What Does the Fox Say?

"Big blue eyes

Pointy nose....

Chasing mice

And digging holes.

Tiny paws

Up the hill

Suddenly you're standing still."*

"But there's one sound

That no one knows...

What does the fox say?"*

"The secret of the fox

ancient mystery

Somewhere deep in the woods

I know you're hiding

What is your sound?

Will we ever know?

Will always be a mystery

What do you say?"*

"Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!"*

Rare view of my favorite fox!

*These lyrics are excerpted from the wildly popular - we might even say viral - song, "What Does the Fox Say" by Ylvis, which became a YouTube sensation in September 2013.

Up a Tree

Saw this creature in the back yard one morning last winter:

I couldn't tell what it was for sure, through the window.  I grabbed my camera and snuck quietly into the back yard.  When I got there, the creature was still up in the tree.

I zoomed in on it with my lens.  That's when I realized that it was our wild cat perched there.  She must have been scared up the tree by one of the two bully cats (also wild) that roam the neighborhood.

We "adopted" her about three years ago, when she came into the yard to eat some bits of bread we had thrown out for the birds.  Hers is a sad story, and maybe I will tell it sometime, but not today.

So - I didn't take this picture while out on a hike, but since she is "wild" and it is the day before Halloween, I thought I would include post these pictures today!  

Pennies from Heaven

I was walking along the river last month and came across a bright, shiny penny just laying on the sand.  It was inches from the water, and there were no footprints around it - only some animal tracks.

This was at an undeveloped stretch of river, far from sidewalks and parking lots.  It is a place where I have never seen another hiker, although I have come across their footprints every now and then.

I wondered if it had it been buried there before, and only just now come to light due to erosion.  But no, that could not be.  It was too clean, and was not partially buried.

When I told people about it, one person suggest that maybe a crow had dropped it there.  They are said to like shiny things.  Maybe that could be, but there wasn't an indentation in the sand, as if it had been dropped.

 It was resting on the top grains of sand - a shiny, new 2013 penny.

I picked it up, and have carried it with my in my camera bag ever since.  It wasn't a part of the natural world, and it wasn't an artifact from history, so I believe this was in keeping with Leave No Trace principles.  Plus, I liked it.  It was unusual.  And I felt that it meant something, but I didn't know what.

Then, last week, a friend mentioned to me something about angels from heaven leaving pennies for people.  I had never heard about this before, but the idea is that angels watch over us, and sometimes show their presence by leaving pennies in our paths.

I believe in angels, and I think that they might often be family members who have passed on before us.  I don't know if they leave pennies for sure, but I believe that God can speak to us in many ways.  And once I heard that story, I thought of my mom who passed away last year.  I don't know if she left that penny for me to find, but I do like to think that she looks in on me now and then.

Sunrise on the River

I only had forty-five minutes yesterday, to get in a walk.  I was a woman with a mission!  I hurried to a nearby park and jumped out of the car.  Brrrr!  I threw my coat on, grabbed my camera, and hustled into the woods.

It was so dark, my camera didn't want to take good pictures.  I switched it to its "night" setting but  I knew that wouldn't last.  Once the sun decides to come up, it races over the edge of the world.

Two rabbits flashed across my path, only visible by their tails.

Coming into a cleaning, I looked back and saw the sun lighting up the sky with a beautiful display of color.

The river slapped noisily against some downed trees on the shore.  It was either that, or some unseen monster schlepping its way out of the water.  I went with the first idea, and moved on.

I found a new campfire along the trail.  Someone had built rocks up in a half circle to protect their fire from the wind off the river.  A tin cans remained among the ashes.  And mysteriously, a yellow rag hung in the trees.

As I walked back along the shore, that magical moment happened where the day changed from early dawn to daylight.  The river was flooded with a perfect, golden light - the kind that makes all your photographs beautiful!  I rejoiced in the moment.

Rusty Waterfowl

Nature-inspired art always draws my attention (no pun intended).

Here's some I found last week at Lock & Dam 14.

Chasing the bokeh

Among the cattails

Hurrying to cover

Rabbit Surprise

This rabbit surprised me the other day as I was walking along the boardwalk above the river at Lock & Dam 14.

If he had stayed still, I never would have seen him.  As much as I like to think I notice things, it's usually only when an animal moves that I realize they are even there.

This bunny scurried about five feet and then froze in place again - without a lot of cover around him.

And then, in a moment, he had disappeared uphill into the brush and was gone from view.  

True Grit

Went down to the quarry at Crow Creek Park the other day.

Usually I stick to the higher trails, but this time I wanted to check out the small shoreline along the quarry's edge, to see what I could see.  It wasn't quite 7:30 a.m.  The sun had yet to clear the tree tops, and there was a ghostly fog lingering over the water.  Who could resist?

All at once a mourning dove lighted on the ground in front of me,.  She was just a few steps away, and I was thrilled by the opportunity to study her up close.

As she walked over the rocks near the water's edge, I saw that she was picking up bits of gravel.

Mourning doves will swallow pebbles like this to help grind their food.  The small bits are stored in their gizzards.  Doves eat their seeds whole and unshelled.  These end up in their gizzard, which is a powerful muscle that helps break up the seeds so that their nutrients can be absorbed.  The grit they swallow assists in this process by helping to grind up the food.

When the bits of stone become too small to be useful, the bird either regurgitate them, or passes them through their alimentary canal.

If you would like to know more about mourning doves, check out this other blog post I've written about them:  http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/bird-on-wire.html .

Gaura

I saw this beautiful plant at Nahant Marsh in mid-August.

It was growing in colonies, head and shoulders above the other prairie plants there.

It had the most intricate little flowers, and I could not help photographing it.

This is a native species, so we can rejoice in its beauty and feel no guilt!

It took some time, but thanks to our Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers field guide, I was at last able to identify this plant.  This book has been a trusted companion of ours for more than fifteen years, and I would recommend it to anyone.  It was written by Doug Ladd, and the photos were taken mostly by Frank Oberle.  They are rock stars in their fields.  Excellent book!

A Little Hippy

These, my friends, are rose hips:

I've always read about them in books, but never really noticed them in person before.  Finally, this autumn, I've seen them in abundance!

Rose hips are the fruit of the rose plant.  The ones I've seen have been more orange than red.  They are jam-packed with vitamin C.

Hips, also known as haws, are used by people to make tea and jelly.  However, people can be out-competed by the many wild animals that eat them too, such as rabbits, squirrels, and deer.  So don't delay - gather ye rose hips while ye may!

Feeling Blue

As a child, coming upon a bird's egg on the ground was something half-mystical.  Stopping to carefully examine the setting, I would extrapolate events that brought this shell of life to such a fall.

If it was a robin's egg, awe grew exponentially.  Something about those delicately colored eggs drew a reverential sigh from my soul.  "Ahhhh," my inner griot exhaled, and I would store away that bit of blue in my heart.

Forty years on, those feeling echo whenever I come upon such a find, as I did last August at Illiniwek Forest Preserve - a sudden interruption to my solitary ramble.

There it was, halved and empty, gaping at the sky.

Low Energy

Upon returning to my car after a two-hour walk along the riverfront trail, I was surprised to see this:

Apparently the person who left this behind just didn't have the energy to take the empty bottle to a trash can...

Hiked at the beautiful Burnidge Forest Preserve this weekend, in Illinois.  I loved, loved, loved walking through their beautiful tall grass prairie and seeing the gorgeous plants there.  The wild grape was bursting with color.

Amid its tangled vines and burning leaves, a cheerful little wren was hopping about.

He or she sang me a happy little good morning song and stayed in front of the mass of shrubbery long enough for me to get a few photos.

Then it was back to work, foraging amongst the branches.  What a way to start the day!

Hazy Day

I scurried out for a walk yesterday morning, in spite of the lowering clouds.  I guess I thought that if I could just get out into the woods in time, the rain would hold off just for me, and I could get in a full walk.  No such luck.

When I arrived at Pigeon Creek Park, everything seemed gray and still.  Then I got out of the car.  Something about the overcast sky gave a luminosity to the changing leaves, and everything green seemed to glow with a faint inner light.

The air was filled with chirps, trills and chips.  There were sparrows, cardinals, goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, and even crows and jays.

I spent some time trying to I.D. a new bird I heard among the dead and dying cup plants, that towered over me like a forest in their own right, but again - no luck there.  I taped the sound in hopes of identifying it later, when I got back home.

A squirrel kept running up and down the path, like a mad man.  I wondered what he was up to, but figured it had to do with seeds and nuts.

The goldfinches were as secretive as ever, dashing about in their perfect camouflaged suits.

The goldfinch is right in the center of this photo, in the angle of the center forked branches.

A black-capped chickadee came a little closer.

The woods were glooomy.

A couple of frogs who were pond-side gave me a start as they leaped away from my advancing footsteps.  I guess they were as scared of me as I was of their sudden movement in the bushy grass..

Coming out of the woods and onto the river, I took a look at the the arched shore, hoping for new waterfowl, or any waterfowl to photograph.  Not much was stirring but a couple of pairs of mallards - far down the beach.

I knew the killdeer were out there too, but I just couldn't see them.

I went out to the first point, walking into grey nothingness.  The water was the same color as the sky.  Rain began to fall.  A nuthatch tapped quietly on the tree nearest me, seeking insects under the bark.

As I turned back to the sandy shoreline, a sandpiper just couldn't stand it anymore, and burst from its cover in the marshy grasses - a blur of brown and white.

Another bird flew across my field of view, and landed on a bare branch - a northern flicker.  I love the splash of red they wear on the napes of their necks!

It was then that I heard a faint call.  It sounded like it came from out over the water.  I wasn't sure what kind of a call it was - and no birds were in sight.

The sky was bare, so I scanned the shoreline, looking for possible herons and egrets.  It didn't sound like a heron's grumpy croaking, but I don't know what kind of sound they make when they are happy or interacting with loved ones.  So I looked - but saw nothing.

After some time, I heard the call again, muffled and faint.  Then saw a big bird in the sky - making a beeline for the tree tops.  It was so far away, I couldn't tell what it was, even when I zoomed in on it with my camera.

A couple of minutes later, I heard more calling and saw two birds racing away from the tree tops.

At first I thought it might be a smaller bird mobbing a crow away from its nest, or a crow chasing a hawk.  I even wondered if it were a hawk and a vulture having a squabble, but the calls didn't match any of these birds.  That's when I guessed these might be eagles.  Eagles have that distinctive ratcheting kind of call.

It wasn't until I got home and zoomed way in on the photos that I was able to see the white heads and realized that yes, this was a pair of bald eagles.

Are  they nesting on that point off Pigeon Creek Park?  Have they just arrived from the north, or do they live here year round?

 Or, are these the ALCOA eagles, Liberty and Justice?  The plant is about a mile downriver, near the tower and smokestack pictured here:

I'll probably never know.  But here's a link to the ALCOA eagle website for your reading pleasure.  You can also get to their eagle cam from here:
 http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp