At Farmington, Ct.

The Farmington River Literary Arts Center has a terrific location in the historic old grist mill building at the foot of Mill Lane in Farmington.

Foamflower is a small wildflower that was in bloom this week in the woodlands along the Farmington River. Click to enlarge.

With the Farmington River flowing just a few feet away and the trees leafing out, it is a serene and scenic place in May. I’ll be giving a short presentation at the center tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. (Sunday, May 6), talking about some of my experiences writing about the Connecticut environment over the past four decades, weaving in some pertinent observations from the great naturalist Henry David Thoreau. It’s a short talk, half hour tops, with a question and answer period and  light refreshments after. There is no charge to attend. Information about the center at FRLAC.org.

The Farmington River is a great example of how worthwhile it is to invest in water quality improvements. The river this time of year is thick with people boating, fishing, birding, and walking the trails that follow the riverbank.  From the old grist mill building you’ll see geese, tree swallows, mallard ducks and many other species. Look carefully at the surface of the water for a little splash or a sudden dimpling of the water. Those are trout taking insects from the surface of the water.

It’s a very pleasant place to be on a beautiful May day.

New Haven, Ct.

A wood thrush is one of many songbird species that can be seen in East Rock Park, New Haven. Click to enlarge

East Rock Park in New Haven, 125 years old, is a full-blown, expansive park in the grand old tradition, more like a state park than a city park. Its distinguishing feature is the steep, all-but-treeless cliff that rises several hundred feet above the city, part of the Metacomet Ridge, the ribbon of rock that extends north through Connecticut and into Massachusetts.

This is a great time of year for a visit, especially if you have any interest in songbirds.

East Rock is practically a must-do stopover for many migrating birds, a kind of avian oasis with river, cliff and forest habitats, designated an Important Bird Area by the National Audubon Society. For many songbirds migrating north along the coast, it is the first food stop after crossing Long Island Sound. On a good day, it can seem as if there is a bird on every tree limb. In all, about 160 bird species have been recorded in the park.

Views of the city of New Haven, Ct., and Long Island Sound are excellent from the summit of East Rock. Click to enlarge.

The park, 425 acres, is laced with about 10 miles of trails, many of them along the Mill River at the base of the cliff; others ascend the ridge, including one to the summit. You an also drive a car to the summit, where there are terrific views of the city and Long Island Sound – and a picnic area. My outdoors column featuring East Rock Park appears tomorrow, April 27, in The Hartford Courant.

Two comparatively hard-t0-see bird species – the common raven and the peregrine falcon – are breeding on the cliff face. With a little luck, visitors might get to see one or both of these species.

At Simsbury, Ct.

The ancient Granby Oak suffered considerable damage in the October snowstorm. Click to enlarge.

Along with the tens of thousands of trees damaged last year by Hurricane Irene and the freak October snowstorm, dozens and perhaps hundreds of the state’s most notable and historic trees were seriously damaged.

Members of the Notable Trees Committee of the Connecticut Botanical Society are still learning of the status of many of the several thousand important trees that they have documented in Connecticut in recent decades.

What they know so far is that some special trees, including an enormous black oak in East Granby, escaped with little or no damage. But others, like the famous Granby Oak, a massive, ancient white oak that is celebrated on the town seal, suffered considerable damage. Some major limbs were lost entirely, others are cracked and may yet be lost.

The Pinchot Sycamore in Simsbury lost 35 percent of its canopy in the snowstorm last fall. Click to enlarge.

In Simsbury, the Pinchot sycamore, the largest known tree in Connecticut and named for the Simsbury native who became the first chief of the U. S. Forest Service, lost 35 percent of its canopy in the snowstorm. Crews were forced to cut off 20- to 40-foot sections of some limbs. Other limbs were lost entirely.

It was a natural event, of course, one that forests will adjust to in time, but the impact on these notable trees, some of them in open settings, was often dramatic. The largest known paper birch in the state, on the park-like grounds of the Institute of Living in Hartford, was so  damaged that what remained of the tree was cut to the ground.

My story on the storm damage to notable trees, with more detail, appears in  The Hartford Courant print editions today.

At Farmington, Ct.

Storm debris blocks a section of the Shepaug River in Washington. Click to enlarge

While the debris from Hurricane Irene and the freak October snowstorm largely is cleared from Connecticut’s streets, highways and front lawns, tree trunks and long, leafy branches still block parts of hiking trails and streams in much of the state.

Hikers and paddlers should be especially careful this spring.

Along many Connecticut streams, especially in the northern half of the state, fallen trees or large broken branches block or hinder canoe and kayak passage in places. Sweepers, as these fallen trees are known, can be dangerous, especially for novice paddlers who come upon them unexpectedly. It is important to scout streams as much as possible this spring before paddling. I walked along a section of the Shepaug River above Bee Brook in Washington Friday and saw numerous sweepers.

Fallen limbs block a section of the Metacomet Trail in West Hartford. Click to enlarge

In the spring of 1974, after the devastating Ice Storm of ‘73 in Connecticut, I came upon many smaller rivers that were blocked by fallen trees or limbs, making passage difficult or dangerous – or impossible. You pull the canoe or kayak out of the water and portage around. It can get tiresome fast. Be prepared.

My outdoors column  for The Hartford Courant, looking at the situation on trails and streams, is posted on the paper’s website today, and appears in the print edition tomorrow, March 20.

Great progress has been made clearing trails. The Connecticut Forest & Park Association, which manages the state’s major hiking trails, the 825-mile, blue-blazed system, says it has cleared about 80 percent of its trails. Parking lots, picnic areas and campgrounds in the state park are in good shape, but trails in more remote areas still have blockages from fallen limbs.

When hiking, walk around trees blocking a trail. Avoid climbing over or squeezing under fallen trees – they may be unstable. For novice canoeists and kayakers, traveling with an experienced paddler or paddlers is always a good idea, particularly this spring. Life jackets are imperative.

Volunteers have spent th0usands of hours working on the trails already. If you are interested in helping maintain and clean-up trails, contact the Connecticut Forest & Park Association for information at Ctwoodlands.org.

At Farmington, Ct

An eastern phoebe along the Mill River, New Haven, April, 2011. Click to enlarge.

An extraordinarily mild winter that lately seems more like late spring has the natural world on fast-forward mode. Many bird species are returning from wintering habitats to the south weeks early. Tree swallows showed up over the Connecticut River almost a month ago, easily two weeks early.

American oystercatchers, eastern phoebes, fish crows, palm warblers and lesser yellowlegs are among the many species pouring into Connecticut ahead of schedule. A phoebe was building a nest along the Shepaug River yesterday.

Trees and shrubs got the message, too. “It looks like we are three weeks to four weeks ahead of schedule” with trees and shrubs, said Sharon M. Douglas, chief scientist in the plant pathology and ecology department at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven.

There are risks for these plants and animals. An severe early spring cold snap – not expected this year – could increase mortality among bird species, notably any early nestlings. Tender new tissue growth on plants could be zapped.

My story with details on the early avian arrivals appears today on the front page of The Hartford Courant.

My outdoors column will appear in The Courant early next week, looking at the impact of Hurricane Irene and the October snowstorm on trails and streams.

At Hobe Sound, Florida

Considering the enormous amount of development along and near the Florida coast over the past 50 years, it is almost incredible that the Northwest Fork of the Loxahatchee River can seem almost pristine.  That it flows through the enormous Jonathan Dickinson State Park, and that a 10.3-mile-long section of it is a federally designated Wild and Scenic River, is significant. The Loxahatchee is sometimes called the last free-flowing river in southeast Florida. Maybe it will stay that way.

An Alligator Along the Locahatchee River in Hobe Sound, Florida. Click to enlarge.

I launched my kayak at the state park boat ramp on the Loxahatchee at mid-morning yesterday, a warm day with mixed sun and clouds, and began paddling upstream. The natural Loxahatchee water system – there are three forks to the river – has been substantially altered over the decades by ditching, draining and re-engineering. Parts of the river that were once freshwater, for example, are now saltwater, or brackish. I was paddling between riverbanks of mangrove, so this was salt or brackish, at least to start.

Altered or not, the river is a most pleasant paddle. Considering the boat ramp is but a few miles off of U. S. Route 1 – a main north-south artery on the eastern seaboard that can

Peninsular cooters are abundant on the Loxahatchee River, which in Seminole means "river of turtles." Click to enlarge.

seem as if it exists solely to serve commerce – the river had a surprisingly woodsy, rural feel to it. In three hours on the river, the only buildings I recall seeing were several state park structures off in the distance and the small wooden dock at an upriver historic site.

Birds are abundant. Without any effort I saw yellow-crowned night heron, white ibis, osprey, black vulture, great blue heron, and green heron. What likely were wood ducks and grebes took off before I got a good look.

As you paddle upstream, the river becomes increasingly intimate and narrow, the mangroves fewer. Now the river is overhung with bald cypress, their delicate boughs of brilliant medium-green brightening the banks. Spanish moss drapes from old limbs. Pine is abundant in the surrounding forest.

Passing a flat section of shoreline, I came upon a sizeable alligator, motionless but aware of me. I stopped about 50 feet away, pulled out a camera with a telephoto lens and took several pictures. Alone and with nobody around, I gave it plenty of space as I paddled by.

A section of the Loxahatchee River near Stuart, Florida, is part of the federal Wild & Scenic Rivers system. Click to enlarge.

Loxahatchee in Seminole means river of turtles, and, thank goodness, it still lives up to its name. I saw dozens of peninsular cooters as I paddled. It seemed that every fallen tree, every exposed rock had a cooter atop, or three or four or five cooters atop.

I stopped at the Trapper Nelson historic site, where Vince Natulkiewicz – known as Trapper Nelson – lived off the land beginning in the early 1930s. His cabin and rustic outbuildings remain.

The current in the Loxahatchee is not strong, so paddling upriver is manageable for most people. The nice thing about the return trip, of course, is that whatever current there is, however negligible, helps propel you.

At Jensen Beach, Florida

I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but I was.

For several years now, I’ve paddled my kayak during winter in the area of Jensen Beach, Florida, on a section of the Intracoastal Waterway known as the Indian River. It is an estuary in reality. You need not paddle far in this area before you come to one of the signs informing boaters that the area west of the channel is a manatee zone; slow speed, minimum wake. That zone happens to be where I do much of my paddling. Much of it is 2- to 6-feet deep, with birds galore to keep things interesting. Manatees are an endangered species, with perhaps only about 5,000 of them found in the U. S. But Florida coastal waters are prime habitat for these very big animals with a tail like a paddle.

Though they are an endangered species, manatees are frequently encountered near Jensen Beach, Florida. Click to enlarge.

I’ve seen manatee several times while paddling, and, last year, I startled one. It made a big splash at the surface just behind my kayak and disappeared. Manatees are mammals of course and need to surface for air. They often are found just below the surface, which makes them vulnerable to the power boat propellers that sometimes kill or maim them. I’ve seen manatees just often enough that I now know if I see a glassy sheen on a patch of water it means there is a manatee inches below.

Still, I was not expecting what happened Wednesday morning.

Only a day or two earlier I met Paul Weissberg of New York, who is staying with his wife in the same motel complex where I am staying. Both of us kayakers, we agreed to paddle together. Just after sunrise Wednesday we put the boats in the water and paddled north. It was a little windier than we preferred, but a pleasant outing nonetheless. On our way back, just north of the Jensen Beach Bridge, near one of the manatee zone signs, it happened.

With the water a little choppy, we saw no indications of manatees ahead as we  quietly paddled side-by-side. Unknowingly, we passed directly over a pod of manatees. They were just below the surface, and when they realized we were directly above them, they spooked. It was as if they exploded.

Manatees are essentially harmless to humans. Sometimes called sea cows, they are herbivores. But they are very big. Adults 10-feet-long that weigh 1,000 pounds are typical. They take up a lot of space and they can turn placid water turbulent in a split second. There had to be at least 6 in this pod, but more likely, I’d guess, it was 8 or 9. When they erupted, it took us totally by surprise. They thrashed about on the surface, their paddle tails slapping the water. One of them bumped Paul’s boat and knocked him to his left. His left arm glanced off another manatee. I nearly hit one on my left with my paddle, accidentally. Our boats rocked this way and that as their massive bodies sent surges of water in every direction. My guess is the whole episode lasted 10 seconds at most, but it seemed longer. Suddenly they were gone. Paul and I looked at each other, as if in shock. It took a few moments, but we regained our composure. We easily could have flipped over, we knew. But we hadn’t. We were startled, for sure, but only for seconds. We were unhurt.

“Manatees,” I said.

I have often thought and said that the more time you spend outdoors, the more interesting, exciting, and memorable  experiences you’ll amass as you interact with the natural world. Paul and I now have our memorable manatee story to share.

At Farmington, Ct.

Canada geese on the Farmington River today. click to enlarge

Following a footpath that I often walk along the Farmington River I reached a point where the Pequabuck River meets the Farmington, as the Farmington veers north. There were easily 400 Canada geese in the river, dozens more arriving as I stood and watched. The river here is a mix of the river’s charms, quickwater in the middle, slower moving water closer to shore, a big long gravel bar that on this day, with moderate flows, was largely exposed. There were geese walking the gravel bar, geese floating along on the quickwater, geese dallying in the eddies and stillwater. Another hundred or so arrived as I watched.

Just north and east of here, a pink-footed goose – way far from its usual range – was spotted the other day within another large flock of geese, in the Somers and East Windsor area. I scanned the entire goose population on the river to see if there were any unusual geese, but this Farmington flock appeared to be 100 percent Canada geese. It is always a leap to ascribe human emotions to the rest of the animal kingdom, but this huge flock seemed to be enjoying the day, playing in the sunshine. They were honking, rising up out of the water and spreading their wings and breasts, sometimes just seeming to let the current take them where it would, then moving back upstream.

Last winter was snow and cold from the day after Christmas on into spring. So far, this winter is extraordinarily mild. I walked in mid-40s temperatures, comfortable in a fleece jacket. In another year, this would be a “January thaw.” But there is nothing to thaw. The landscape, of course, is dominated by earthtones, but on this day in this spot there was bright blue sky and enough pines to enrich the color. Maybe we appreciate color in the outdoors a little more this time of year. The tiny patch of bright red on the back of the head of a male downy woodpecker at river’s edge was, to my eyes, the best red I had seen all day, a good deal more rich and real than the crimson of the commercial signage on Route 4.

Mountain laurel shrubs are in full bloom in Connecticut, and worthy of a close look. Click to enlarge.

Mountain laurel is an evergreen shrub that during June in Connecticut produces large clusters of delicate white or pink, cuplike flowers set against sturdy, deep-green leaves. It is, to my mind, among the most spectacular in the pantheon of plants.

It is widely cultivated, of course, but wild specimens grace sections of Route 9 south of Middletown, the Merritt Parkway, Interstate 95 in parts of southeastern Connecticut, and butt up against many of the state’s secondary roads.

Laurel is so special, though, that it deserves more than a glance out the car window. A mid-June walk with the laurel ought to be as much a part of the rhythms of a Connecticut year as the mid-October bow to the fall foliage.

In my column Saturday, June 18, in The Hartford Courant, I suggest some special places in Connecticut to loll with the laurel, including the mountain laurel sanctuary in Nipmuck State Forest in Union, a remarkably peaceful place to let the laurel swoon your senses of sight and smell.

The laurel blooms are at their peak this weekend in much of the state. Bring the camera.

At Keystone, S. D.

A view of the rugged Badlands topography in western South Dakota. Click to enlarge.

Driving west on Interstate 90 from eastern South Dakota the terrain is mostly agricultural, mostly flat. It has been a cool spring, and the trees – sparse – are just leafing out.  Cool notwithstanding, rain has been abundant recently, the rivers are high and the grass is green. It is a pleasing agricultural landscape, if marred by literally hundreds of signs – you might see a half dozen in a single mile of highway – for Wall Drug, a tourist haven in Wall, a dusty small town notable perhaps only because it happens to be the closest town to Badlands National Park. In fact, Wall is named for the wall of rock that is central to the Badlands. The signs for Wall Drug, which is a connected series of wood frame buildings selling souvenirs, western clothing and furniture, and food,  continue on the westbound side of the highway for easily 150 miles, maybe more. It did not take long for me to find them annoying. Fortunately, Badlands-bound visitors can exit the highway and drive a few miles south to take a 30-mile long scenic drive through Badlands National Park, free of commercial sign pollution. The Badlands are a sudden and dramatic change in the scenery, truly a first taste of the mountain west for travelers arriving from the east. Spires of rock rise from the landscape, deep ravines below, rounded peaks in other areas, some with unusual knobs and protrusions on top. Woven in are gullies and expansive stretches of prairie, all of it enriched with more life than a visitor might expect. A bighorn sheep stood in the road at one point as we drove the loop. As I hiked one of the many trails during the visit, a western meadowlark sang from the very top of one of the stiletto rock formations. As if to emphasize that this is the real west, black-billed magpies, among the better known birds of the west, hopped and fluttered near picnic areas along the scenic drive.  Wall Drug, indeed.

Another view of the formations within Badlands National Park, South Dakota. Click to enlarge

The Badlands topography is all about erosion of soft rock, and as I hiked over some wet terrain among the peaks it truly seemed as if the standing pools of water were thick with eroded sediment. The books say the Badlands rock erodes at the rate of an inch or more a year – incredibly quick by geological standards. The evidence was at my feet.

Black Hills National Forest is less than an hour away, and Mount Rushmore, within the Black Hills, is less than 90 minutes away. It was quite cool in the Black Hills this morning with strong breezes, gusts at times. But the sky was a deep blue, and the National Park Service gate at Mount Rushmore National Monument was unlocked at 6:30 – before the park actually opens.

Mount Rushmore, Keystone, S. D., shortly after sunrise. Click to enlarge.

I was able to slip in, have the place to myself, and get some nice photos. The park service did a terrific job creating an elegant, tasteful and ever-so-useful platform for the public to view the decades-long work of Gutzon Borglum, who, with help, transformed a craggy mass of granite into the remarkably recognizable portraits of four presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. In the pantheon of American presidents, these four are surely among the greatest; a case can be made that they are the four greatest so far.

I ran into a park service ranger immediately, and told him I came through the untended gate. He said that was no problem. I was fortunate also in that there is railing at the end of the main entryway, just above the viewing amphitheater. The railing became my tripod – I placed the camera atop the railing and held it steady as I shot, which surely helped in getting crisp images of the mountaintop sculpture.

At 9:30 I arrived at the Big Pond Trailhead on the 111-mile-long Centennial Trail, a long, through-trail cut to commemorate South Dakota’s centennial in 1989. No sooner had I entered the woods from the parking lot than I spooked four young mule deer, yet another western species. This section of the trail is within the Black Hills National Forest, a forest dominated by the ponderosa pine, one of the signature pines of the west. Ponderosa pine has distinctive orange-ish bark, and clusters of long deep green needles. It is a handsome tree found in much of the mountain west, and always nice company on a hike.