↓ Archives ↓

Posts Tagged → spring

There is hope: Dinosaurs on the river

One of the reasons I object so strenuously to the fake climate alarmism nonsense is that it not only takes away attention and energy from real, measurable environmental problems, it also is so transparently fake and ridiculous that more and more Americans are beginning to doubt the entire environmental quality cause with which “climate change” is unjustifiably included.

When the public is lied to for five decades, told that the climate sky is falling, and that we have only five more years until… pick your fake end-of-times flooding, crop failure, too hot, too cold, end of oil, end of natural gas etc… and those predictions do not play out, then that public becomes weary and suspicious about everything the climate alarmists say, including the very real problems like loss of farmland, forest fragmentation, invasive bugs and plants, loss of wildlife habitat, loss of wild places. And that is bad, because Americans do need to maintain environmental quality, and improve it where needed. If we lose public support for true environmental problems that have real world solutions, then we will truly and needlessly suffer in the end.

Aside from being wrong about literally everything they claim and then demand, one of the other problems with climate alarmists is that they assume and promote a view of nature as steady state. That is, Nature never changes, it is always a Garden of Eden, except for human intervention. And when humans make mistakes or act greedily, climate alarmists say massive government intervention is needed, to the point where Western Civilization must be turned on its head, democracy must be canceled (for our own good, of course), and government bureaucrats must be in charge of every choice and decision we now make (we can’t be trusted to make “the right” choice). This is yet more nonsense, for the simple reason that Nature heals itself naturally.

How else does Nature recover from natural catastrophes like explosive and polluting volcanoes, floods, huge fires, meteor strikes, tornados etc? Well, Nature abhors a vacuum, and where a gap exists in Nature, some animal and some plant will adapt to exploit it and make room to live and grow in it. Even if the prior plant or animal can no longer live there.

In 2006 something very bad and mysterious was suddenly happening to the Susquehanna River. A hard-fighting smallmouth bass fishery so good (100-200 fish per day per fisherman) that fishermen came from all around the world to fish (and spend the night and spend their money locally) from Sunbury down to the Conowingo Dam in Maryland, was suddenly gone. Vanished. And gone along with the vanished smallmouth bass were the big predacious muskellunge, brown trout from the feeder stream mouths, largemouth bass, fallfish, sunfish, redeye, and shad.

Within just a few years a highly tangible and visible environmental catastrophe had revealed itself as a long stretch of the Susquehanna River literally went belly up and died. Native aquatic insects, the backbone of all life in the water there, disappeared. Up until 2005, you could stand on a late summer afternoon in Harrisburg along the Front Street Greenbelt walk and watch as the entire river surface practically boiled with dimples from rising fish eating hatching mayflies, caddis flies, and stone flies. In 2006 that whole activity ceased. Literally everything in the river died, and it still has not come back.

Long story short, what caused the demise of the Susquehanna River was a perfect storm of every bad thing that could happen to any waterway anywhere. If it could go wrong for the Susquehanna, it did go wrong in just a few short years, and the sum total was a total unmitigated shock and detonation of the waterway.

Several years of drought and unusually warm summers led to unusually low water flows, which left fish exposed and with no where to hide from predators. The over-heated water then developed algae blooms that robbed the water of its oxygen, suffocating fish and prey crustaceans like crayfish. When large summer thunderstorms happened, they overwhelmed and drowned the many community sewage treatment plants along the river, resulting in “Combined Sewage Overflows” up and down the river. These huge torrents of raw, untreated, undecomposed human filth blasted into the low, warm river water. There was no dilution of the mess, because the river was too low and too slow. One can only imagine that the conditions then were ripe for that human excrement to sit in still waters and become a feast for bacteria, which attacked the few surviving fish and left them with open wound lesions. Then viruses appeared, apparently rejoicing in the poor conditions, further attacking the remaining fish. Finally, when Pennsylvania’s shale gas boom started in 2006, there were some documented and suspected incidents of “midnight dumping”, where large tanker trucks filled with well brine or frack water were illegally unloaded into waterways that, of course, went into the Susquehanna River.

With the demise of the river’s fish, native grasses and watercress, the birds that migrated to, lived on, and migrated down the river, had nothing to eat. They also disappeared. Hundreds of egrets and herons, and huge rafts of ducks and geese used to grace the shores and skies above the river around Harrisburg on any given summer or Fall day. Not any more.

In 2005 one of America’s largest Great Egret rookeries flourished on the islands in the Harrisburg Archipelago across from Harrisburg City. My fishing buddy Ed Weintraub and I used to wade half a mile out to fish among the archipelago’s islands, and marvel at the hundreds of these gigantic pterodactyl-looking birds and their enormous nests. The place sounded like what a Jurassic jungle must have been like, with loud screams, cries, grunts, groans, and other weird sounds from the huge birds and their babies assembled in that relatively small place.  All the boulders jutting out of the river were coated in bright white bird dookie, as were the trees. The entire place stank to high heaven of rotting fish. It was a natural marvel of human-Mother Nature coexistence that reflected the incredible environmental diversity and health of the waterway, despite it being surrounded by huge train yards and human communities. This all was also eventually lost to whatever was ailing the river.

In 2011, while kayaking and wading the unnaturally smelly river in Harrisburg, I contracted MRSA in a tiny scratch on my leg, and then spent four days on a drip IV in a hospital, successfully avoiding the loss of my leg. The river was deader than a doornail and I almost joined it.

Last week two of us took a nice long canoe trip down river, my first in years, to see how the river has changed. We see a few bass fishermen now, local catfish guides brag about sixty-pounders, and walleye boats are out every day. Something in the river must be improved. It seems to be healing, but it is nowhere near where it was twenty years ago. I know that the West Branch of the Susquehanna is greatly improved from twenty years ago, when acid mine drainage turned its waters an unnatural turquoise blue. Now those old mines are washed out by the subterranean springs that first unleashed the mines’ acid, and the cold water is now clean and actually improving the West Branch.

Large bass and catfish -a more rugged critter filling the void left by the formerly numerous smallmouth bass- scurried out of our shadow, and as we approached the Harrisburg Archipelago, we began to see Great Egrets wading around the upstream islands. Lots of them. A juvenile bald eagle patrolled above. We paddled around and through the Archipelago and were surrounded by cormorants (a federally protected pest), mallards, wood ducks, turtles, a snake, and lots of nesting Great Egrets.

The dinosaurs were back on the islands and so were my hopes for a comeback by the river. No metaphysical cataclysmic environmental or political catastrophes were required for Mother Nature to bounce back. She always does, and she always will, despite what the Al Gore type fakirs predict.

The Rockville Bridge is the longest stone arch bridge still in use in the world. I think it is longer than the Glenfinnan Viaduct in Fort William, Scotland, which I have ridden over in a train. The Susquehanna River is slowly recovering from the many things that ailed her, and is now a delight to experience.

 

Should you hen call now to gobblers?

Spring turkey season is just a few weeks away, and a TON of spring gobbler (male turkey) hunters are about to pee in their pants right now, with increasing anticipation and excitement, every time they think about being out in the woods and tangling with a long beard Tom.

In Pennsylvania, any wild turkey that has a beard of any length is a legal bird to take in the month of May. The way we hunt them here is the hunter takes up a stationary position and calls, in order to lure the mate-seeking Tom turkey into shotgun or bow range. Using hand-held tail fans and stalking birds is illegal in Pennsylvania, because we have a ton of hunters and these two methods – hiding behind a turkey tail fan and trying to sneak up on gobbling birds – is a sure fire way to end up wounded or dead. Better to err on the side of safety, and so we hunt from stationary places, either on our butts up against a tree or from inside a man-made blind.

Because of the growing excited anticipation and the desire to locate wary gobblers before the season starts, some guys, and yes, it’s always guys because women are too smart and too mature to behave this way, will go out into the woods or even drive up and down roads, calling out the window(s) of their vehicles. They are trying to get the gobblers to gobble back at them.

Why do they spend their time this way? The official reason is they are verrrry professional hunters trying to locate their quarry ahead of time, so they can be the first to hang their harvest tag on one. Because hunting is competitive, ya know… (and not fun).

The real reasons guys behave like this are [WARNING – Adult themes ahead] a) guys of all ages and incomes are easily capable of becoming temporary morons for the flimsiest reasons, and for some reason hunting and fishing seem to teem with these flimsy reasons, and b) guys like easy stimulation.

To wit, older people might remember the drive-in theaters that once littered the countryside of Pennsylvania, and how in the 1970s and 1980s in addition to showing family classics like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, they also broadcast fully XXX-rated hardcore porn (often mockingly named after legit movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…use your imagination here) on their gigantic screens for the entire township to see every weekend night. Sure, if you paid to enter the parking lot you got the best view of the giant drive-in movie screen. But if you were cheap, broke, especially rambunctious with your girlfriend, or usually just lonely, some guys would find parking spots outside of the drive-in perimeter where they could watch the no-no movies and ummmmm…pleasure themselves.

And this is exactly what is going on with guys calling to gobblers pre-season, particularly from their vehicles on public roads. Guys will drive by private land that has a field or two, or a good wood lot that can hold a Tom turkey, slow down, lean out their vehicle window, and start cackling or cutting hen sounds to try to elicit a mating response from a nearby gobbler. And when the gobbler responds they get into a sexually frenzied calling match that leaves both human and bird exhausted and confused, with nothing to show for it.

Don’t do it. It is embarrassing for the human, and worse, it makes the turkeys call-shy, which hurts all hunters. Because the more that gobbler hears and responds to hens that never materialize, or who are not there when he suddenly shows up to mate with them, the less inclined he is to believe subsequent calls when the season is actually in. The more wary he is likely to be, the less likely he is to come in to your calls.

Yeah, we know, you need some action now. Need to get your cheap jollies. Deer season ended in January and you’ve just been dyin‘ for something to happen ever since. Trout season doesn’t do it for you, and besides, you just get such a silly thrill when you hear those birds hammer back at your calls from the road. And that is the portrait of a guy, right there, in all of his pathetic weakness. Kind of like a gullible young Tom that runs right into gun range of a bad turkey caller.

On the other hand, women hunters are the stronger of our species. They are spending their time peeling potatoes, dicing carrots, mincing onions, and choosing white wine for their roast wild turkey they are going to harvest and cook. Because when the season finally opens, and women hunters step into the field to begin calling to gobblers, they will not be calling to birds they have foolishly turned call-shy ahead of time, and they will probably fill their tags right away.

How’s Your Turkey Season Going? Yeah, Me Neither

Highly successful turkey hunters are as rare as hen turkey teeth, and they will earnestly tell anyone in earshot that it is a pursuit only for the crazy. Spring gobbler hunting is tough, for so many reasons. Very tough. The weather is often cold as hell in the dark pre-dawn, you must sit unmoving for hours, call perfectly, but then move very slowly and correctly only at the precise moment when the shot is offered, and then eventually the temperature warms up and the swarming bugs come out, ticks crawl up your butt crack and into your armpits, etc.

The wild turkey itself is a fickle and troublesome quarry with the tolerance for anything being even slightly out of sort measured by the millisecond, etc. Wild turkeys can go from standing still to 50 miles per hour in about a second-and-a-half. So when they detect something wrong with the set-up into which they have been lured by the hunter’s calling, they can get out of Dodge with amazing speed. They are also incredibly tough and can withstand tremendous punishment before actually giving up the ghost. Even when they are shot fatally, a wild turkey can run or fly out of reach of the hunter.

So turkey hunting is an almost guaranteed skunk right off the bat, with success rates in Pennsylvania just above zero percent. To really effectively hunt wild turkeys in most places, and especially in Pennsylvania where hunting competition is thick and fierce, a person must have the patience of Job, the grit of Rooster Cogburn, and the faith of Moses. Not to mention the time needed to finally orchestrate the one brief moment where all these qualities briefly line up with your shotgun barrel that is itself lined up on a turkey’s neck about thirty yards distant.

Because spring turkey hunting is more than a fad, something slightly less than a religion, and has the word “pursuit” in virtually all of the turkey hunting gear companies gear descriptions, I thought I would share with the three readers of this website my own recent turkey hunting experience. It was almost like a bad dream.

It started with me falling asleep in the blind I set up on the southern side of the ravine, through which Sheep Hollow runs. My two hen decoys were 30 and 40 yards distant, on the other side of Sheep Hollow, stuck into old stumps for extra elevation and visibility. I use a slate call, and am good enough to call in some turkeys who die at 40-45 yards out with the most skeptical looks on their faces. Turkey hunting is nothing if it isn’t an excuse to get some shuteye in some really uncomfortable surroundings, surrounded by annoying insects, with hidden tree roots exploring the hidden recesses of one’s posterior and lower back. It’s great!

So there I was, head lolling around like a Hershey Park kiddy ride, chin on my chest, alternately dozing and suddenly jumping awake with a start, wondering if that crunching leaf was a sneaky gobbler (it never is). This happened a dozen times until I fell deeply asleep.

Far into one of my deepest REM sleep modes, an uncommon noise on the far side of Sheep Hollow caught my slumbering hunter-sense, and my head automatically raised up. My eyes slowly opened to slits, to look through the bug netting. Suddenly my neck extended three times its normal length as my head craned to ascertain that in fact a mature gobbler was consorting with the decoys. Like most guys on the make, he was playing both and as yet uncommitted.

Slowly I brought the shotgun barrel from its resting place on my knees to a place where it was resting on the wooden crossbar and burlap, and generally pointing at the gobbler. Then my eyes were focused and working pretty well in concert with my head and hands to align the front barrel bead with the gobbler’s head and neck area. This happened in silent, slow-motion seconds.

But, turkeys being what they are, which is essentially a CIA spy satellite with wings, complete with the latest in high-tech optics and listening capabilities that miss absolutely nothing within a 300-yard radius, the amorous gobbler went from struttin’ his stuff to suddenly looking my way. Then, mimicking my own startled reaction just seconds before, his own head telescoped three times his neck’s normal length as he stared in alarm at the strange object thirty five yards away. His big eyes bulged as he saw through my contrived hiding place and into my very soul.

I fired just as he collapsed his neck in preparation for high-velocity lift-off, and the shot pattern just clipped his neck area. It was not the solid hit it would have been if the dang bird had just stayed focused on the rubber chicken thingies meant to deceive him. So he hit the ground, rolled downhill, and began to thrash wildly in what were either death throes or an intelligent effort to escape. Anyone who has hunted wild turkeys for a while knows this moment: The hunter is either a hero, or is about to behave like the clumsiest brute in the wild woods, because the turkey is either about to die on the spot and be tagged, or it is about to lead the hunter on a merry chase across hill and dell.

The bird opted to turn me into a clumsy brute as it staggered to its feet and began heading down Sheep Hollow in a drunken stagger toward Route 414 and Pine Creek beyond. And so I played my assigned part and I myself staggered out of the blind, swatting burlap out of my way, my legs numb from being asleep for two hours. Partially running, partially bouncing off of trees to steady myself until the blood flowed back into my independent-minded feet, I headed on a downhill sidelong trajectory meant to intercept the wounded animal and quickly bring it into my death embrace.

Almost like a cartoon rendering of a buffoonish hunter after a smarter prey animal, the turkey caught my drift and picked up speed, stumbling and rolling faster down the ravine and closer to the highway. I slid on my ass down a large smooth rock face just as the bird flopped out onto Route 414. From there it was literally all downhill. Instead of some locals driving by in their pickup and jumping out to grab the bird for me, no one happened by and the bird crossed Route 414, bounced off the guard rail, and then pitched down over the tree-studded sheer cliff face to the Pine Creek rail-trail below.

Meanwhile I was still trying to cross Route 414 while pulling clumps of leaves and twigs and other forest floor detritus out of my pants. Upon reaching the guard rail I looked down and saw the turkey laying in the middle of the rail trail. He was not looking real healthy and it was possible he was going to simply peter out there, if left undisturbed for a couple minutes. Then I could tag him and lie about what a perfect shot I had made on him to my friends.

But such are the plans of mice and men, or something like that. Because what is a rail-trail if not a place for humans to ride their bikes? Especially when it is the only brief moment in the year the place must be left undisturbed for just a couple minutes. The rail-trail is not the designated dying area for severely wounded wildlife. And so when the nice lady in her pink Gore-Tex get-up came riding her bicycle along the rail-trail, toward the listless creature, and making a gentle crunching sound in the fine pea gravel that even I could hear a hundred yards out, the bird felt like it was being pursued once again. And it decided that, in fact, rail-trails are not the dignified place to die. So it weakly flopped its way over the rail-trail and down to the edge of Pine Creek.

Meanwhile, I had seen what was coming. Determined not to lose the bird to the rushing water, I sat down and again rode the next steep incline down on my butt, and once again bouncing from tree to tree in an effort to slow down my headlong speed and prevent serious breakage of some part of my body. This stretch of the rail-trail is actually part of our property, and it is also about the most useless part of our tax parcel. Except for now.

Of course I reached the margin of the rail-trail in a dramatic flourish of flying leaves and branches, a mini avalanche of stones and dirt and curses, just as the pretty in pink lady on her bike arrived. The dying turkey heard the commotion and rolled down the stream bank and into the edge of Pine Creek. Now a dead animal at the water’s edge is nothing new and no big deal. But a dead or dying animal out in the current is something else altogether, and so not having time to explain my bizarre appearance to the nice lady, who had come to a stop to either gawk at the camo-clad madman or ask if I needed medical/ mental help, I bolted across the rail-trail and pitched head-first over the stream bank. Launching myself at the turkey, whose carcass lolled gently with the stream current against the bank, my fingers came up just inches short as the rest of my not-insignificant bulk made its crash landing in the rocks and thorns along the stream’s margin.

With its last ounce of dying energy, the turkey rolled itself out into the stream current and immediately began floating away at a rapidly increasing clip. My friend Scott and I had just floated Pine the week before, casting for trout (thank you to the Big Brown Trout Club run out of Wolfe’s General Store at Slate Run for the amazing fish we caught), and the substantial rains over the past few days had turned a high but fishable river into a near-maelstrom with a really fast current. So I crawled on my hands and knees into the water and then rushed toward the disappearing turkey carcass.

Down through the run we went, bird, white caps, and human in pursuit. Under normal conditions, this part is a good fast stretch with trout under the trail-side cut bank and beavers denning on the far side bank. But today, it was practically a white water, with literal white caps from the high speed water slamming into boulders under the surface. Although at one time I had taught lifesaving and certified lifeguards, and I had been as comfortably aquatic as a human can be short of being a trained Navy SEAL, I was quickly beginning to doubt the wisdom of my ways. Pine Creek was at about 48 degrees that day, and despite my ample natural insulation against cold, I was beginning to really feel the chill tug at my willpower to continue. In fact, I was starting to wonder if I was going to drown. Making the situation worse, I passed an otter laying on the edge of the little island we had now reached. Never have I seen more disbelieving eyes in human or beast than the look on that animal’s face as the bedraggled human (me) splashed by.

Comical sounding yes, but at that point I was actually scared that the one minute I had presently spent swim-chasing after the now-dead gobbler was going to be my last on earth. My physical ability was rapidly diminishing. But all good things come to an end, and the powerful run quickly petered out at the end of the island, where Pine becomes a large pool below Miller Run Natural Area. It was here that the high-velocity turkey suddenly became just a piece of random flotsam that I was able to splash my way up to and grab.

With my prize finally in hand and dragging lifelessly in the stream behind me, I sloshed my way to the shore, clambered up the bank, dropped the turkey at my feet, and laid down on some large rip rap boulders. How long I huddled there, soaking wet in the thin sunshine, I don’t know. Probably fifteen minutes had gone by before I had the strength to look around and get up the nerve to collect the bird and head up to the cabin. But my wet camo and death-like stillness had fooled one more animal, the otter I had passed on the way downstream, who came in at a mad dash along the boulders, grabbed the dead turkey, and dove head-long back into the water.

And oddly enough, my only thought was “At least I didn’t fill out the tag yet, and my season is not over, so I get to keep hunting.”

Like I said, spring gobbler hunting is for either the mentally retarded or the crazy. Whichever I may be, go ahead and be the otter. Take your pick. I stopped caring.

 

 

The boys of summer

In 1984, which was the best decade since 1884, Don Henley wrote a fabulous song called “The Boys of Summer.” The song is about teenage and early twenties summertime love, amidst the sunny outdoor environment in which so many American teens ONCE spent their summers, either as lifeguards, or as laborers, learning how to work. Socializing after working hours, the kids would sit around beach campfires showing off their deep tans, their touseled hair, their fit bodies, talking, sharing, competing, loving, opening up, becoming friends.

The song is about how the end of summer is coming, and how it arrives, and the singer just wants the girl to know that he loved her then and will love her again, even after the boys of summer have gone home, back to school.

So evocative is the music and the lyrics of this song, you can play it and immediately bring a room full of fifty-somethings to a standstill, as each person stops mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-action, and immediately drifts back to fond summertime memories from their youth. There they will sit, as if frozen, deep in the best of memories, until the song ends.  Doubt me? Here – listen to this song, and then report back on how the song affected you.

And so it is with me now, as I watch the boys of summer in the mountains, the fields, the back yards. No, these are not human boys. These are bird boys, specifically the male neo-tropical migrants who flew here, to central and northcentral Pennsylvania, from Venezuela, Costa Rica, southern Mexico and Guatemala, southern Florida, and other tropical places.

These migratory tropical birds have been migrating northward since the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. And they probably migrated during the prior ice ages, too, only retreating from the repeated massive ice fields over 100,000 years, and then, as now, following the glacial retreat northward.

Some birds go as far as the Arctic Circle, nesting on cliffs and on tundra, where they compete, entice, mate, lay eggs, and hatch chicks before heading far back south to raise their young chicks into mature members of their own species. While most of this migratory behavior has to do with finding food and comfortable environmental conditions, it is nonetheless a magical time. When you see it, you can feel God’s presence with your eyeballs.

What my own boys of summer song is about, in my head, is how I already miss the springtime displays put on by the male members of these migratory songbirds. They are so impossibly vibrantly colorful, they look like little jewels in flight. Bright reds, yellows, blues, purples, greens, they are most incredible variety of natural creation. Who could create such a beautiful and tiny creature? And why, if not for our own viewing pleasure?

Almost every spring time Saturday will find me sitting on the front porch, bird book and binoculars in hand, a Thermos of coffee to my right, watching the incredible display that happens in swoops, rushes, ground-level and tree-top height courtship displays, and brief landings. One particular morning this spring I was sitting at a second floor window and saw a scarlet tanager, an indigo bunting, and a variety of yellow-to-golden birdies (warblers as well as multiple male goldfinches in one small space) all in the same immediate area. It was a huge visual delight. Magic, really.

And so as summer settled in, these colorful animals retreated to their own hidden responsibilities of feeding the chicks they had hatched, teaching them to fly and to eat, and then perhaps having another clutch or two. Depending upon how many of the first clutch were eaten by bluejays and crows.

I miss the spring time display of these songbirds, mostly the more-colorful males. A scarlet tanager or Baltimore oriole in a tree top is reminder of how beautiful the world really is, even though bad people in our cities have managed to make it as ugly as sin.

I miss my boys of summer.

Oriole by thebernebirdnerd

scarlet tanager

yellow warbler, wikipedia

goldfinch by Sarah Lynn

indigo bunting, wikimedia commons

Has anyone considered unplugging Spring and plugging it back in to see if it will work right?

Not my creative headline, unfortunately, but a good one nonetheless, and well put in terms of how odd this Spring has been.

Except that this Spring has not been odd, if my memory serves me right. Not in the context of Spring happening over millennia and even over decades. Spring used to be a lot like the on-again-off-again odd weather we have experienced the past month.

When I was a kid, lo these many decades ago, Spring was a process. It was not a moment in time.

Spring took time to become Spring. It was the spaced-out staging of leaves and buds emerging, green poking up through the soil a bit at a time.

“April showers bring May flowers” went the old adage. Meaning that as a precursor to the warm weather with flowers was a sustained period of rain and cool or cold weather. That was Spring, spanning cold, rain, cold rain, and the gradual emergence of green things and then the crowning sign – flowers!

Showers, heck, I recall a snow blizzard in early April as I was casting a small dry fly on the lower reaches of Big Fishing Creek in Clinton County, near the Lamar trout hatchery. In my early twenties, in fact I might have been just twenty years old, I was stubbornly casting to “rising” trout despite a white-out snow storm blanketing the air and the stream’s surface with big white snowflakes. That a trout could tell the difference between a huge plump snowflake and a measly morsel of a vague-looking aquatic insect landing briefly on the surface was a leap of faith I was fully committed to taking, and making with every cast.

My youth’s crowning moment arrived when a much older man, probably someone my age now, stopped to watch me casting the dry fly amidst the snow storm.

“Pretty ambitious, dontcha think?,” he humorously called out from up above.

And right then a big fish whacked my drifting fly, and I hauled in one of the most colorful symbols of Spring, an iridescent rainbow trout. The guy looked at me slack-jawed, eyes wide in amazement, like I was some kind of fishing genius, and I looked up at the snowing heavens and mouthed a “Thank You.” One of the more memorable fish and fishing moments in a lifetime of fishing.

That day the air temperature was still spring-like, but the obvious above-ground temperatures were cold enough to generate snow. It was a  classic symbol of the kind of gradual and slowly shifting, two steps forward one step back warming change that Spring used to be.

But that was thirty, forty years ago. A different world, a different climate.

Apparently the earth’s switching magnetic polarity is now playing a big role in the Winter-to-Summer “Spring” times we have experienced for a long time now. This switch happens naturally every 200,000 to 300,000 years.

Because the earth’s polarity is switching, which means the North Pole becoming the South Pole and vice-versa (but what we arbitrarily call North and South remain the same) the earth’s magnetic field-cum-shield is at its weakest. Earth’s magnetic shield is at its weakest because the poles are swapping positions and the magnetic field strung up between the two poles is stretched to its thinnest. The earth’s magnetic field-cum-shield is one of the reasons our planet has so much life on it; a great deal of harmful cosmic rays and powerful solar ultraviolet (UV) light are caught in the magnetic “net” and they are blocked from reaching the earth’s surface.

Therefore, a lot more solar radiation has penetrated to the earth’s surface over the past few decades, with the kinds of unusual heat, warming, and strong winds that we have witnessed. As well as a lot more quick sunburns under what appear to be pretty normal sunny conditions. The sun is not necessarily stronger, but a lot more of its energy is reaching us. For now.

And that takes me back to that unplugging Spring. For about 35 years Spring has been kind of unplugged, in a way, and it will remain so for about another decade, until the polar switch is complete. And then these gradual Springtimes, like the one we just had, will become normal again.

I can’t wait for that to happen, because I enjoy a real Spring so very much, the change from one season to the next. Normally temperate climes like Pennsylvania appeal to me for that very reason.

Everything hinges on the nickel-iron core inside the earth. And we won’t be unplugging THAT any time soon.

Turkey Time

And now it is officially Turkey Time, the beginning of the Pennsylvania spring gobbler season.

A gobbler is a turkey that gobbles, which is nearly always a bearded male. Sorry, there are few transgendered turkeys in the wild, and those rare females (hens) who do grow a beard are just as much a target as the males. No artificial PC protections here!

Spring gobbler hunting is one of the lowest pay-off hunts possible, in terms of harvested birds, with success rates somewhere in the high single digits to low double digits. That’s a range of 9-15% success, which means about 85% to 91% of turkey hunters will hang up their shotgun and camo at the end of May without having put a harvest tag on a bird.

Not that hunters won’t shoot turkeys, oh occasionally they will. The question is whether or not the turkey knows it has been shot and decides to die in a place where the hunter can bring it to hand. Wild turkeys are exceptionally tough creatures, and with their tiny pea-sized brains, they can be difficult to actually kill, though shot. A friend of mine “rolled” a turkey at 6:10 am Saturday morning, two days ago, watching it fall over, flop around, and then suddenly stand up, run away, and then fly away. Long gone. It has happened to me, too.

When that happens, the hunter feels awful, for the bird, for himself, for his sense of capability. But like a coyote getting a mouthful of feathers after carefully stalking and ambushing a wild turkey, occasionally we human hunters get just a moment of opportunity and then blow it, too, as all predators must.

Turkey hunting is tough and low-yield not just because the birds are physically tough and can withstand being shot, but mostly because they make up for their low intelligence with a warp-speed sense of wariness.

Turkeys can see through concrete, my old friend John Plowman said.

While that statement is obviously untrue, it is a truism that experienced turkey hunters agree with. Somehow, wild turkeys possess eyesight and hearing so acute that it seems like X-Ray vision and NSA- quality listening capabilities. They bust hunters at every turn, at far distances, even when the hunter has done everything right: Concealment, calling, gun preparation, etc.  So even the best turkey hunters, who are seemingly magical beings themselves, because their understanding of turkey biology and habits is so good, can get skunked or go a long time before harvesting a bird.

Of course, it must be said the real harvest from turkey hunting is not tagging a bird. Rather, it is the time afield. Time watching the sunrise, listening to the sounds of the forest and field slowly awaken, listen to the sounds of people moving from sleep into active, and so on. And Spring time is a great time to watch the natural world’s most subtle beauties, accomplished by either time lapse photography or by sitting motionless up against a large oak tree for several hours, and taking note of rare wildflowers slowly emerging from under leaf litter, or watching a walking stick bug moving at a snail’s pace along a blueberry bush.

In the frenetic hustle and bustle of today’s American life, we typically rely on naturalists and professional photographers to capture these moments for us.

Turkey hunters go afield at 4:30 am, and discover these hidden other worlds ourselves.

Turtle Time

It is officially turtle time.

Every spring turtles of all types emerge from their muddy hideaways, under stream banks, under logs, or burrowed deep into the soft dirt on the side of a farm field.

Turtles are gentle creatures, hurting no one, and yet when they make themselves vulnerable by appearing on the sides of roads, or trying to cross roads, many drivers go out of their way to hit them. Seems obvious to say, a turtle hit by a vehicle will either die a long, lingering, painful death, or if they are small, they will be crushed outright.

What the hell is that about, anyway?

Seeing these sad, destroyed, dead little things strewn about on the roadsides is painful. Turtles really bother no one, and they should elicit human compassion and empathy for their slow but intense drive to find a safe and soft place to dig a hole and lay their eggs. It is not their fault that humans have built uncrossable roads with no wildlife tunnels, or that some humans delight in maiming little animals.

Please slow down along Front Street in Susquehanna Township and entering into Harrisburg, and give the turtles there a break. After millions of years of moving slowly, purposefully, and deliberately, they have earned it.

Magic is in the air, and so is Spring

Today may be the first day of Spring, but you’d never know it, with all the snow that fell last night and today.  Despite freezing temperatures all over the east, however, there is magic in the air.  And it carries Spring on its wings.  We can take heart.  Nicer weather is indeed here.

Last night I stood way up north on a mountain side, surrounded by a silent, black, and deeply starry sky.  Suddenly faint and quiet song and voices reached my ears.  What started out as human sounds that put me on guard then became the distinctly identifiable gabble of migrating geese, high above, flying northward.

Magically migrating geese, ducks, raptors, and songbirds passing through our neighborhoods and yards tell us that Spring is here, even if our eyes and heating bills indicate otherwise. Migration is a mysterious thing.  Some of it is now understood by scientists, and appreciated by novice naturalists, but much of it remains shrouded in utter mystery.  How did these birds develop this pattern?  Was it after the last Ice Age, ten thousand years ago, or was it after the previous Ice Age, 20,000 years ago?  And if it was after the first one, how did they hold onto their knowledge of where and when to fly, when they spent so much time not flying at Spring time?

Migrating birds have a very thin margin for error.  Go too far, too fast, and they run the risk of freezing to death, or starving, having burned too many precious calories to reach their Canadian and Arctic breeding grounds so far northward.  If they are too slow, they will reach their destinations with too little time to raise their chicks to a size sufficient to survive the trek south again, when the winds get heavy on the border lands just a few months from now.

Yesterday, hundreds of geese and ducks shared the quieter eddies of the Susquehanna River in Liverpool.

Today, all around the borough of Dauphin, migrating black-headed vultures took up roosting positions like hunch-shouldered sentinels of death, harbingers of gloom and dead carrion, on trees, car tops, house roofs, power poles, and street lamps.  This particular species of vulture is increasingly migrating into Pennsylvania in bigger numbers, and out-competing our more common (and “more” native) red-headed turkey vulture.

All of this magic is, to me, a sign of a the finger of God, with non-believers remaining perplexed, themselves, unable to draw upon human science alone to explain what is happening all around us.  Surely my distant skin-clad ancestors stood upon a receding ice sheet somewhere, spear in hand, eyes skyward, hearts leaping for joy, as they, too, knew that this magic presaged abundant food, rebirth, new life, a new beginning for all.

Don’t take this magic for granted.  Close your eyes at night and listen to the cries of the goose-honk music.  Be part of this ancient cycle, if only by letting your heart be lifted with those of the excited geese, at the knowledge of the coming of Spring.

Warmer weather can’t come too soon

What began as a happy trip to the wood shed for a load of seasoned oak in the Fall is now a crabby trudge through deep snow and ice, a drudgery opposite the cheerfulness felt with the first flames to beat back Winter’s early chill.

Spring warmth cannot come too soon.  Naturally, it will arrive, melt the Arctic snow cap occupying my lawn, and probably result in some Biblical flood carrying my home down river to the Chesapeake Bay.

Speaking of floods, and flood insurance, I am hopeful that the insane congresswoman Maxcine Waters will have her bizarre legislation permanently overturned, so that people can either afford to own their homes (something she is not familiar with or supportive of) or the Federal government will buy out the landowners so the societal costs and benefits are not concentrated on just the private property owners.  Government cannot change the social contract in one week.  Well, under liberals it can, of course.  Let’s rephrase that: Government should not restructure the social contract in such a short time that private property owners see their investments destroyed overnight.  That would be good government, something unknown to Maxcine Waters and her fellow liberals.

OK, belay that last “let it snow”

Like you and most everyone I know around Pennsylvania, I feel done with the snow. Yes, did I say “let it snow” a bunch yesterday?  Well, that was then and this is now.  Now, we are expecting another eight to twelve inches of snow in the next day.  On top of the six to eight inches of hardened crust, ice, and snow already on the ground, another foot is going to keep spring from arriving for a long time.

This much snow puts a stranglehold on our business operations.  Shuts down machinery.  Trucks cannot pick up, guys cannot cut, or even drive their trucks, let alone get their machines moving.

What really is telling about this cold is that at home, we have burned a solid three-plus cords of seasoned oak firewood.  We may be closing in on four burned to date.  We have enough to take us into the end of the longest cold winter, but that just means more work felling, cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking. You know the old saw — “Firewood warms ya twice.”  You work hard making it, and then it warms you as a fire.  Indeed.

Hold on there, fellow Pennsylvanians.  Spring must be just around the corner.  Just a few weeks from now, the air should be in the mid-forties, smelling slightly earthy and damp, and a robin here and there will join the cardinal in the back yard.  Then you know relief is upon us.  Hold on.  You are in good company.