply. If clean, potable water is so important to our homeland security, why aren’t we aggressively cleaning up our rivers?”

But Two Coots is no jeremiad. It is an honest, enjoyable, playful and ultimately insightful account of their trip, one in which the highs and lows of each day – and a long river trip will have many highs and lows – leave us with a real feel for the river. Both rivers.

A Strange Mushroom

Nov. 2, 2009

At East Hampton, Ct.

Hiking with friends in Hurd State Park yesterday we came upon a most unusual mushroom, a whitish, shaggy-looking thing growing in a crevice in a silver maple on the banks of the Connecticut River.

Bear's Head Tooth growing in East Hampton, Ct.

I couldn’t recall having seen one before. In this very wet year, of course, the fungi are flourishing. Returning home, I checked the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. What we saw was something called Bear’s Head Tooth, which can be as much as 12 inches wide and 20 inches high. This one was about half that size. Not only is it edible, the guide says it is “very good when cooked slowly.” Uhh. You first.

Sunshine on the Shoreline

Sun-drenched Maples

October 25, 2009

At Farmington, Connecticut

The color of the fall foliage in Connecticut is never bad.

That is not to say it is always great. Some years are better than others. This season is a B.

Weather of course is a big factor. You want enough rain during the growing season but not too much. You want sunny fall days, cool fall nights. No hurricanes. No serious insect issues.

This year the heavy rains of spring and much of summer made many trees vulnerable to fungal diseases. I noticed some maples shed their leaves in September, likely afflicted with some dampness-related malady. We lost some fall color right there.

But then there was today, a Sunday with a clear blue sky following heavy rain yesterday. It was a day in which the yellows and golds of American beech, the hickories and the birches were brilliant against the sky, dominating the late-October foliage palette. Witch hazel, a fall-blooming small tree, put forth its diminutive, stringy yellow flowers as part of the understated understory display.

Crossing Lake Dunning in a kayak early afternoon it was as if the sun had dispatched a ray of sunshine for each of these trees, turning leafy canopies into radiant, mirror images of itself. Enough of a show, I thought, to make the season, and salvage the weekend.

Putting the Garden to Bed

Picked Today

October 14, ‘09

Farmington, Connecticut

Stopped by the community vegetable garden at mid-morning after a frost last night, the second one this week. The tender plants like basil are dead. The hardy plants, like carrots and turnips, are fine. I picked some turnips, a cluster of beautiful carrots, a couple of small eggplant that somehow survived the cold this week and some kale. The season is about over, and the community garden will be plowed under next week. It was in one way a great year for a vegetable garden – there was so much rain that plants never lacked for water. On the other hand, all that rain – late May and well into July – brought some big problems.

I think back to mid-July. For days I watched a tomato slowly ripen in my garden plot, which is beside the Farmington River. Finally, it was completely red except for a tiny patch of orange at the stem. I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked it and brought it home to have with lunch. I tossed together a salad of greens, golden beets and green beans from the garden, roasted red peppers, olive oil and sherry vinegar. I did not put the tomato in the salad. I showcased it by itself, on a small plate. The first just-picked, home-grown tomato of the season deserves special treatment. I did not want that socko flavor of a fresh, vine-ripened tomato mingling with any flavors other than a slight drizzle of good olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

It was bland.

Not terrible. But nothing like I was expecting. Nothing like the way a mid-summer garden tomato tastes when picked and eaten within an hour. It was but a hint of what was to come.

Late blight on tomato

Within another day or two the plants became noticably sickly with drooping leaflets that turned black. Almost every day I threw away tomatoes riddled with rot, at a time when ordinarily I’d bring home a half dozen perfect tomatoes each day. With all the damp, gray weather, a fungus called late blight had taken hold in the Northeast, killing tomato and potato plants by the thousands. I did everything I could do organically to keep the plants healthy. Realizing the wet weather was continuing, I trimmed each plant of all but the most productive new growth so that air could circulate more freely and keep the plants dry. But it didn’t work. The blight was everywhere. That first bland tomato, I have to assume, was the result of a plant already weakened by the blight, even if it appeared comparatively healthy.

Last weekend I pulled up all the dead tomato plants, brought them home and mixed them in with the trash, as the town suggested. You don’t want to compost plants with late blight, as the compost could reintroduce the blight next year.

A disappointing year with the loss of the tomato crop, but otherwise plants did well. Green beans, squash, wax beans, kale, chard, peppers, carrots, beets, herbs and cutting flowers all flourished. I’ve been eating my own chard since early June, and might have enough for another dinner ready to pick tomorrow.

Reading John Muir

October 2, 2009

Prominent through much of the Ken Burns series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” is John Muir, an early and persuasive voice for preservation of significant natural areas. I ran into a friend at Starbucks the morning after the first segment. He wanted to know more about Muir. “You have any books on Muir?”

I did. I loaned my friend The Library of America volume on Muir, which has as much of the essential John Muir as most people are likely to need, including his excellent autobiography “My Boyhood and Youth.” It is just that – the story of his upbringing and essentially ends when he reaches adulthood. It is a great story. Muir and his brother come to America when he is 6. They move to Wisconsin, the frontier at the time. To say that Muir’s boyhood waking hours were essentially confined to exhausting manual farm labor and prayer is not an exageration.

There is plenty more in the Library of America volume, too, but I suggested he make sure he checked the Muir essay on the water ouzel, a delightful bird now known as the American dipper. It is one of my favorite Muir essays.

Who could not love a bird that is always found in or beside beautiful mountain streams in the West, a bird capable of walking and swimming underwater? Muir watched them for hours on end, and those hours of observation enrich his essay.

October 2, 2009

Prominent through much of the Ken Burns series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” is John Muir, an early and persuasive voice for preservation of significant natural areas. I ran into a friend at Starbucks the morning after the first segment. He wanted to know more about Muir. “You have any books on Muir?”

I did. I loaned my friend The Library of America volume on Muir, which has as much of the essential John Muir as most people are likely to need, including his excellent autobiography “My Boyhood and Youth.” It is just that – the story of his upbringing and essentially ends when he reaches adulthood. It is a great story. Muir and his brother come to America when he is 6. They move to Wisconsin, the frontier at the time. To say that Muir’s boyhood waking hours were essentially confined to exhausting manual farm labor and prayer is not an exageration.

There is plenty more in the Library of America volume, too, but I suggested he make sure he checked the Muir essay on the water ouzel, a delightful bird now known as the American dipper. It is one of my favorite Muir essays.

Who could not love a bird that is always found in or beside beautiful mountain streams in the West, a bird capable of walking and swimming underwater? Muir watched them for hours on end, and those hours of observation enrich his essay.

Sedona Serendipity

September 20, 2009

At Sedona, Arizona

I know them only as Kristen and Phyllis, two birders from Cottonwood, Az. I met them while hiking along the West Branch of Oak Creek, in the Coconino National Forest. With binoculars around my neck and a field guide in hand, it wasn’t hard to peg me as a fellow birder. Birders, I learned long ago, are usually helpful and often gregarious. We got talking, as birders do, and they quickly realized I was a visitor, and a visitor from afar. Veteran birders, they knew what I wanted to see even without my asking. Had I come upon the acorn woodpeckers at the beginning of the trail? “Uhh, no, and I really want that bird.” Check the dead trees behind the parking area. Gila woodpecker? Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood. There’s a bird walk at Red Rock State Park tomorrow at 8, a great place to see some other western species, they said. You want summer tanager? Back toward the beginning of the trail. Red-faced warbler? Missed them by a week or two – they migrated.

My hike was part of a four-day getaway to the Red Rock country of Sedona, where the Red Rock mountain scenery is every bit as good as they claim. At times I just stared at the mountains, as visitors here do. But every day included a hike of several miles in the canyons. If you are going to really experience Red Rock country you need to walk Red Rock country. I came back to my motel room each day with red rock dust on my shorts, socks and boots. Get away from the paved surfaces and you see things. Sacred datura bloomed along several of the trails. It is a gorgeous plant with a massive, trumpet-like white flower almost the size of an ice cream cone, though don’t be tempted – it is poisonous and hallucinogenic. I came to Sedona expecting to find trees sparse and species few in this high desert country, but I left surprised at both the number of trees and their diversity. From my pack I pulled a leaf that I had plucked from an oak only an hour earlier, figuring I might identify the tree species more specifically once home. From its shape I assumed it must be one of the white oaks, but I had no idea which one, certainly not the white oak of the Northeast, the state tree of Connecticut. I had not brought a field guide to the trees, I told my new friends, and I was annoyed with myself. Phyllis and Kristen took a quick look and did not hesitate in their identification: gambel oak. Birds, trees, wildflowers, they knew them all.

Back at the parking area I looked for the dead trees. They were not hard to find, nor were two acorn woodpeckers, plain as day and as cooperative as Kristen and Phyllis. The birds worked the barkless, sun-bleached wood while I hauled a big lens out of my daypack. The acorn woodpeckers were new birds for me – life birds as we birders call them – and interesting ones. The acorn woodpecker has a facial pattern as distinctive as a wood duck or the American kestrel; in fact, with its white eyeball and black pupil, its white throat, black bill, white forehead, red cap, the Sibley field guide describes its appearance as clownish. The acorn woodpecker drills holes in a dead tree and stuffs the holes with acorns. In a tree not far from the parking area I came upon several more acorn woodpeckers and settled in to get more photos. I got one photo that will serve as my signature acorn woodpecker shot – an acorn woodpecker with an acorn in its bill, the acorn about to be stored in a pale-gray tree trunk riddled with holes.

Thank you Kristen and Phyllis.

September 20, 2009

At Sedona, Arizona

I know them only as Kristen and Phyllis, two birders from Cottonwood, Az. I met them while hiking along the West Branch of Oak Creek, in the Coconino National Forest. With binoculars around my neck and a field guide in hand, it wasn’t hard to peg me as a fellow birder. Birders, I learned long ago, are usually helpful and often gregarious. We got talking, as birders do, and they quickly realized I was a visitor, and a visitor from afar. Veteran birders, they knew what I wanted to see even without my asking. Had I come upon the acorn woodpeckers at the beginning of the trail? “Uhh, no, and I really want that bird.” Check the dead trees behind the parking area.

An acorn woodpecker storing acorns in a tree in Coconino National Forest, Arizona

Gila woodpecker? Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood. There’s a bird walk at Red Rock State Park tomorrow at 8, a great place to see some other western species, they said. You want summer tanager? Back toward the beginning of the trail. Red-faced warbler? Missed them by a week or two – they migrated.

My hike was part of a four-day getaway to the Red Rock country of Sedona, where the Red Rock mountain scenery is every bit as good as they claim. At times I just stared at the mountains, as visitors here do. But every day included a hike of several miles in the canyons. If you are going to really experience Red Rock country you need to walk Red Rock country. I came back to my motel room each day with red rock dust on my shorts, socks and boots. Get away from the paved surfaces and you see things. Sacred datura bloomed along several of the trails. It is a gorgeous plant with a massive, trumpet-like white flower almost the size of an ice cream cone, though don’t be tempted – it is poisonous and hallucinogenic.

Sacred datura is beautiful but poisonous

I came to Sedona expecting to find trees sparse and species few in this high desert country, but I left surprised at both the number of trees and their diversity. From my pack I pulled a leaf that I had plucked from an oak only an hour earlier, figuring I might identify the tree species more specifically once home. From its shape I assumed it must be one of the white oaks, but I had no idea which one, certainly not the white oak of the Northeast, the state tree of Connecticut. I had not brought a field guide to the trees, I told my new friends, and I was annoyed with myself. Phyllis and Kristen took a quick look and did not hesitate in their identification: gambel oak. Birds, trees, wildflowers, they knew them all.

A view of the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona

Back at the parking area I looked for the dead trees. They were not hard to find, nor were two acorn woodpeckers, plain as day and as cooperative as Kristen and Phyllis. The birds worked the barkless, sun-bleached wood while I hauled a big lens out of my daypack. The acorn woodpeckers were new birds for me – life birds as we birders call them – and interesting ones. The acorn woodpecker has a facial pattern as distinctive as a wood duck or the American kestrel; in fact, with its white eyeball and black pupil, its white throat, black bill, white forehead, red cap, the Sibley field guide describes its appearance as clownish. The acorn woodpecker drills holes in a dead tree and stuffs the holes with acorns. In a tree not far from the parking area I came upon several more acorn woodpeckers and settled in to get more photos. I got one photo that will serve as my signature acorn woodpecker shot – an acorn woodpecker with an acorn in its bill, the acorn about to be stored in a pale-gray tree trunk riddled with holes.

Thank you Kristen and Phyllis.