Owl see you at the Wildlife Science Center

The Better Half and I together with the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law and Daughter Person's Mother-In-Law spent mid-day looking at and learning about raptors, wolves of several types, foxes, both red and gray, bob cats, pumas, black bears and coyotes.We went on a tour of the nearby Wildlife Science Center. (If any of the photos I took came out worth posting, I'll upload some tomorrow.)  The weather was exceptionally cooperative. I'm still trying to adjust to seeing some wildflowers in bloom on November 7.

the neighborhood black bear at one of our bird feeders

Photo by J. Harrington

For anyone who enjoys wildlife and doesn't live in the country, there's an abundance of opportunities to see and hear it within an hour or so of our location. Audubon Center of the North Woods near Sandstone, and Crex Meadows in Wisconsin near Grantsburg are about an hour north of us. The Wild and Scenic St. Croix River is 30 minutes or so east of us and Wildlife Science Center is about that far west.

barred owl at Audubon Center of the North Woods

Photo by J. Harrington

The size range in wolves was more than I had envisioned, while the coyotes looked smaller and less rangy than the few I've seen in the wild around here. The bears appeared to be about the same size as or a little larger than the one in the front yard a year or so ago. The barred owl that helped start the tour's educational program didn't seem quite as large as the one at Audubon or the other one in the oak tree on the north side of the house a couple of years ago. I've neither seen nor heard any owls nearby for quite some time. I miss their company and calls. Have you been tracking this year's snowy owl irruption?

“A monster owl”

By Lorine Niedecker 

A monster owl

out on the fence

flew away. What

is it the sign

of? The sign of

an owl.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Half a chance

© harrington

I'm reading one of my Christmas presents, For the Health of the Land, some of Aldo Leopold's previously unpublished essays and other writings. Scott Russell Sanders wrote the foreword, in which he says "... the Midwest is plain and straightforward, yet shadowed with mystery; open and welcoming, yet reserved; full of promise and hope, yet acquainted with grief. The Midwest is a fertile, well-watered landscape, long inhabited, much abused and much adored, deeply scarred but also quick to heal if given half a chance." I had the pleasure of meeting (in person) and spending some time with Scott last autumn at the Loft's writer's workshop at the Audubon Center of the North Woods. Modest as he is, he never mentioned that he had written the foreward. Although I'm a native New Englander, I've lived in the Midwest long enough to recognize the truth in Scott's description. On this last day of 2012, please join me in looking forward to a 2013 in which we all agree to give the Midwest, and the rest of the world, half a chance to heal.

Happy New Year!

Christmas eve eve report

© harrington

Tomorrow's Christmas eve. Today's the eve of Christmas eve. You can use your imagination and picture a Santa hat on this barred owl at the Audubon Nature Center of the North Woods or you can visit the Daily Yonder site to see for yourself what Christmas owls look like. (I would add the Yonder's link to the "Other Paths" list in the sidebar here, but they're a web site, not a blog, so I don't think the updated feature would work and I haven't yet done a separate links page for this site.) If you've followed me through that digression, we'll pick up with: since I have a "thing" for owls, it's just as well that I didn't know about that breakfast in time to get there. Owls, Santa and breakfast is an irresistible combination. May next year Audubon-North Woods will pick up on the idea for a local fundraiser in My Minnesota. Anyhow, I believe that the owls and Santa are doing something much like what I was doing yesterday, am doing today and will do tomorrow: completing a pre-Christmas flight check. Thanks to my wonderful wife and daughter, I've been spared, for the most part, from wrapping Christmas presents this year. (My aversion to wrapping probably goes back to the year or so I spent working on the shipping bench of a printing plant near the Boston Garden and North Station when I was out of high school and working on my college degree. I've wrapped enough packages to last me two lifetimes.) Still with me after that digression? I suppose the need for wrapping physical presents will diminish and may disappear as we move more and more to a dematerialized economy, with emailed Christmas cards and iTunes gift card for digitized music. And now, hidden at the bottom of this long and rambling post, sort of like the last item in a Christmas stocking, is this dematerialized link to a treat that you may want to consider for next year's Christmas for children in your life or for them or yourself to help celebrate the new year in our new era if you don't feel like waiting until next Christmas. Celebrate Solhanumas (and Kwanzaa)!

Kestrels, cats and caring

© harrington

This past Monday evening, I was participating in a board meeting of the local humane society, which, by the way, isn't part of the national humane society. Before the meeting started coming to order, one of the board members arrived with a cat carrier. Inside was a small, somewhat disheveled tabby looking very uncertain as to what might come next. Introductions were made between the tabby and several of the board members. The cat then proceeded to spend the entire meeting curled up in the arms of one of the members (not the same one who arrived with the cat), receiving the kind of strokes many of us would, no doubt, like to get more often. This reminded me of one of the evening presentations at the nature writing conference I attended in last September. It was put on by the Loft Literary Center at Audubon Center of the North Woods. The evening's presentation focused on local raptors and threats to their populations in Minnesota. Seeing a kestrel (above) and a barred owl up close was a rare and exciting experience, kind of like a cat at the board meeting. The audience of 50 or 60 at the conference far outnumbered the board membership of the local humane society. As far as I can tell, I was the only common participant. That makes me think that there are lots of us who are motivated to learn about and protect wildlife, domestic animals, and the environment on which we all depend. My Minnesota cares.