Battlefield Birds

Visitor Center, Antietam National Battlefield

I watched a kettle of 16 or so Turkey Vultures as it caught a thermal and climbed in the air. They passed the face of a quarter moon and rose higher. The cast bronze of the artillery piece I leaned against felt colder than the comfortable 40 degree air temperature. The sun had been up for about a half hour as I waited for the visitor center at Antietam National Battlefield to open. I wondered if the vulture’s genetic memory told him this was a good place to find a meal. Or, could the stench of blood left in the soil by 23,000 human dead still trigger hunger spasms in the birds? Antietam, or Sharpsburg, would be recalled as the deadliest day in a war that saw too many deadly days.
I stood on Sunken Road, later called Bloody Lane. It’s just a depression in the earth made by farm wagons where soldiers tried to hide. This firefight, which lasted three hours, killed 5,500 men. Eastern Bluebirds were shagging bugs from the wooden picket fence, built to replicate what was there in 1862. Were bluebirds there that morning when the first shots rang out just before dawn? Did they hang around as the cacophony of the muskets and cannon deafened men? Did the Confederate soldiers see the bluebirds through the blinding flash of the Union army muskets? Johnny Reb would have been facing same direction where I stood at approximately the same time of day and time of year, trying to imagine the horror in this now-bucolic scene.
I was in the area after dropping my hiking buddy off at Harpers Ferry. Since I was unable to do the hike, I thought I’d check out the historic sights. I couldn’t do the hike, but I wanted to get a feel for what I’d be missing, I suppose.
In the stillness that was this morning, a Northern Mockingbird sang his complicated song from atop a fir tree. Had mockingbirds graced the few trees shown in the photos of the battle’s aftermath? Only death and devastation can be seen. Men’s bodies strewn about. Limbs missing. Holes where there should be heads.
A pair of Horned larks flittered in circles nearby, then landed to glean what they could from the grass. European Starlings chattered in the trees alongside Bloody Lane. They had not been here in 1862 since they were not introduced in America until 1890. The cheerful and incessant song of a Carolina Wren drew my attention away from the depressing sight.
And what have we learned since that uncivil Civil War? Not much. I can’t imagine anyone touring the battlefields of Vietnam where 50,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese lost their lives. Nor will they tour the bloodstained battlegrounds of Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe the birds will.
The genetic memory bank of the vultures, or maybe the warming thermal, drew the kettle east, toward Gettysburg.


Bloddy Lane, Antietam National Battlefield

A Picture is Worth …

What’s a picture worth? I made the above photo a few days ago, just as I finished preparations for an eight-day wilderness backpacking trip. As happens, the packing ended in the living room. The 37-pound blue hulk would stay there until I loaded it into my car and headed south to meet up with my hiking partner. His actions mirrored mine. Except, he was heading north from Birmingham. In four days we’d meet near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. So this is a happy picture, filled with anticipation.
Then came Friday and my right knee, swollen to the size of a Halloween pumpkin. Apparently, two months of rigorous training had taken its toll. By Monday I could barely walk. The doc (and my wife, previously) said it was bursitis. To which I said, bursitis is for old people. To which both said …
Well, let’s forget what they said. Actually, I got a lot of sympathy and concern from Susan and from the doc. They probably sensed I was in the foulest mood I’ve been in for a long time. Being what I am, I did all the research on this bursitis thing, and am not happy with what I learned. That was after the doc had used a needle and syringe the size of a caulking gun to drain my swollen knee.
Now I’m hobbling around, running through all of the clichés I can think of: It’s not the end of the world; the Trail will be there when you’re ready; there are many people in worse shape …
So, the happy picture has turned into a sad picture. A picture of what might have been. I’ll look at it again, in a couple weeks, and maybe find it to be a happy picture once more.
And, the biggest pain in the butt (since nobody asked) is that I can’t retreat to the woods for solace as I normally do when life throws one of these curve balls at me.
Stay tuned.

Around Every Bend

He said his name was Tom. He was from Montana. I was unsure if he might be in the early stages of shock, or if it was hypothermia. Our temperature had dropped to 39 degrees and he was clad in a lightweight T-shirt and running shorts. Then I noticed his high-quality, muddy and scuffed hiking boots. He was no beginner. His disorientation seemed to be an overdose of adrenaline.
I was about an hour into a hike that felt more like a wrong way trip on an escalator. Wet leaves covered acorns. It was one step up and two slips back. Going down hill, it was one step down and—Yikes! More than once I had an earth-moving experience.
I dropped down off the ridge where I had been hiking in favor of the flat, less-challenging, multi-purpose trail known as the Towpath Trail. During the week it’s a pleasant experience. On weekends you take your life in your hands because if there’s a “purpose,” people will be doing it.
Tom was just standing there when I popped out of the bushes. Probably my clambering, along with the great conversation I was having with the Voices, alerted him to my presence. He looked at my pack and said, “Hi. You live here?”
Hmmm. Good question. I told him, not exactly. I just hike here, although I do live just over that ridge …
I guessed his age at early 20s. He told me this was his first visit to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. He lived in Montana and his parents had just moved to the area and this was the first time he’d even been in Ohio and he decided to walk the dog and he started out about three miles down the trail and …
Wow! This guy could talk. Then he started asking questions. He was amazed to learn about the Ohio-Erie canal that once stretched the length of the state.
“Did they dig it by hand?”
“In 1827 hands and shovels were all they had.”
“How did locks operate?”
“Well, they dam the water there, and …”
“Where did all these trees come from?”
Hmmm.
I asked him to back up to the part about walking the dog. He looked around like it was the first he’d heard about any dog. Then I spotted the dog coming out of the bushes. I never got the dog’s name. I called him Killer, which he didn’t seem to mind as he snarled at me. He was one of those white, puff-ball kinda creatures the coyotes in these parts have for starters—if they’re not too hungry. Killer had a little blue bow in his hair between his ears. I decided not to ask what that was about.
Tom went on and on about the trees and how green everything was. I answered his questions as best I could and was surprised at how much I do know about the park.
Then he said, “The best thing about this place, that we don’t have in Montana, is that there is something different around every bend in the trail. Our trails don’t bend.”
I wished him, and Killer, a pleasant hike. And told him to tell his friends in Montana how pretty Ohio can be.

A Windfall for Wildlife

Wind, gusting to more than 40 miles per hour at times, added a new dimension to hiking this morning. I often pay attention to force and direction of the wind when bicycling, fly fishing, even birding. When I’m hiking, however, it’s usually not an issue. The density of the trees is often enough to divert the wind.
This morning’s breezes, however, were a revelation. Not the kind of revelation Sir Isaac Newton experienced when he was, allegedly, hit on the head with a falling apple. But a constant barrage of acorns, hickory nuts and black walnuts falling from the trees in high winds can open one’s mind, literally. Thankfully I was wearing a cap.
For about the first mile I thought the irregular pitter patter of nuts falling in the forest was kind of cool. I even thought I could hear cheering coming from the Wild Turkeys, White-tail Deer and other forest critters who depend on mast to get through the winter months.
Mast for wildlife comes in two basic types in this area, soft and hard. The softer things, like berries and fruits get consumed first, mostly. The hard mast is around much longer, and in a great variety.
For example, acorns from trees in the red oak group (red, black, scarlet, and pin oak) are more bitter than those in the white oak group (white, bur, chinkapin, and chestnut oaks). As a result, acorns from the white oak group are preferred by most wildlife species, and are often quickly consumed in the fall. Red oak acorns have a much longer “shelf life,” which makes them available for consumption during late winter when other food sources are scarce. They also provide food in years when few white oak acorns are produced.
I don’t know if this is a good or bad year for acorns. All I know is that showers of nuts fell all around me this morning. The acorns were not much more than a bother. The hickory nuts and, especially the black walnuts, were hazardous.
Whether Sir Isaac had an epiphany while sitting under the apple tree remains debatable. What I learned while hiking in mature oak and hickory forests is that on windy days, head for the pine and hemlock groves.

What Happened, Here?

Recently, I read a report where researchers focused on why more urban folks, particularly those living in the inner city, don’t use metropolitan parks. The premise was because of a lack of transportation. Turns out the most common complaint was that respondents would not know what to do when they got to the park.
Oh, my.
If you don’t know what to do when you get to a park, I suggest you talk with naturalists like Wendy Weirich at the Rocky River Nature Center, or, Paul Motts in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. These leaders, along with hundreds of naturalists in the northeast Ohio area have a to-do list that would take a lifetime (of enjoyment) to complete.
I thought about the survey’s respondents while hiking this morning. My first suggestion for something to do would be to just look around. You don’t have to “do” anything in a park. There is no on/off switch.
We’ve created a culture that needs entertaining. Theme parks, and most television programming, frees our minds of the necessity to create. Children go to DisneyWhatever and live someone else’s dream. They know what to do when they get there: Thinking not required.



In a span of about five miles, I counted more than a dozen things that I considered a challenge. Bird calls and identification are constant. Yes, many of these challenges require a certain level of knowledge, skills for lack of another term. That’s why we have naturalists and books. Yet, knowing the shredded stump was probably the work of a skunk looking for bugs, or the oval-shaped holes in the tree were made by a Pileated Woodpecker, is not rocket science. It’s natural science.



The real challenge, the things that require some brain work, are finding a make-shift hiking staff leaning against a tree, for example. The why or what of such a simple act require some thought. It demands the person use his or her imagination. Grist for the writer’s mill.
What you do with yourself when you get to the park, matters most.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Options

While drinking my morning coffee, I pondered trail options in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park for my morning hike. I opted for a trail I had walked, extensively, doing bird population census studies, yet had never hiked with a pack.
As I drove to the trailhead I turned on the news for about 30 seconds. More stuff I can do nothing about. You can only take a little news at a time. Too much and you are not portable; not enough and you’re making happy rhymes. An empty head filled with John Gorka’s words would play well this morning.
From the parking lot I looked out over a corn field picked not-quite-clean by human machines. The machine’s leftovers created a giant food dish for a flock of 25 Canada Geese. Or, were those Wild Turkeys?
Of the two packs in my car, I chose the heavier since I was only planning to do six miles—or maybe five.
By the time I hit the three-mile marker I had to make a choice; take the long, tough loop to the left, or the short, easy loop to the right. Being a leftist by nature, the choice was simple.
A light drizzle rattled the canopy above, not reaching the ground. I wondered why the little toad and snail I stopped to photograph were so well camouflaged, while the gaudy orange fungi, just to their right, stuck out like an abandoned hunter’s cap. In fact, that’s what I thought it was when I opted to venture off the trail.



Then I heard the noise. Back in the last century, while I was still in the journalism game, there was an adage: When you hear hoof beats, look for horses, not zebras. While I always thought seeing zebras would be more fun, I understood. So this morning, when I heard the hoof beats, I knew what to look for. Sure enough, two riders were approaching. I guess, on a “bridle” trail, you’d expect to see horses and not pretty ladies in white dresses—nor zebras.
The riders slowed as they approached this aberration in their path. “Oh, it’s a human,” said the first rider, probably more to her horse than her partner who seemed capable of coming to the same conclusion.
The first horse and rider passed with no other acknowledgement. The second horse was curious. It stopped and looked me over. It did a full body scan, like a guy sizing up a potential date in a bar on Saturday night. The horse made some snuffling sounds and inched closer. The 37 pounds on my back, now wedged against a tree, left me few options.
The rider decided to have some fun. She said to the horse, “Oh, does that hat look like something you’d like to eat?”
Not trying to get into personification here, but I’d swear the horse shook its head and did the eye-roll thing. It then inched a bit closer. Close enough for me to tell it had been eating oats for breakfast. My mind flashed: If this turns to shit, here was something the horse and I had in common. The rider spoke again. “Does that orange shirt make you think this is a giant carrot?”
Enough was enough. As the horse cocked its head and contemplated how it would get around the big blue thing on the carrot’s back, I realized I did have a small option of moving to my left. As I slipped away, the riders bid me a farewell and told me to have a good day—like it was optional.
When I got home around lunch time I considered choices in the fridge and opted to eat my dessert first. Life is too short to do otherwise.

Harbingers of Fall

“Harbingers of fall” sounds awkward. We usually tag spring with all sorts of harbingers, rarely the other seasons. Fall, unlike other seasons, sort of sneaks up on us. Most people don’t realize it’s fall until they write the date on a check, and then say, “Hey, what happened to summer?”
There are, however, early signs of the season all around us. I was in a local store the other day and the kid stocking the shelves was putting out the Christmas merchandise. I looked at him, not saying a word. Smart kid read my mind. He said, “Yeah, I know.”
Today is the first day of fall. It sneaks in about 5:19 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. So far I’ve not notice any abhorrent (meaning incompatible) behavior, like people trying to stand eggs on end or any of the other silliness people associate with the changing seasons.
Maybe, if we could live our lives by the phases of the moon as humans used to do, we wouldn’t be surprised when one day we step outside and realize we do, or do not, need that fleece pullover. That’ll never happen.
A good and frequent walk in the woods helps. Fall is the time we celebrate the beauty of dying things, just as three months ago we celebrated the radiance of sunshine warming the earth. And three months before that we celebrated the marvel of life returning to what we had feared was dead. And three months before that we marveled at Nature’s white blanket keeping warm all those things we hoped would come back.


Take your place on the Great Mandala, as it moves through your brief moment of time.
 --Peter Yarrow.

How to Clear a Room

Lesser Yellowlegs, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge


It happened at the 11th Midwest Birding Symposium this past weekend. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. Keynote speaker, Jim McCormac, president, Ohio Ornithological Society, author and all-around good guy, had just finished his opening remarks.
Bill Thompson, III, publisher, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and master coordinator of the event, took the stage and calmly announced that a Kirtland’s Warbler on migration had just be seen about five miles from the symposium site.
In a flash, hundreds of people had something to do, other than sit inside an auditorium on a gorgeous late-summer day. Kirtland’s Warbler is arguably the most sought-after of the wood warblers and hardly ever seen in Ohio. An estimated population of 3,600 exists in the world and is rarely seen on migration. The fact that one turned up during a conference of 800 serious birders was amazing—some said too amazing. Rumors (all in good humor) about how our conference fees were being spent circulated as we all dashed for our cars.
This event, co-sponsored by the Ohio Ornithological Society, Birdwatcher’s Digest and Lakeside (Ohio) Association, is the premiere birding event in this region, possibly the entire country. It’s more than three intense days of birding, lectures and rubbing elbows with kindred spirits of the birding world. Field trips helped us experience the remarkable flora and fauna of Ohio, where you could—up close and personal—debate differences between Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs with famous field guide authors, or even movie stars like Jane Alexander.
For some, the three-plus days bordered on the edge of Dreamland. You could talk with tour group leaders about going to exotic places; look through binoculars and spotting scopes that cost as much as your car; or fantasize about seeing a Kirtland’s Warbler in Ohio. Some dreams do come true.



Sunset cruise to protected islands in Lake Erie

Trail Companions

Most mornings, on backcountry trails in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I’m not burdened with human encounters. This morning, however, it was a virtual traffic jam out there.
Less than a mile into the woods I spotted a guy sitting on a stump. Actually, I heard him before I saw him. He was talking on a cell phone. Remember, not long ago, if you saw a person talking to himself you assumed he was mentally deranged. Now, you assume he’s on a cell phone, which might still be a mental derangement.
The guy was making some sort of business deal. More info than I wanted, that’s for sure. I passed him and he never acknowledged my presence. That’s okay. I heard him say, “Just tell them we need the stuff by mid November or it’s a deal breaker.” Then he said, “No. I can’t get on a computer. I’m in the middle of a business meeting. I’ll get back with you in a couple hours.”
Ah ha! He was playing hooky. I was beginning to like this guy.
Further down the trail I encountered a forty-something couple. Runners. Mr. Macho was out front. To his credit, he had a great-looking dog on a leash. He was wearing his game face and just grunted as he lunged passed me. Why do runners always look so grim? They never appear to be enjoying themselves.
His female companion was the opposite. She was all bubbly and glowing with the exercise. She did, however, speak in capital letters.
“MORNING!”
“Ah, hi,” I said.
“ISN’T THIS A GREAT DAY?”
“Ah, they’re all great. Some are just …”
Then they were gone—for a while. I got them a second time on their turn around. Mr. Crankypants still looked like he was not having much fun. The dog’s tail was wagging so hard I thought it might come off, so I know he was having a ball.
“HI! SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN! HOW ARE YOU?”
Since she was gone before I could respond, I said, “You don’t give a shit about how I am …” Ooooo, that felt good.
I stopped to adjust an errant shoulder strap that was making my backpack list to starboard. A barking growl at my heels set me off like the Space Shuttle! As I returned to Earth, a chuckling runner, obviously enjoying his joke, was passing my landing spot. He said, “Hope I didn’t scare ya!”
I contemplated how much damage I could do with the titanium point of my trekking pole. I hesitated, thinking that I’ll meet this jerk again on a winter hike and get him with an ice sickle. That way there’ll be no finger prints when they find his body in the spring.
After a few hard miles my mind began to get back into the rhythm of the trail. Then I spotted her. A woman, standing in the middle of the path, about 50 yards ahead of me. She had her hands up to her face and was obviously sobbing.
Immediately I entered into a discussion with the Voices in my head. This was a classic Franz Kafka philosophical discussion: You’re crossing a bridge late at night and you see someone poised on the rail, about to jump. Do you stop and try to help, or do you continue on your way?
When I drew to within 15 feet of her, she looked up, noticeing me for the first time. All she said was, “Oh!”
She was flossing her teeth! Right. Flossing her teeth!
When my resting heart beat got back down to below 1,000, the Voices told me to look at the positive side of this: She’ll toss the floss on the ground, an Orchard Oriole will find it in the spring and use it as part of its nest, and we’ll have another special bird living in the park.
As I neared the end of my seven-mile ordeal, I cut through a meadow and stopped to admire one of my favorite bugs—a praying mantis. At least here was a critter that exhibits normal behavior, like biting the head off its partner after mating.

Talking Turkey

I walked into one of those nature dramas you watch, not knowing which side to cheer for. Kinda like those programs they show on the Nature Channel or PBS. True to form, I was not ready for what would, or would not, happen. I was walking with my head down, somewhat mesmerized by the excessive amount of coyote poop on the trail this morning. Hey, gimmie a break! I was five miles into a rather strenuous hike and any diversion helps.
I rounded a corner, about to pass through an opening in the forest, when the unmistakable sight of a Wild Turkey caught my eye. In terms of getting close to a turkey, even 100 feet away seems close to me. He was standing in a copse, alternating looks in my direction and to his right.
I froze in my tracks. I’ve taken a lot of bird pictures and few if any (the Northern Wheatear discussed the other day being the exception) are easy. I would, however, put Wild Turkey at the top of the Damn-Near-Impossible list. I was afraid to reach for my camera because I could tell, Big Tom was about to bolt. He could surely see me, yet he kept looking to his right. I, too, looked in that direction and saw nothing.
Or, did I? What I first thought was a butterfly morphed into an ear! Clearly, now, I could see a pair of ears in the high grass. Wait! There were four ears!. Wait! Make that six!
Oh my. I figured it out. An adult coyote and two youngsters were stalking Big Tom. And Big Tom was not alone. As my eyes became more accustomed to the shadows where he stood, I could see Big Tom was accompanied by nearly a dozen other turkeys of varying sizes.
Big Tom was in big trouble. Whether the coyotes could see me was unclear. I suspect they could smell me with little or no trouble.
Tom weighed his options. I dug out the camera. The ears disappeared. The turkeys dashed left. A Red-tail Hawk I had not even seen in the tree above the turkeys, took off. The coyotes … What happened to the coyotes?
They disappeared, as they usually do. These creatures are more often heard than seen. Even the coyote’s howl is deceiving. Particularly in this region of hills and valleys, the sound carries and echoes. We’re getting into howling time here in northeast Ohio. Coyotes howl a lot in January and February while looking for a mate. (Don’t we all?) And now, in September and October, the female is often calling to her offspring, who, like human kids, all answer at the same time.
The howling lessons are easy. Stalking Wild Turkeys takes special skills, as this morning’s youngsters learned.


A note to you readers who send me email questioning what kind of National Park we have here in northeast Ohio. Since a picture is worth a lotta words, here’s one I made just after the turkey/coyote incident.

Learning From the Wild Side

I had some of the audience laughing, even before I stepped onto the stage, or, bridge in this case. As I hesitated at what appeared the only way to cross this creek in Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s backcountry, two Pileated Woodpeckers loudly cackled at me from the cheap seats high above. The White-breasted Nuthatches were a bit more discreet with their low-keyed chortling.
I had two choices: cross here or turn back. The latter was not an option. I suppose a third choice was to hike along the stream bank and find another place to get across. For some reason, a 40-pound pack tells you to hike in the straightest line possible. The bridge it was to be.
From the tracks in the mud I could see I was not the first to use this span. In fact, the sheen on the bridge treads, left by the scuffling of many hiking boots, told me the bridge was safe. Or so I wanted to believe.
The treads were supported by two, unmatched trees, slightly bigger than what I’d call saplings. I was too high up in the forest for this to be a beaver project, although it had that random order about it. The 36 treads were obviously hand-hewn. No two looked alike. What was I to make of this rather unkempt, unpredictable link between my past and my future?
As with most wilderness situations, it’s best to go with your gut. I was skeptical of the bridge when I first spotted it from 100 feet back up the trail. On closer inspection, however, I could see that its strength and beauty were in its diversity.
There was no applause when I unceremoniously navigated the bridge; just my grateful thanks for helping me cross the stream—and for the life lesson.

A Special Visitor

It had been a good morning of birding. Susan and I, along with a volunteer army of about 60 like-minded folks, under the command and direction of General Dwight Chasar, had just finished the fall birding census in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Our mission: Count every species and every bird we saw.
Mission accomplished, survivors of the battle met for lunch. We were about to call it quits when fellow birder, Marc Nolls, gave us the word. A Northern Wheatear had been spotted in Holmes County.
If you want to see a Northern Wheatear in North America, pack your bags and head for Alaska. If you want to see one on its wintering grounds, pack your bags and head for Africa. Needless to say, having a Northern Wheatear—a life bird!—90 minutes from home is almost a no brainer when deciding whether to go.



Off we went. Thanks to the marvel of modern communications and great directions from fellow birders, finding the place was easy. Rarely is chasing birds this easy. We arrived at the Yoder farm and there stood the rare bird. It acted like being in central Ohio was no big deal. It posed. We oooed and aaaaed. The bird, a bit smaller than an Eastern Bluebird, shagged bugs, watched us and checked out the local bluebirds. Its long legs and upright posture make it appear larger than its 5.75-inch length.
The crowd of about 50 people were in a jovial mood. Birders get that way when we find a life bird. There was minimal speculation of how the bird turned up on this Amish farm in Ohio. Birders accept the reality that since birds have wings, they go where they damn well please. Young Mr. Yoder found the bird early Saturday morning. He (as are many of the Amish sect) is skilled enough in bird identification to realize he had something special. He went to a nearby shop and had the owner alert the birding community.

We are all indebted to his skills and willingness to have the birders invade his farm. His Amish neighbors had gathered, probably to watch us Englishmen (as they call us) as much as see the bird causing the ruckus. Also, I noticed Mr. Yoder was doing a brisk business selling tomatoes and grapes. As more people walked up his driveway, Mr. Yoder laughed when he told me it was a bit busier around the farm this Saturday morning than is typical.

There’s a Fungus Amongus

As kids growing up in the mid 1950s, we lived in the constant shadow of the mushroom cloud. Our fearless leaders were so fearful of people on the other side of the pond, we regularly practiced “duck-and-cover” drills in school. At the teacher’s signal, we would dive beneath our flimsy desks, safe from fallout of the atomic bomb. The symbol of evil was the mushroom cloud. The fallout we should have feared was the military-industrial complex that has really brought us to our knees.
The mushroom needs a better PR agent. Granted, about half of the mushroom species we find here in Ohio are poisonous, however, that does not distract from their beauty. The rule to obey is, look but don’t bite.



Walking through the woods it’s hard not to notice the variety of fungi—mushrooms and the like. There are thousands of varieties worldwide, and hundreds here in Ohio. Fungi are said to be among the most diverse groups of living organisms on earth. There’s a real lack of information on these because they’re tough to find. The mushroom, or fruit body of fungi, are often small and inconspicuous. And they get eaten, a lot.



Another challenge in getting a head count is the fact that the plants have good and bad years. There might be plenty to see this season; next year there is nothing. Many are specific to a tree species from which they draw sustenance. All are unique and deserve more than a casual glance. You might have to get down on your hands and knees to get the best view of a mushroom, but for those of us who grew up in the 1950s, ducking for cover is an easily remembered skill.

Rainy Days and Tuesdays

There’s a good reason that clichés become clichés. It’s because there is a grain of truth within, not just because clichés are easy to remember. For example, every sports coach tells his or her students, “You’ll play like you practice.” Or, the oft-heard lament along the Appalachian Trail, “No pain, no rain, no Maine.”
Thus is was, armed with these words of wisdom, that I headed out for a training hike, in the rain, this morning. And, like discovering the kernel of truth in a cliché, I rediscovered the beauty of hiking in the rain.
I needed a shake-down cruise in the inclement weather to be sure I remembered how to at least protect my gear, if not my body. There’s an extra tool set required for walking on slippery surfaces. A great way to sprain an ankle is to slip into a 40-pound pack and then slip on your ass when your foot hits the wet leaves.
The rain had lessened to a drizzle as I cinched the protective cover onto my backpack. Now I faced a choice of whether to don my rain jacket. The options were to get wet from the falling rain or get wet from the sweat I knew would come with wearing the “breathable” rain gear. I opted to put the jacket on—then took it off within the first mile.
Hiking in the rain I’m cognizant of birds, as always. A difference is, however, that I keep my head down more than up. I pay attention to where my feet land, and thus scan the multitude of plants and fungi that cover the forest floor.
While some might think hiking in the rain dampens the experience, I find the opposite the case. It adds new dimensions. The sounds of the forest change and the light is totally different. Colors become more saturated and, thinking about the cliché—gilding the lily—the rain adds a sparkle to many plants that would not otherwise be there.
My mother often said I didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain. I now see she meant that in a positive way.

Social Networking Revisited

‘Morning Sunshine!

I started out this drop-dead gorgeous morning, too fast and too hard. And I knew it. I had jettisoned some weight from my pack in favor of adding a few more miles to the trek. In the process, and in my rush to clear my head, I could hear all sorts of things banging and clanging as I humped up the first big hill. Midway I was huffing and puffing. When I reached the top I was nearly apoplectic. Whoa, partner. This is not why we go into the woods.
I stopped at the first friendly log. Time to rearrange things, including my head. I had taken a look at Face Book this morning and could not believe the comments of a camo-clad racist posted there. The issue was President Obama’s visit to an elementary school. Why was this even an issue? I read through other opinions in the poll. I could not believe people were so upset because Mr. Obama feels it important that children take responsibility for their own education and other critical issues. One person opined that Mr. Obama’s visit, to take his message to the children of this country, was unpatriotic!
Oh, my. My good friend, Dr. Pat Coy who directs the Center for Applied Conflict Management (http://www.kent.edu/cacm/, "Contesting Patriotism: Culture, Power and Strategy in the Peace Movement," Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008, with Lynne M. Woehrle and Gregory M. Maney), has noted that patriotism is not just about guns, flag-waving and sticking yellow magnets on the ass-end of a gas guzzler. It’s about your relationship with your community. It’s about helping at the soup kitchen or taking a turn on the phones at the battered women’s shelter.
The first distraction that helped put me on the road to recovery came from four Dark-eyed Juncos. These birds were out of place and out of time for early September. They worked their way past me, chattering and discussing some issue of import—to them.
I shrugged into my near-30-pound pack. As I was fine tuning the fit, a House Wren popped up on the log where I had been sitting. He looked me over, rightly assumed I was not a threat, then began to chatter and chortle as only wrens can. Had this been spring I would have assumed he was warning me off his territory. But this is late summer and he’s probably heading south. So what was he vexed about? I took a few photos since he seemed to want to pose. That wasn’t it. He hopped back and forth with a sense of urgency; an important message for the big guy with the fuzzy face.
I listened closely to what he, and the voices in my head, were saying. I asked a few questions. Here is what the wren was telling me, I think: Anyone who wears his war wounds like a crown should not be followed. They are not leaders. Their defining moment is about them and death they have wrought. You cannot reason anything out of people when their opinions were not reasoned in. We can only hope they will die a natural death and their space on Planet Earth be occupied by children who do listen to the message of Barack Obama.


Listen to the wisdom of the wren

World Wide Webs

By the most recent count (not mine) there are more than 35,000 species of spiders in the world. About 3,000, give or take, live here in North America. I find it reassuring that there might be an equal number of spiders living out there without names, because names don’t matter to them.
Spiders were kind of on my mind this morning as I hiked a section of the Buckeye Trail that runs through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This section is a favorite of ours. It’s sometimes called the Bluebird Trail because of the extensive number of nesting boxes installed along the way. Someone’s research project, I suppose. Susan and I refer to part of the trail as Warbler Ridge since we’ve had exceptional luck in the spring catching the northward movement of warblers over this spot.
Today it was just me, a nice selection of woodpecker species, a few Eastern Phoebes—and the spiders. Early morning is a great time to venture into the woods to see the vast array of webs, evidence of last night’s efforts. When you look over a field in the low morning light, it’s hard to imagine how many spiders must have been working to create this sea of webs. Or how many other insects were captured and eaten.
And while you might see the webs, rarely do you see the creatures that made the webs. Since most spiders have eight eyes and six legs, it’s understandable how they disappear before we see them. But left behind, we can see the canvas on which they’ve worked and the art they’ve created. Particularly, when covered with morning dew, there is a rich palette of clouds, waves and strings of pearls.

Fish Bites Man

Yesterday, Tom, his brother Ed and I made a trip out to the stream. It’s one of those things a person has to do from time to time to maintain a socially acceptable level of sanity. And if you have a fly rod in hand, so much the better.
For some, fly fishing is synonymous with frustration. You do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. That’s also a fair definition of insanity, I think.
The odds are against the fisher. In the course of casting, assuming he’s chosen the right fly and is casting to where a fish might actually be, there are a thousand mistakes waiting to happen. For the fish, he has only one mistake to concern himself with. And even a fish is smart enough to know, if he keeps his mouth shut he’ll stay out of trouble.
The three of us had a good day on the stream. As we were heading back to the car, I could not help but make another cast, or two, along the edge between a gravel bed and the stream bank. The water was about three inches deep and gin-clear. I could see there were no fish in the spot. I don’t know why I decided to cast there. Maybe just because I could. Much to my surprise, a black rock that I had been casting toward, grew fins and a huge mouth! Wham! He almost ripped the rod out of my unready hand.
While he held the advantage for the first 30 seconds, we both eventually won the match.
The gorgeous brook trout, when seen from the side, had been just another dark stone in the stream when viewed from above. There’s probably some important life-lesson in all of that. All I know is that while the fish might be nursing a sore jaw this morning, my left thumb is taking it easy since he nipped me as I released him back into the icy water.

Who’s That Knockin?

Primordial. Could there be pterodactyls?

As with most surprises in the woods, what I heard seemed out of context and grabbed my attention. Why would a roofing crew be working in the middle of a National Park? And, my first thought when they flew was, yikes, a family of pterodactyls!
I came to my senses and remembered I was not quite old enough to remember what pterodactyls really look like. So the noise, obviously, was the hammering of Pileated Woodpeckers.
I’ve seen countless Pileated Woodpeckers, yet, I’m always amazed at how large the bird is. And how colorful, even though it has only three colors, red, white and black. Seeing one is a treat. Sometimes you get lucky and see a pair. I was watching five! It appeared to be a family outing. A day to teach the kids how to make noise and get some eats in the process. True to form, the kids seemed more interested in what their siblings had found crawling under the bark of the huge oak than what their parents worked on. Mom and dad paid little attention; it was instruction time. You learn some life lessons or you get kicked out of the gene pool.
The hike would prove to be like any other day in the woods; that is to say, like no other day in the woods can be. As with never being able to step into the same stream twice, so it is with hiking even a familiar trail. I needed a hike so I set off on one of my favorite birding trails just to see what it was like in the depths of summer, a period considered the nadir of the birding season by some folks.
I hadn’t been in this section of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park since last spring. A productive wetlands spot, where in the spring the fallen logs are covered with birds, was now covered in green velvet. Plant life sprouted from where there had been only tree bark. A single female Common Yellowthroat probed in the bushes.
Higher up on the valley’s rim, a constant, albeit small, chorus of birds competed for my attention. Red-eye Vireos kept saying, “Look at me! Up here! Here I am!” The Eastern Wood-pewee called out his name, over and over.
I guess in terms of species count, the six-mile hike did not yield much. About a dozen species where active this morning. However, any time you can watch a flock of Wild Turkeys forage, or see an American Robin drink from a concave oak leaf on the trail, it’s hardly to be considered a “low point.” Fewer birds just means you can devote more of your resources and attention to the task at hand. It’s about education. Just like watching dad probe under the bark of a tree for something--anything.


What lies around the bend?

It’s Only a Name

Human-contrived names for birds don’t always make sense. A non-birder friend of mine was recently telling me he doesn’t understand how they get the common names for birds. I told him, the names are made up by the same people who generate names for shades of paint. Just what color is Belgian Waffle?
His problem was with the Red-bellied Woodpecker. It has way more red on its head than belly. True enough, I said, however, from the right angle, in the right light, you can see the red patch on the tummy. And besides, “Red-headed” was already taken.
The conversation, still in shades of red, moved on to the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. He agreed this bird was aptly named—most of the time. The male, with his iridescent ruby-red gorget (throat), does appear black under some lighting conditions ...
The conversation next turned to the industriousness of the hummers in their constant search for food—and defense of that food source. Then the conversation turned to watching—the best part of birding.

What’s in a Name?

In this summer that has yet to happen in northeast Ohio, working out on the deck has been a real pleasure. Usually it’s too hot, or the sun’s glare on the screen too much of a challenge. This year, however, I’ve been able to relax and enjoy the comings and goings at the bird feeders and plants that define our little piece of the globe, under the guise of working.
This afternoon I had a special visitor. And, as luck would have it, a camera within arm’s reach. The visitor was a Hummingbird Moth, Hemaris thysbe. These are strange creatures. They get their common name from their size and feeding habits. Some people think they’re looking at a baby hummingbird.
There are about 17 species of Hummingbird Moths in the world. We have four in North and South America. They are clear-winged moths and, lucky for us, diurnal.
I watched my visitor go about its business. It did not seem to mind my intrusion. The body was about two inches long and olive green with red bands across the abdomen. Its tail fans out, reminiscent of a lobster’s, or a hummingbird.
The fine hairs on its side looked a lot like feathers. It is a nectar feeder and its long proboscis worked all the flowers, just like a hummingbird. The really neat thing to watch was how the insect would roll that proboscis up, like a garden hose, when it moved from flower to flower. Then it would unroll the needle-like mouth part and probe the flower.
The Hummingbird Moth is an excellent pollinator and a great distraction from whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.

Join the Circus

I recall my dad saying, when things got stressful in our house of four boys, he was going to run away and join the circus. It always got a laugh. Having a couple grandkids around for a week can be stressful as well as exhausting. So when the circus came to our town this week, it seemed like the solution to several problems. (Older folks have problems; young folks have issues.)
It was an old-style circus—mud shows they used to call them. The smell of the animals. One-night stands. It was an opportunity to see how life was years ago in America. I thought it might be a challenge to convince the kids they should get up in the middle of the night, well, 7 a.m., to watch people work. Not so. They were actually excited at the opportunity to do something different—not that going to special gardens, kiddie parks and hikes in the National Park are everyday things for them.
When we got to the place where the circus was to be, there was nothing but an open field. We did notice some small yellow flags set in what was a huge circle. Colorfully painted trucks started arriving, along with RVs and trailers. It became obvious that the trucks did not park at random. A man in a bright yellow shirt with “logistics” emblazoned on the back waved and pointed until the trucks formed a huge ring outside the ring of flags. With uncanny precision and skill, the men attacked the trucks, unrolled the Big Top, drove stakes with a portable pile-driver, laced the overlapping layers of the tent material and managed to joke with each other in some foreign language.
The Kelly Miller Circus travels on a fleet of 25 vehicles as it has since 1938. It requires an area of some 90,000 square feet to set up. The Big Top, imported from Italy, has a seating capacity of 1,500 and is made of waterproof vinyl. The tent is 120 feet by 130 feet and is 40 feet high. It’s supported by more than a quarter of a mile of heavy gauge aluminum tubing as well as several miles of rope, steel cable and chain.
About 100 or so folks joined us to watch the tent emerge from where a few yellow flags had been only two hours before. Then, a fellow who looked a lot like Buffalo Bill Cody, appeared. He told us the history of the Kelly Miller Circus and how many hundreds of performances they do every year.
He asked us to join the tent master inside the sagging big top. As we entered, an enormous Asian elephant, Lisa by name, joined us. She was in harness. The tent crew fastened her harness to the pole rigging—the king pole. On command, showing virtually no effort, the 10,000 pound pachyderm took a few steps forward and the tent began to unfold like a giant piece of origami. We all stood there in awe as Lisa did her trick with three more huge poles. And the big top was—big—just as it has been for 200 years.

What You Don’t See Is What You Get

Even on rainy days, I’ve noticed, the hummingbirds keep their appointed rounds. That was my observation from having the laptop stationed by the window that offers a view of our hummingbird feeder array. I was working. Honest!
Recently, Susan was telling me of a study by ornithologists that suggests for every hummingbird you see at your feeder, you can assume there are actually six birds in the area. Here in northeast Ohio the hummingbirds are not good at sharing. There is a constant wrangling over the food source, complete with squeaky sounds and chasing. All the birds try to take possession of the feeder. We have four feeders set up in hopes of reducing the bickering and stress in the chow line.
Photographing these bejeweled creatures is the kind of thing photographers live for. The birds are elusive, to say the least. They come and go in a blur and buzzing of wings. They, tantalizingly, hover over the feeder until you raise the camera. Then, zip! They’re gone. You scratch your head and say, “If I do this or that …” You shoot 100 frames and there might be one keeper shot in the batch. You shoot 200 frames and you get one that makes you happy.
Ghostly images. You ask yourself unanswerable questions about what you might have seen. Or, didn’t see. Photographing hummingbirds is different from making images of other birds. You don’t know what you have until you see the image on the screen. And, even then, you can’t be sure.
Tomorrow, if it’s not raining, I’ll go for 300 frames and see what the birds deliver.

Racing the Eastern Kingbird

I knew there would be a sprint to the finish. I just didn’t know where the finish was. It didn’t matter. Since no money was involved, I knew it would be an honest sprint.
My opponent was an Eastern Kingbird. He had wings; I had my fancy red Raleigh racing bike. I was out doing my daily 20-mile training ride, coasting along about 14 miles per hour when he lifted off the top of a low bush, about three feet from the right side of the bike trail.
The Eastern Kingbird is a fine example of how, dressing in only black and white, one can look especially fashionable. If you untwist its Latin name, "Tyrannus tyrannus", it comes out something like King of the Tyrants. Cool name.
Typically, the bird’s body is about 8.5 inches long with a wingspan of about 14 inches. It puts on an amazing aerial display while catching bugs from a perch. Its flight is usually in a straight line with stiff-wing fluttering making up most of the action. How this neotropical migrant ever makes it to South America is amazing, as is all bird migration, actually.
This morning’s bird did not seem to have bugs on its mind when it launched into the sprint against its 160-pound opponent. Had my arm been a bit longer I could have reached out and given him a high-five, or the avian equivalent, at the end. For about 30 yards we raced, 15, 16, 17 miles per hour, head-to-head toward the next vertical twig. That was apparently the finish line and he knew it. With a choppy surge, and the thrust of his beak, he beat me! He gave me a high-pitched "dzeet", sound as I sped past.
In return I thanked him for the wind sprint. I needed that.

Who Needs California?

It was a great day to be astream. What day isn’t? Susan and I were fishing the Clearfork, a branch of the Mohican River in north-central Ohio. It’s one of the few places in the state where you can chase trout in a more-or-less wild setting.
Susan managed the first fish of the day with no trouble. I had barely worked my way up stream and started casting when I heard her exclaim, as all fishers do with the first fish of the day, “Hey, I got a fish on!”
It’s no surprise that she’d get into fish right away. She’s quiet. Her cast is slow and precise. She doesn’t thrash the water. And she often pays more attention to what the birds around her are doing than to what the fly on the water should be doing. She just lets it happen, the way fly fishing should be.
For about an hour I worked up and around what I thought was perfect water. All I had to show for my efforts was the fun of catching a couple river chubs. I decided to leap-frog to the other side of the pool Susan was working because she was paying more attention to a family of noisy Baltimore Orioles. Hmmm, more chubs.
Time for a lunch break.
After lunch we moved further down stream to spot that had yielded some trout in the past. After a few hours I managed to pull a couple unsuspecting brown trout out of a deep spot, along with countless river chubs. Susan, meanwhile, was getting plenty of chub action, and lots of laughs, as well.
We decided to call it a day and do some exploring. We wanted to see where the river went further down stream. About a mile from where we had been fishing we saw a large group of tents and RVs on the other side of the stream. We both commented on what a great camping spot it was. Then Susan said, “And there’s a couple guys cleaning fish in the river!”
Whoa, there! Back up. Not only is that a bad idea, it’s hard to imagine anyone pulling fish out of this river large enough to clean.
We found a short dirt road that led toward the campsite and checked out the guys sitting in the stream. In unison we said, “They’re panning for gold!”
A quick reality check showed we were still in Ohio. We pulled into the opening of the campsite and, posted on a little guard house, was a sign, “Swank Claim. Buckeye Chapter of GPAA [Gold Prospectors Association of America].”
These were modern-day prospectors. The camo-colored neoprene waders were a dead giveaway; as were their gas-powered water pumps for the sluice. There were plenty of authentic looking guys running around sporting long beards and floppy hats, however, somehow, the NASCAR T-shirts didn’t fit the picture.
And like most things these days, they have a Web site (www.buckeyegold.com). Here’s what I learned: The Swank Claim covers approximately one mile of the Clear Fork river on the upper claim and one mile of Clear Fork river on the lower claim. This claim is known for burgundy colored garnets and fine flour gold. This claim has also produced, two quartz rocks with gold nuggets layered in them. One valued at $50,000.
The Buckeye Chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America was started in 1996. People from all over the state came together to pan for gold. There are three claims in the state. Along with the Swank Claim, there’s the Frazee Claim near Zuck, Ohio, and the Lewis Claim located below Lucusville in the southern part of Ohio.
Although gold is not as plentiful in Ohio as in some of the other states it does exist, you just have to work a little harder for it. Usually gold in Ohio is in the form of flour gold and takes a little more skill to uncover.
Well, who’d a thunk it? And all these years I thought the beauty of the stream was in the scarlet spots of a brown trout or the vivid pink stripe on the side of feisty rainbow trout. Or, the iridescent blue of an Indigo Bunting. Maybe the flash of orange as a Baltimore Oriole flew across the stream.
As we watched the plum of sand, silt and mud created by the prospectors’ activities flow downstream, I realized the fly fisher’s non-consumptive use of the resource was still best—for now and for future generations.

How birders fly fish

How Procrastination Leads to Understanding

While preparing for a trout-fishing trip this weekend and a bluegill-fishing trip next week, I faced the usual dilemma. Thousands of fishing flies, yet I couldn’t find what I needed. I knew the ones I wanted were there, I just couldn’t see the hooks for the feathers, so to speak.
It’s a never-ending conundrum for many fly tier/fishers. Like the mystery of dust bunnies under the bed, boxes of flies seem to appear from nowhere. When a trip is pending, rather than dig through countless cluttered boxes to find what you want, you tie more flies, thus perpetuating the problem. In extreme situations, I’ve been known to purchase more boxes rather than try to empty ones I have.
Now, I had to get a grip on this problem. I don’t fish for bluegills (bream to you readers south of Cincinnati) often enough, so I like to get it right. As fighters, pound for pound, a bluegill is a formidable foe. If they grew as large as large-mouthed bass, we’d probably never land them on a fly rod.
Bluegill are the first fish I can remember catching. It’s that way with most fishers. A few years ago my mother declared the bluegill was our “family fish.” If we had a Coat of Arms there would probably be crossed fins on it.
About the same time as mom declaring the bluegill our family fish, I made a silent celebration of what would have been my dad’s 100th birthday. I took his now-restored bamboo fly rod and drove over to a small lake in Indiana near his home town. The picturesque spot I remembered from my childhood was surrounded with paved roads and houses. I found a break in the trees and proceeded to catch 101 bluegills. It’s not that I’m good, it’s more a function of the fish being easy. Those 101 (one for each year of his life and one to grow on) fish, if laid tail to head probably would not have stretched to 10 feet.
My current challenge was to prepare a box or two of flies for a day’s outing. I decided to finally do it right. Clean out the old stuff, rearrange the usable flies, and bring some sort of order to the chaos I call my fishing vest.
The end of the story is that I feel much better now, thanks. My breathing has returned to normal. Had I been cleaning up after anyone other than myself, I would have considered tossing the lot and starting over.
What I had tagged to be a two-hour project stretched over two days. When Susan arrived home from work and observed what I had gotten into (on the commandeered dining table) she succinctly observed, “You’ll never have to make another fly—ever.”
If only that were true. Herein lies the dilemma. After all the sorting and categorizing and weeding out the damaged or poorly made flies, I find that many of the basic bugs, the ones I use most often, are missing. A keen observer will note an important fact of fishing, here. I have, probably, thousands of flies, yet tend to fish the same patterns over and over. Why? Because those are the ones that catch fish!
So, why tie up all that exotic stuff?
Because they’re better at catching fishermen, I suppose.



Bringing chaos to order.

Emergency Call

It was one of those calls that comes in the middle of the night, about 9:30 p.m. in my case. I had just finished a fairly descent glass of Riesling; it was perky without being pretentious. We were sitting on the deck enjoying the reluctant sun as it headed for California, when the phone rattled and danced on the patio table.
Caller ID said it was Tom, which meant it was probably fishing related and safe to answer. He had an emergency brewing. Dinner guests would be arriving at his place in less that 24 hours and he was under the gun to have some trout on the table. Could I make a supreme sacrifice, tomorrow morning, and go fishing.
Hmmm, this was a tough call. I made a mental rundown of the things on my to-do list and told him fishing might fit right in. I had planned to rearrange my sock drawer on Thursday, however, for him and the cause, I’d bite the bullet and pack up my rod, etc.,
After I committed to go he told me John would be going along, too, and, by the way, could I bring that bamboo rod I had restored this winter. They felt the rod needed some thorough testing on some real fish—trout in other words.
The rod is a real beauty. My guess is, it was built in the early 1900s and It is destined to go on the wall as an art object, like several other restored bamboo rods I have. I have a lot of mixed emotions about antique rod restoration: these things were made to catch fish, not hang on the wall. However, a lot of hours (pleasure-filled hours I should say) go into a project such as this and … What the heck. Better to burn out than rust out, I say.
There was a lot of the good-natured joking around as we lined up the rods in the parking lot at Rockwell Springs early Thursday morning. The bamboo rod (a gift from Susan) is a three-piece, 10-footer, not built in the usual hexagonal form, but in a round shape. Like a really long willow branch. Rods and lines of the past do not match up with current equipment. I was guessing at the proper line weight for this baby, but felt I was in the ballpark by choosing a line from the middle of my collection of reels and lines.
The best way to describe casting with this beauty is to imagine throwing a line with a 10-foot-log piece of spaghetti. And that noodle would weigh three or four pounds—or so it seemed. After three casts I knew why fly fishing was slow to catch on in the last century. It was proof that it’s not always about catching fish. Sometimes it’s about the beauty of the day and the tackle …
After managing two rainbow trouts, I deemed the rod well broken in and ready to take its place on the wall. Tom and John each took a turn and we all agreed, fishing with today’s stiffer, lighter rods made the sport more enjoyable. These fine old bamboo rods fit the era in which they were designed, when the pace of life and the pace of living were slower and more deliberate. As best we could tell, the fish didn’t seem to react any differently, no matter what we used. And our skills, as fishers, had to be the same as the person who lined up this old rod—when it was the new rod.
I thought about how the original owner, maybe 100 years ago, faced the same challenges we face today, which is another part of fly fishing’s appeal for me. Our tackle, today, is certainly technologically superior, however, the fish don’t know that.

Deserved Recognition

Well, it’s been a long time coming, four billion years or so, however the stick has finally been recognized for what it is—and made it to the Hall of Fame. That’s the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York.
Let me back up a bit. Sometimes news is slow getting out here to Ohio. Just today I learned that the stick was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame last November.
Right, the stick, the play toy of millions and millions of generations of kids. Now it’s right up there with the heavy hitters like Mr. Potato Head and Barbie. The stick. Any stick. The toy that can be anything to any one.
I am a bit upset that the Toy Hall bestowed the honor before the American Museum of Fly Fishing had a chance to recognize the stick for virtually the same reasons. I’ve had many a day when I caught more sticks than fish—and was happy for the tug on the line.
It often works like this: You’re up or downstream from a fishing buddy. You hear his occasional whoop and holler and see his line dancing all over the stream. You’re doing nothing. Then you feel the big strike! Whoa there, this is serious stuff. The fish swims out into the stream and is headed downstream with huge effort. You fight as carefully as you can, hoping the tippet will hold because this lunker certainly surpasses whatever rating the manufacturer had written on the spool.
Even with your best efforts you can’t turn him. He keeps heading downstream. That should be your first clue. But you’re Fishing the Denial River and disregard the obvious. You're making progress. You have him on the reel and he’s moving closer. Out of the corner of your eye you’ve seen your buddy casting a glance in your direction, hoping to see the fish. You fumble around your back for the landing net as you control the line with one hand. Your first glimpse of this whopper makes your heart sink. It’s a stick. A stick. My dad used to tell us kids it was a grass pike he had on the line. We, of course believed him.
Your mind kicks in as you realize you have to save face with your buddy. The best strategy is to get your body twisted into a really awkward position, hopefully with your back to your friend. You lunge for the “fish” and break it loose with the top of the net. Sometimes this means sacrificing the fly, however, you also salvage your reputation. Cursing and swearing, even pounding the water with the net is required at this point.
You turn to your friend, who has been watching all of this, and shout, “Huge brownie! Broke him off with the damn net!” A bit more pounding the water to emphasize your frustration might be required.
Tie on a new fly and hope for a return of another big one.
So, while it’s great that someone has recognized the stick’s ability to fill the imagination of children around the world since forever, it’s equally important for the fly fishing community to rise to the occasion and give the stick it’s due for it’s ability to raise the expectations and fill the imaginations of fly fishers the world over.


A Future Hall of Famer

Just Another Day at the Office

The sun was lightening the sky as I backed out of the drive. The brightest object in the sky, however, was the last quarter moon about 30 degrees above the horizon in the southeast. It looked like a great day to be heading for the office.
I tuned in the local NPR station to catch up on the latest world trauma I can do nothing about. Sounded like the same news cast that’s been going on for 10,000 years. Will we ever get smart?
As I cruised down Oak Hill Road in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park I caught the local traffic report. Jams here, problems there. My traffic stopper was a Wild Turkey that dashed across the road. Then two white-tailed deer, a button-buck and a doe, politely waited for me to pass before they crossed. Did those deer look both ways before crossing? I think so.
I love traffic problems like this. As I unloaded (Or is that uploaded?) a backpack filled with camera gear in the parking area near Everett Road Bridge, a guy in a really cool Lexus convertible, red, slowed and looked (wistfully?) at me. His white shirt and tie told me he was not going to be heading for the back country this morning as I was about to do. The temperature had dropped to 48 degrees, great for hiking.
The first half mile is all uphill. I worked my way up and over to where Susan and I had spotted a family of Scarlet Tanagers yesterday. We had watched as the parents fed three youngsters—and me without a camera! We found the nest by accident. We had been led to the spot by a Veery, singing. The flute-like sounds of a Veery are not common around here. At Susan’s suggestion we sat on a log and waited as the Veery moved up the ravine and, eventually, to within 20 feet of our spot. I nearly ground my teeth down to the gums as the bird performed for us. It was activity almost above our heads, however, that distracted us from the Veery. We could hardly believe our eyes when we saw a pair of tanagers. We watched as they cautiously took food to their nestlings. After 15 or 20 minutes, one of the nestlings left the safety of its home and ventured out into the world. The parents were not happy about this, however, they continued to feed the brave one.
I feared that they might all be gone when I returned Monday morning. Grrrr, I hate it when I’m right sometimes. The nest was abandoned. The female and one of the youngsters were high in the canopy above me, too well hidden for a decent shot. The Veery, however, was singing like a champ. In fact, there were two songsters, joined by a pair of Wood Thrushes, numerous Eastern Wood Pewees, several species of vireos and plenty of percussion provided by woodpeckers. I sat on the log for 45 minutes as the sun pushed through the leaves, warmed the bugs, which in turn got the birds feeding for the day. It was the final movement of the dawn chorus.
I might have briefly thought about the guy in the red Lexus, probably stuck in traffic on I-77.

The Rewards of Getting Lost

Well, I wasn’t really lost. It’s tough to get lost in a park in America. There’s always a road or path intruding on what passes for wilderness. Besides, I was virtually in my own backyard, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I knew if I headed west I’d run into the creek. If I headed north I’d eventually get to Route 82. So it was more like I was hiking in an area yet to be mapped—not lost.
Here’s what happened: I had to make a deposit at the bank (like they really need my money), which is about three miles from home if one wants to burn some fossil fuel. I was looking over a map, as I’m want to do, and decided it would be more fun to just head out through the woods, cut here, climb there, pop out on a trail near that spot and eventually work my way back to the parking area near the bank.
I grabbed my gear and went, fully expecting to do six or so miles round trip. The end of the story is that I did more than 10 miles. I sort of miscalculated all the twists and turns, and side trails to interesting sounds in the woods.
Getting off the beaten path is well worth the effort. I was in a park, in a metropolitan area and yet, the woods was as dense as one could wish for. A Hooded Warbler sang from a nearby bush. I stood still and he eventually worked to within 10 feet of where I watched him. Gorgeous views of a bird usually found in the tree tops. And more often heard than seen.
A Scarlet Tanager flash in front of me as I stopped to consider how wet I wanted to get crossing a creek. He landed on a branch on the other side and watched as I splashed through ankle-deep water, minnows scattering in all directions.
It was the singing of a Swainson’s Thrush that stopped me short, however. The fluting, smooth sound is rarely heard in this area since most of this species nests much further to the north. I followed the unmistakable sound of a thrush singing, deeper into the woods. And there he was, at eye-level, not 20 feet away. He seemed not to care that I was listening to his concert. His song was rolling and complex, not something I could whistle as I bushwhacked back to so-called civilization. It is a tune I’ll long remember, however.