March 25, 2010

At the suggestion of a friend, I stopped by the Pia Sjolin Design Gallery in Canton to look at a “Fabulous Fish for the Farmington” folk-art exhibit sponsored by the Farmington River Watershed Association, the environmental group that keeps its toe in the waters of the Farmington.

Working mostly from wooden blanks in the shape of fish, about 200 artists and craftspeople let their imaginations loose, producing a most eclectic school of fish to be auctioned off April 16 as a fund-raiser.

The Van Gogh Fish. Art imitating art?

There is a “Van Gogh Fish” by Amy O’Meara, that, on one side, was painted with a likeness of Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night.” There is a pink fish adorned with flowers, another fish covered with holly leaves and berries. There are even some literal works – like Lee Ora’s rainbow trout, a likeness of a fish actually found in the Farmington, which, by the way, is the state’s premier trout stream. You won’t find Leslie Gordon’s fish in the Farmington, though. Her “Fancy Frannie the Funny Flying Fish,” is a wild and whimsical creation fashioned from materials like feathers, beads, wire and shreds of newspaper. Recycling as art.

More serious, was Sally Sargent Markey’s “Macroinvertibrates Are the Key (to Healthy Waterways,)” in which the torso of her fish is a vignette with rocky river flowing through woodland, a little frog assessing it all from a shoreline rock.

The gallery is off Route 44 in The Shoppes at Farmington Valley if you happen to be in the area. More information at www.frwa.org.

March 1, 2010

At Folkston, Georgia

Arrived at the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge about 7:15 a.m., planning to hike some of the trails. In the refuge visitor’s center parking lot, which was all but empty, I ran into a woman who, noticing a kayak atop my SUV, asked if I was about to paddle the swamp. I told her that unfortunately my boat was damaged and needed repairs, so I planned to hike instead. I could tell she was disappointed.

A cypress tree with Spanish moss in the Okefenokee Swamp

She wanted to paddle the swamp but worried she might get lost and, therefore, hoped to find others to paddle with. Understandable. The Okefenokee refuge is the largest refuge in the eastern U. S. at 700 square miles, 38 miles long by 25 miles wide. There are many trails to hike, but the Okefenokee Swamp is a watery, marshy and boggy kind of place that probably is best explored by kayak or canoe – which is what I planned to do until I damaged my kayak yesterday. I thought about this as we bought refuge passes and I oriented myself with a map. Ok, I decided, I’ll rent a kayak and paddle. So we exchanged names – she is Eve Capehart of Virginia – and off we went. We paddled Old Town Loon kayaks, stable and sturdy boats that were fine for our purpose, if not as quick and nimble as my own kayaks.

We paddled about 2 1/2 miles into the Swamp, first following the Suwanee Canal, a man-made, unfinished route dug in the late 19th Century in an attempt to drain the swamp for logging and, one day, farming. The Suwanee Canal looks man -made, a straight swath far more boring than anything nature would produce. Whatever its origins, it was lined with cypress trees hung with Spanish moss. Herons and egrets, warblers and woodpeckers were abundant. A red-shouldered hawk perched upon a branch overhanging the canal, just high enough above us that our presence didn’t alarm it. We dawdled with binoculars and camera as the sun and the temperature rose during a morning that began quite cool but quickly became comfortable.

Eve paddling the Okefenokee Swamp

From the canal we took a right onto the Cedar Hammock Trail, a real trail with twists and turns, which took us into a large, open and marshy section of the swamp. This was the real Okefenokee Swamp as far as I was concerned. Close by a platform campsite and shelter we spotted an alligator 5- or 6-feet long, sunning in the mud. We were told the alligators had only begun to be active again in recent days and were still comparatively lethargic with the cool nights. I shot a photo from about 15 feet away. A half dozen black vultures roosted in nearby trees.

There was no breeze, and almost no noise. Aside from an occasional and unobtrusive sign – “Entering National Wilderness Area” – and the platform campsite, there were no signs of civilization. It might have been 1850, or 1650. We had the place to ourselves, at least for a couple of hours.

As we paddled, Eve told me about stray cat that showed up at her campsite the night before. It seemed to want to be with her, so she fed it, and let it into her tent. It curled up beside her and slept through the night.

An Okefenokee alligator

Should she take it home with her? she asked. Would the cat be happier, she wondered, living in her condo with plenty of food and water, free from the dangers of the wild? Or would this cat, given a choice, prefer taking its chances in the wilds of a refuge, totally free, but never sure of its next meal, always looking over its shoulder?

I told her that my children one day found a stray on our back porch, that they fed it, played with it, and pleaded with mom and dad to let them keep it as a pet. We kept it, and we came to have the sense that Daisy, as the kids named her, was grateful to have a home.

By now we had paddled back to the Suwanee Canal, and Eve knew that I needed to return to the visitor’s center parking lot to resume my journey from Florida back to Connecticut. She decided that she had a feel for the layout of the swamp now, and, with a map of the refuge trails in hand, she would have no problem navigating by herself. So she headed northwest to explore more of the swamp. I paddled east back to my car.

Eve left the refuge later with her feline friend in her car. She was indeed a stray, and the campground manager was happy to see her leave. Eve named her new cat Okee.

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.