While at Interstate State Park, we witnessed a dramatic rescue of a gosling, swimming through the rapids of the St. Croix River. We were taking photos of the river when we started to hear agitated honking by what sounded like a flock of goslings. The water was pretty choppy, and we had trouble spotting them at first.
High water on the St. Croix (Y. Fernandez)
Eventually, we saw two adult geese, on a shallow ledge just upstream of a fenced-off boat ramp at the water’s edge. There seemed to be one gosling with them, looking exhausted. But where was the noise from the other birds coming from?
You can see the geese behind the fence. (Y. Fernandez)
It turns out that the other birds were on the downstream side of the fence, paddling together in in an eddy. It looks like what happened is one of the goslings got separated from the rest, and the parents went to fetch it while the other babies stayed put. They were making a lot of noise, so clearly they weren’t happy with the situation.
The parents collect the straggler (Y. Fernandez)
After the lone gosling was collected, the parents launched into the choppy water, and the other goslings swam out to meet them. They formed a tight flotilla as they were buffeted downstream by the waves. Rescue complete!
Stay close together! (Y. Fernandez)
Be well, geese, and may you find calmer waters downstream.
I know it’s a cliche to say “It seemed bigger when I was younger,” but I’ll say it anyway in this post. One of the places we visited on our recent trip to the Great Lakes was Interstate State Park, on the St. Croix River between Minnesota and Wisconsin near the town of Taylors Falls. We actually visited the MN park– there’s also a park on the WI side.
St. Croix River at Interstate State Park (Y. Fernandez)
This park was a pretty memorable spot that we visited frequently when we were younger, and it’s still pretty interesting. In this area, the St. Croix River form a deep gorge through a layer of basalt- very old basalt. The rock here was laid down during a continental rifting event around 1.1 billion years ago. Later, sandstone and siltstone were laid down by a shallow sea during the Cambrian. Much, much later, glacial meltwater during the last Ice Age carved the St. Croix River valley.
Cliffs along the St. Croix (Y. Fernandez)
While the most obvious geological feature here is the cliffs, with their irregularly-fractured angles, there are a bunch of other features. An informational kiosk at the parking lot has a map of features like glacial potholes. These formed when rocks were caught in whirlpools and eddies in the river, and eventually scoured out vertical shafts in the rocks. Some of these pothiles were big enough to walk into:
Looking up from the interior of a pothole- the hole is about a meter across.
Others were smaller in size. This one reminded me of a lava tree mold:
This pothole was in a boggy area, probably with more potholes concealed underneath (Y. Fernandez)
This is an interesting place to stop if you’re interested in geology. There were also a lot of birds. A stiff breeze when we were there meant that the paddleboat tours were closed down for the day. It would be fun to go back at some point and canoe down the river- though not during the spring thaw season…
On our recent Great Lakes trip, we started off with a visit to western Wisconsin. When my sister & I were young, our grandparents bought a vacation house on a lake in a small town there, and we used to go up there for family weekends in the summers. When my grandparents passed away, my aunts took over the house, and they and my cousins (and their kids) still spend a lot of time there.
I hadn’t been back to the lake house for several years, and Yan had never seen it. So this was a good opportunity to visit with relatives and reminisce to Yan about summers at the lake.
The backyard is still pretty steep, but for some reason the hill seems much less scary now...
So, two incidents from childhood that came back to me at the lake both involved invertebrates behaving badly… at least from our perspective at the time.
First, the lake is fairly tannin-rich, meaning the water’s not super clear. One day (I must have been six or seven) I was wading in the shallow part of the lake, in the shade. When I got out of the water, there was a huge black leech stuck to my shin! I’m sure I freaked out a bit, and then some adult pulled the leech off. Of course, then blood started to trickle down my leg from the leech bite. So I fainted. (This is a family trait, mind you.) After coming to, I got a lot of teasing from my relatives.
The second incident happened to my sister, probably a different summer. She was playing in the backyard with my cousins, and I was sitting on the deck, probably reading. I remember all of a sudden hearing her scream, and seeing her running across the backyard hitting herself on the side of the face. Apparently, a wasp had gotten under her hair and was stinging her on the ear, repeatedly. After the wasp had been squished, and she was calming down on the porch with an ice cube on her earlobe, my other memory of that incident was my aunts and uncles joking that now they just needed to find a wasp for the other ear and she could put in earrings right then and there. This event must have traumatized her, because it took her until high school to actually get her ears pierced.
Okay, so these certainly aren’t the most traumatic childhood stories, but they were dramatic at the time.
Looks peaceful, except for the nasty leeches lurking under the water's calm surface.
One of the exciting events of the weekend was taking the pontoon over to town and going to Dairy Queen. Hey, it’s small-town Wisconsin, and this is good wholesome entertainment.
The DQ was just up the road from the park. (Photo: Y Fernandez)
The pontoon was exactly as I remember it- which is a bit scary, considering it had been over a decade since I had been on it last. But its structural integrity held for the entire trip.
There are a lot of new, big houses on the lake, which was a bit strange to see. It’s nice that the family house is in an area that hasn’t been developed this much and is still pretty green.
Aunt Barb and some serious construction. (Photo: Y Fernandez)
So, a good visit, and a good start to our vacation.
OK, the title of this post is somewhat misleading. But ‘Wisconsin wildflowers’ alliterates better than ‘Wisconsin Plantae’…
On our recent trip to the general Great Lakes region- I’ve been trying to think of what to call it: ‘Upper Midwest’ doesn’t fit, since it was partly in Canada, and we did actually visit two Great Lakes- we spent a day or so in western Wisconsin. We got there just at the tail end of the spring wildflower season, but unfortunately the mosquito season was well-underway. At any rate, here are some photos we took along the way.
Great white trilliums. Their petals turn pink before they wilt away:
Another trillium, with some wood violets:
A stand of interrupted fern- the brown patches in the middle of the fronds are actually fertile segments carrying spore cases:
Common dandelions added a splash of yellow to the scenery:
Finally, an interesting contrast between some field pussytoes and new eastern white pine cones:
This cool new infrared video shows the draining and refilling of the lava lake in Pu`u `Ō`ō. Pu`u `Ō`ō is one of the craters on Kīlauea Volcano, and it’s been active for over two decades.Here’s what the crater looks like in daylight:
Image by USGS.
This time-lapse video shows the activity in the lava lake over the past two months.
For more info on Pu`u `Ō`ō, go to the HVO website. The USGS has quite a few photos and videos here.
I’ve just realized that we have a travel style that can probably be described as eclectic. Or maybe simply geeky in a sciencey way, with a twist of highbrow culture and finding good vegetarian food.
We’ve visited the La Brea Tar Pits (fossils), Vasquez Rocks (no Gorns, but lots of White-Headed Sparrows), Westminster Abbey (dead scientists, and a few kings & queens too), and the ancient tombs at Gamla Uppsala (dead Vikings).
Vasquez Rocks.
We’ve hunted for mud volcanoes near the Salton Sea (and failed), endangered Palilas on Mauna Kea (and succeeded), and the tomb of Anders Celsius in Uppsala (actually, we came across this one quite unexpectedly).
One of the Salton Buttes, a lava dome generally near the mud volcanoes. (Y. Fernandez)
Meridian (and gnomon) in the Basilica de Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. (Y. Fernandez)
This summer, we’ll be doing a random tour of the Western Great Lakes region, with possible stops at Effigy Mounds National Monument, the Bell Museum of Natural History, Taliesin, Science Museum of MN, Field Museum, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and Royal Ontario Museum. We’ve sadly concluded that visits to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine and Spam Museum are probably too out of the way, as is the nesting area of the Kirtland’s Warbler. Still undecided on The House on the Rock.
We’re especially looking forward to the ROM, because it’s the place we ordered the “Primeval Predators” toys that became our wedding cake toppers.
Wiwaxia corrugata and Laggania cambria on vegan green tea and adzuki bean cake. (B. Martin)
Any suggestions for other interesting/geeky sights to see in the general areas of southeast MN, south WI, north IL, and Toronto?
There’s an interesting article in the most recent edition of Physics Today about the founding of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Thomas Jaggar, its first geologist.
Wiew across Kilauea Caldera, 1997. Halema'uma'u is the crater on the left. HVO is probably the tiny white specks on the crater rim at the upper center of the photo.(J. Kauahikaua/USGS)
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) was founded in 1912 for the purpose of studying Hawaii’s active volcanoes. Located right on the edge of Kīlauea Caldera, HVO has contributed a huge amount to our understanding of volcanoes- both how they function and how to predict their activity. The science of vulcanology has saved hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives worldwide in the last century, and many research techniques have been tested and refined at HVO.
Lava fountain from Kamoamoa eruption, Kilauea: 8 March, 2011 (USGS)
According to the Physics Today article, by John Dvorak, Jaggar was largely inspired to study volcanoes after the 1902 volcanic explosion on the Caribbean island of Martinique, which killed tens of thousands of people in minutes. After working in Italy and Alaska, Jaggar was eventually lured as a tourist to the then-Territory of Hawaii to see the relatively non-explosive Kīlauea Volcano.
At that time, Halemaʻumaʻu crater was much more active than it is today, its bottom covered by a massive lava lake:
The crater was a quarter mile in diameter, with steep inner walls that made descent impossible. At the bottom of the crater, 200 feet below the rim, was a gray metal-like surface made up of large, irregular slabs of solidified lava. The slabs, separated by lightning-like cherry-red lines of molten rock, were in constant motion. Occasionally two slabs would collide, one plunging beneath the other, and send a jet of molten material into the air. The disturbance would send waves of orange-red molten material rolling across the entire surface of the lake. After a few minutes, the lake would calm, the surface would cool, and the slabs would reform. It was a stupendous sight that visitors would eagerly describe to friends and family when they returned home. Jaggar’s description, however, was more poignant than most—for him it was “as if everything within me converged.”
See here for a video of the much smaller currently active vent in Halemaʻumaʻu. Then imagine that view, only about 25 times larger, for a sense of what it looked like at the time…
Lava lake at Kilauea Iki in 1954: about 1/4 the size of the historical Halema'uma'u lava lake. (USGS)
While the article suggests that the experience of Halemaʻumaʻu was a life-changing epiphany for Jaggar, his road to founding HVO was certainly not smooth (euphemistic “domestic infelicities,” anyone?) But Jaggar did persevere, and became the first director of HVO.
Halema'uma'u at night, January 2009 (Mila Zinkova).
Today, HVO has quite an active online presence. General information about the volcanoes it monitors is here. There are several Kīlauea webcams here of active eruption sites- daytime offers the best views, but the glow from lava is often visible at night. And there are archived photos and videos here. It’s an interesting site to check out, and provides an invaluable service to the public.
This weekend, we did a bit of bike riding and birding at Orlando Wetlands Park. OWP is a water treatment facility that circulates treated wastewater through a series of ponds with natural vegetation to clean it further before releasing it into the St. Johns River. It attracts a lot of wildlife, and is a fairly popular place to walk or bike along the berms. We didn’t see any unusual species this time, but had a nice time getting outside while the weather’s not too hot in Florida.
Glossy Ibis in breeding plumage (photo: J.M.Garg, Wikipedia)
As we were biking along, we caught some looks at very shiny Glossy Ibises in breeding plumage. This reminded us of an episode last spring, when a White-faced Ibis was reported at OWP on a birding listserv. White-faced Ibises are rarely found in Florida; their typical range in the US is in the western states (and occasionally in Hawaii). I decided to go out and try to find the ibis.
White-faced Ibis (photo: Kevin Cole, Wikipedia)
White-faced Ibises are dark-plumaged long-billed wading birds. They’re pretty similar to the typical dark ibis found in Florida, the Glossy Ibis. When the birds aren’t in breeding plumage, you have to tell the species apart by looking at the skin on their face. Glossy Ibises have blue skin and dark eyes; White-faced Ibises have pink skin and red eyes. As you might guess, this means you should really be close to the bird, or have a spotting scope, if you want to identify it.
Of course, when I got out to the park, all the ibises were way, way back in the marsh- completely unidentifiable with just binoculars. That day was hot, and very sunny, meaning there was heat shimmer on the water making everything blurry, and the birds were just not coming any closer. I spent an inordinate amount of time out there trying to see the postage-stamp sized piece of face skin on each and every ibis, but in vain. I’m sure I saw the White-faced Ibis, but could not confirm that I did. I ended up going home a bit disappointed, without being able to add the ibis to my list.
I suggest that are three reasons that birders are considered a bit geeky. First, they have a hobby, about which they can be obsessive. Hobbies are often regarded as geeky among non-hobbyists. Second, they frequently carry a lot of equipment (e.g., binoculars, spotting scope, tape recorder/iPod/etc., bird ID books, notebook, camera with very long lens). Up to a certain point, accessories carry a sort of panache- but past that point, they apparently become geeky. While I personally consider, say, wearing oversized designer sunglasses geeky and non-functional, I recognize that those wearing them probably consider them a status symbol. Similarly, I realize that the designer-sunglasses set probably considers my wide-brimmed hiking hat geeky. To each her own. Anyway. The third reason that birders are considered geeky is their penchant for keeping a list of all the birds they’ve seen.
List-keeping falls under that most obsessive of human behaviors: categorizing and classifying. To some extent, we do this automatically (this fruit is good to eat; that leaf is probably not too tasty). For birders (and scientists, natural historians, stamp collectors, designer shoe aficionados, etc.) the list can become the focus of the hobby. Some birders focus more on adding species to their lists than on observing the behavior or biology of the birds they observe, or walking through the forest in Zen-like contemplation of the world around you.
Now, I’ll be the first one to say that I have no problem with keeping lists. Especially if birders share this information with others- this information can become valuable for understanding what’s happening with bird populations over time. I also consider birding a hobby that has less net negative impact on the environment than the hobby of conspicuous consumption. Even compulsive bird listers get out and interact with nature in ways that help stitch together the natural and human spheres of our experience that sometimes seem to be slipping apart.
As a case in point, I’ll go back to the White-faced Ibis again. While I never did see the one that was hanging out at OWP last spring, I did end up unexpectedly seeing several of them on Maui a few months later. And that was pretty cool- they’re pretty uncommon in the Hawaiian Islands.
More recently, a White-faced Ibis was spotted in Massachusetts. This bird’s story does not end well. The following (somewhat disturbing) video documents one college ornithology class’s field trip to see the ibis, and how a local Peregrine Falcon decided to take the opportunity for a bit of lunch. From the reactions on the video, I think the college students were a bit traumatized by this particular example of the food chain in action. (via Birdchick)
The last spot we visited on Maui was the ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu Natural Area Reserve. This protected area is located pretty close to the extreme southern point of Haleakalā. It encompasses a slice of land from the uplands down to the coast, and then into shoreline waters. This combination of land and water makes it unique among protected areas in Hawai’i.
ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu NAR is located on the southwest rift zone of Haleakalā, which is still an active (though dormant) volcano. In fact, the most recent eruption of Haleakalā flowed through this area, a few hundred years ago (radiocarbon dating suggests this flow is probably older than a traditionally-thought 1790 date). A very young vent, Kalua o Lapa, is a prominent feature upslope from the shoreline, where the hiking trail is located.
Youngest lava flow on Maui.
While ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu NAR is largely covered by young lava, there are numerous cultural sites, including, walls, temples, and former garden plots; also, threatened and endangered native dryland plants. This dry and rugged land was inhabited- people once fished and farmed in this area. It’s strikingly similar to the west coast of Hawai’i Island in topography, geology, and general setting.
There is a small blowhole at the edge of this bay- we didn't get a good photo of it, though.
It’s the aquatic resources of ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu NAR that are most known- coral reefs, surf spots, and anchialine ponds. Sea turtles, dolphins, and monk seals frequent the area, and the offshore waters are part of the Humpback Whale Reserve. However, these coastal sites are so well known that they’re currently closed to visitors. If there are any natural areas that are being “loved to death,” ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu’s reefs and pools are definitely among them. Currently, you can visit two areas of the reserve: a swimming/surfing area at the entrance to the reserve, and a short trail that goes past a number of cultural sites to La Perouse bay. This is the trail that we took.
Map from HI DLNR.
The trail hugs the coast, crossing both rugged ‘a’a and smooth pahoehoe lava flows. As you walk along the coast, there are a few tiny pockets of tan coral sand- the rest of the shoreline area is rocky cliffs, boulder-strewn beaches, and one larger sandy beach with a mix of black and tan sand. While we were there, clouds were rolling in, part of the rain system that had been raking the islands all weekend. We walked past several crumbling rock walls and other structures (evidence of the need to better protect the historical sites of the area).
Kaho'olawe, with clouds rolling in.
We went on the trail as far as a cobble-covered beach, passing through a kiawe forest full of noisy Gray Francolins and sharp-horned feral goats (the latter a bane of existence for the remaining native vegetation). A tour group on horseback passed us, coming back; they were turned back by a huge fallen tree in the road that we had to scramble under.
Fresh black basalt cobbles predominated at the beach, but there were also large chunks of wave-rounded coral, hinting at the productive reef that lay just out of sight. Upslope, we saw Haleakalā disappearing into the encircling clouds; out towards the sea, waves crashed onto shore.
I’d love to come back here some day and spend more time in the area. It reminded me strongly of the Kona Coast. While access to the most critical natural resources is limited, there are still other hiking trails that appear to be open, which we didn’t have time to explore. Definitely a place to come back to, at some point.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but the West Maui mountains creep me out. They’re intermediate in erosion between the massive-yet-pimpled with cinder cones peaks (Mauna Kea, Hualalai, and Haleakalā) and the deeply eroded ranges found on O’ahu and Kaua’i. I just find West Maui too pointy- like it’s obviously just beginning to be dissected into sharp edges, but before it’s been softened into fluted valleys and gentle hills.
Pointy peaks of West Maui-the biggest valley is Iao Valley.
…but I digress. I intended in this post to talk about a few birding sites on Maui that are easily accessible, in lowland areas. We visited both of these locations in December 2010.
The above photo is from one of those sites, a wildlife sanctuary called Kanahā Pond. This sight is literally just down the street from the Wailuku Kahului airport, so it was our first stop when we got in to Maui. While it backs onto a business/industrial area, it’s one of the largest (and few remaining) wetland sites on Maui. It harbors a large number of migratory species, as well as four of the ‘big five’ breeding waterfowl: the endemic Hawaiian Coot (endangered species), endemic Hawaiian Moorhen (endangered subspecies of the Common Moorhen), endemic Hawaiian Stilt (endangered subspecies of the Black-Necked Stilt), and the native Black-crowned Night-Heron. The endangered Hawaiian Duck is not found here, though some of the Mallards seen here might be hybrids with this species.
Hawaiian stilt in Kanaha pond.
If you’re into birding, this is definitely a good location to check out- if you’re not a birder, why not park it here for a while with a snack or beverage from a nearby shop and check out the action? Species we saw: Laughing Gull, Stilt, Cattle Egret, Myna, Night-Heron, Spotted Dove, House Sparrow, Pacific Golden-Plover, Coot, and Red-Crested Cardinal.
Black-crowned night heron, or auku'u.
The other wetland site that’s easily accessible on Maui is Kealia Pond, a National Wildlife refuge on the south shore of the isthmus. You can do more walking around here. There are two entrances to this site. One parking area, along the shoreline off of Kihei Rd/Hwy 310, gives access to the beach and a boardwalk with interpretive signage. This is the nicer location. The other access point, off of Hwy 311/Mokulele Rd, is less aesthetically pleasing (i.e., muddy and full of midges), but much better for birding.
You can access the pond itself via a series of berms that you can walk along. When we were there, it was quite muddy. The midges don’t bite, but they will swarm all over you- this was distracting and oogy for us, and would probably be really creepy if you have a problem with insects.
Kealia pond- idyllic except for the massive clouds of midges.
You can see a much larger part of the pond here than at Kanahā Pond, but that also means the birds can see you and be startled. We saw quite a few more species here: American Wigeon, Zebra Dove, Stilt, Cattle Egret, Chestnut Munia, Myna, Coot, Least Sandpiper, Mallard, Northern Cardinal, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Orange-cheeked Waxbill, Pacific Golden-Plover, Ring-billed Gull, Sanderling, White-faced Ibis, and Night-Heron. I also saw a goose, which flew away before I could make a positive i.d.- possibly a White-fronted goose. I’d definitely recommend this site for those interested in birds.
So, two good lowland wetland birding sites on Maui. I have one more Maui post planned, then I’ll be moving on to other topics.
