The Bluebird of Happiness That Wasn't

I was on a mission.  Hyperion & I were on a gator in the back forty at Loud Thunder, transporting critical fire-starting materials to our fellow campers. Suddenly we crossed paths with a stunning bird!  He sped into view and lit on the ground in front of us, looking for water in an old puddle.

"Look, it's a blue bird!" Hyperion shouted over the noise of the gator.

"Stop!  Stop!" I yelled, scrambling for my camera.  I had never photographed a bluebird before!

The bird hopped down the trail in front of us a couple of times and then soared into the treetops.

With our naked eyes, we thought it was a bluebird.  It certainly was blue. However, upon examining this digital image, I realized that no - this was not an Eastern bluebird!  They have brown breasts.  So what was it?  I noted the two-toned beak, with the upper beak actually curving, and the deeper bluish-purple on the head.  Purple is not a common bird color in the Illinois woodlands.  I soon discovered that this was an indigo bunting!

This one is a male.  The females are always brown.  The scientific name is Passerina cyanea.  A passerine is a sparrow or a sparrow-like bird.  Cyanea comes from Greek, meaning "dark blue" - you know, like the color cyan.  Indigo comes from another Greek word that stands for "dye from India".

So, in the end, this wasn't my bluebird of happiness.  Instead, it was my indigo bunting of happiness - a lovely jewel in the crown of my conclave weekend.

The Eagle

Here is a favorite eagle poem of mine.   I'm sharing it, and this photo of an eagle I took, in honor of my son.  He earned his Eagle Scout rank this week.

This one's for you, Jason.*  I'm so proud of you!


                                                             The Eagle
                                                  by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

                                        He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
                                        Close to the sun in lonely lands,
                                        Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

                                        The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
                                        He watches from his mountain walls,
                                        And like a thunderbolt he falls.

*Names have been changed to protect the - well - they've been changed!

Xstream Cleanup 2012

Xstream Cleanup is a local project here in the Quad Cities where volunteers clean up garbage in and along the local streams and rivers.  This annual project has been going on since 2004 and has literally removed TONS of trash from the waterways around here - everything from sunken barges, tractors and pianos to barbecue grills, bowling balls, and messages in bottles (over 60 and counting).

I Live Here!  And I am going to help keep it clean!

Here are some of the community-wide stats for this year:

658 Tires

16 Appliances

16 Bicycles

22 Pieces of Furniture

37 Televisions

16 Mattresses

Also pulled out were tarps, barrels, chain link fencing, road construction signs, gun parts, a holster and bullets, a knife, kiddie pools, strollers, a wedding dress, a Batman belt, carpet, a toilet, car batteries - bumpers - windshields - fenders, and yes, even the proverbial kitchen sink.

This year there were 1,476 volunteers, and members of our scout troop were in the mix.  

In total, 47,496 pounds of garbage were removed from the rivers and connecting waterways in the Quad Cities area.

Our troop site, at Pigeon Creek Park, produced plenty of trash for the picking.  Some was on shore...

... and some was out in the water, making it much more difficult to remove - what with the drag weight of the mud and water.

Tires and barrels, which looked like they should be easy to roll out of the river, were held down in the mud under the water with a powerful hold.

Our biggest find was a sealed 55 gallon drum.  It was sunk over halfway in the mud, and for a while we weren't sure we would be able to get it out.

Teamwork and determination finally got that barrel rolled up onto the shore.  

It was too big and heavy to transport through the brush to the parking lot, so the site was flagged for pickup by the Living Lands & Waters cleanup barge.  We were just glad that whatever is in it didn't leak out into the river.

With the drought, a lot more trash was visible on the banks and in the shallow water than in past years.  It was a great day, and the weather was perfect.  

Everyone out there was happy to be working and helping, even if they did get wet and dirty.

I think our most unexpected find was an Isabel Bloom pumpkin.  She was a local artist whose sculptures are iconic in this area.  Her studio remains in business here in the Quad Cities.

If you live in the Quad Cities and have never done the Xstream Cleanup before, put it on your calendar for next year.  Gloves and trash bags are provided, and you walk away with a free event t-shirt and a sense of satisfaction at having done something to help our lands and waters.

Red Gate Raccoon

We have a metal gate out at the scout camp.

Newly painted gate, spring 2012

When walking out there the other day, I saw it and remembered how it got a fresh coat of red paint last spring.  I went closer to admire the new paint job, and what did I see?

The now dusty gate with tracks, fall 2012

Tracks!

These tracks made me laugh out loud.  I instantly envisioned some medium-sized mammal walking the gate like a balance beam, nearly falling off one side and then the other.  I wished I had been there to witness the acrobatics in real time, but the story the tracks told was entertaining enough.

As I was admiring the tracks, some scouts walked up and joined me in viewing the evidence of such animal antics.  After a brief confab, we came to the conclusion that these were racoon tracks.

Raccoons do live out at camp in - shall we say - large numbers.  They can often be seen around the camp, and can be heard screeching quarrelsomely at night.  They have been known to enter people's tents, into garbage cans, and even into dumpsters.  Those places are all logical, because the raccoons are pursuing food smells.  What surprised me here was why they would be climbing all over this gate?  What was the benefit to themselves, or were they just having fun?

Math with Mammals

While tearing down an old fence along the treeline at a city park, and clearing the brush back for a new fence at an Eagle Project, we came upon this little creature:

It is a mammal, and one that people often misidentify as a mouse, or even a shrew.  Can you guess what it is?

In this photo, you can see the basic body shape.  It is fatter than a mouse, and has a shorter tail.  Also, its ears are smaller than a mouse's would be.

Yep!  It's a vole!

Voles are in the rodent family, which comes from the word rodere meaning "to gnaw" or "to eat away".  This is fitting because they have two very long teeth in front with which they do a lot of gnawing.

Violet the Vole

With voles we see an example of  exponential growth.

One female vole - let's call her Violet - can have up to 10 litters in a year.  Each litter can have between 5 to 10 pups.  So for Violet alone, that's a potential of having 50 to 100 pups in a year.  But that's not all.  Each pup matures to an adult vole in four weeks.  So a month after Violet's first litter, she is already expecting a new litter of 5 to 10 babies, and so are her offspring from her first litter.  As the year progresses, her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great greats are producing litters of their own.  Voila!  You have a veritable vole explosion.

Here's a partial breakdown:

Litter #1:
Violet has 5 to 10 pups.  We'll call these pups Generation #1.
Total:  5 to 10 pups

Litter #2:
Violet has 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2A
Total Pups:  55 to 110

Litter #3:
Violet 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2B
Generation #2A has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #3A
Total Pups:  555 to 1,110

Litter #4:
Violet 5 to 10 pups.
Generation #1 has 50 to 100 pups, called Generation #2C
Generation #2 has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #3B
Generation #2B has 500 to 1,000 pups, called Generation #4B
Generation #3A has 2,500 to 10,000 pups, called Generation #5A
Total Pups:  3,555 to 12,110

You can see where this is going.  With 6 more litters to go in the cycle of this theoretical year, it is easy to see that the number of pups produced will be ASTRONOMICAL!  And this is starting with only one vole.  But Violet was not born in a vacuum and has parents, siblings, cousins and grandparents of her own, all producing young at the same pace.

So why don't we see voles everywhere we go?  Well, they have natural predators who eat them up, and help keep their population in check.  Thousands of snakes, raccoons, hawks and owls dine on these tasty little beasties every day, and save us from being overrun.

Family on the Trail

We had a recent visit from my sister and her husband.  The majority of our family members live far away, so we made the most of their short time with us.

One event was a must.  We had to get out and see the trail that Jason worked on for his Eagle project.  It was a living "show and tell".

On the way to the trailhead, we got to see some pleasure boats lock through.

We also enjoyed the colors along the way as we walked and talked.  Below are photos of the beauties we enjoyed, taken by my son, Jason.

Photo by Jason - Swamp Milkweed

Photo by Jason - Poke Weed

Photo by Jason - Bull Thistle

Photo by Jason - Butterfly Milkweed

Photo by Jason - Blue Vervain

Photo by Jason - Compass Plant

Trail Project

On a recent Saturday we were at a trail project at an island on the Mississippi.  A scout was leading his Eagle project there.

On previous days, he had led his fellow scouts in clearing weeds and brush from the trail, including lots of poison ivy, putting down weed fabric, and mulching the area.  He had also led them in building sections of a garbage can holder.

On this particular Saturday, they pulled more weeds and roots, put down the remaining weed fabric, installed the double garbage can holder, cleaned up the sign, and put in a retaining wall by the footbridge.  Whew!

I love Eagle projects.  They do so much good for the community, and so much good for the scouts leading them.  It's great to get out and do these kinds of projects.  As you work, you get to visit and tell jokes.  Friendships are strengthened, skills are learned, and people are united in a common cause.  There is a bonding that takes place that happens in no other way.  It's a wonderful thing!

Evidence of Wild Animals

I am a scouter, and one of my favorite requirements to help the scouts with is to identify evidence of at least 10 kinds of wild animals.  I love seeing the boys out in the woods, noticing things they've never noticed before, and getting excited about how much they can deduce on their own.

The first morning started off well right at the campsite.  The boys found this torpid amphibian, and some deer guard hairs.  We also heard several bird calls and saw evidence of squirrels having feasted on nuts.

Next we went out on a hike.  We took to the miles of woods and fields on our scout camp property.  We had 2 adults and 22 scouts.  It seemed like everyone was noticing everything - tracks, scat, calls, and animal homes.

The rank requirement says to find evidence of animal life, including birds,

mammals,

reptiles,

fish, and mollusks.

The most exciting find of the day was a deer carcass.  The boys swarmed it like bees - "Wow!" - "Cool!!!"  We guessed at what might have brought it down.  Disease?  Bow hunters?  Coyotes?  We had heard them (the coyotes that is) yipping and wailing in the night.  They might have done the deed earlier in the year.

It seemed like everywhere we looked, we found some new critter, or part of one!

(Note:  No crawfish were injured in the production of this blog post.  This one, who lost his claw, was already dead before we found it.)

Photo credit:  Jason

All of the animals and evidence were left where they had been found, even though this practice was a hard sell for some of the scouts.

My personal favorite on this hike was evidence left behind by a yellow-bellied sapsucker (isn't that just fun to say?), as seen on this tree trunk, where it "drilled" these holes to get at the sap.  Pretty cool.

We got caught in the rain near the end of the hike, and had to shelter for a while under a fortuitously nearby structure, but it was still a wonderful hike.  I think we all had our interest in the outdoor world rekindled.