My First Celebrity Raptor Show

This is not a post about anything in the natural world.  This is a post about how truly random my life can be sometimes.

This weekend, acclaimed Minnesota rapper/spoken-word-artist Dessa played a show at Lutsen, the ski resort about 30 minutes north of me.  Max, fellow naturalist and fan of good music, randomly decided to invite her and her crew to Wolf Ridge on their way up to "meet a hawk, falcon, and owl."  They randomly agreed and next thing I knew, I was asked to do a mini raptor show for a famous singer, her two band-mates, and their significant others.

I had never heard of Dessa before this, and didn't really realize how big of a deal she was until about an hour before the show, when I mentioned to Betsey, our scheduling extraordinaire, that Dessa was on her way to meet the raptors, and she responded with "....DESSA?!!...............DESSA?!!!"  and proceeded to be unable to say any other words for about three minutes.

This super-emo picture of Ruby and me showed up on Dessa's twitter the next day.

So they came and we chatted and I introduced them to the raptors and I found these people to be a lot of fun.  Dessa asked me some of the most intelligent questions I've ever gotten from people (using big words like "taxonomically") and her bass player was legitimately (?) scared of the birds.  Dessa joked about how she will be incorporating words like "baiting", "muting", and "bumblefoot" into her next rap (all nerdy, captive raptor handler terms).  She and her bandmates were humble, gracious, and clearly appreciated the opportunity to meet these birds.  Plus I got a free autographed CD out of the deal and Dessa put all of us on the "guest list" for the show that night.

Dessa meets Hunter.

Which meant that when we arrived at Lutsen, we got to say "we're on the guest list" and they let us in for free (ignoring the minor technicality that we'd already pre-purchased our tickets).  As we entered the restaurant where the show was taking place, Dessa came up and gave us all a big hug, greeting us like old friends.  I like to think that lots of fans saw this take place and were super jealous.  I kind of felt a little bit famous that night.

Yup.  We're friends with a famous singer.  It's cool.

The show was a lot of fun.  Rap isn't my genre of choice, but I found her music to be both thoughtful and incredibly catchy.  This year, I've gotten a number of opportunities to see some of the best music Minnesota has to offer: Trampled by Turtles in November, Cloud Cult in December and Dessa.  I recommend them all.

And that's the story of how I showed our raptors to a famous singer and then got celebrity treatment for the rest of the day.

Snowshoeing to Superior

Last weekend, we decided to take advantage of our beautiful, winter wonderland (which has since been destroyed by freezing rain courtesy of 21st century, climate-changed induced weather patterns!!) and go for an early morning snowshoeing adventure.  Wolf Ridge is about four miles inland from Lake Superior, and portions of the 275-mile Superior Hiking Trail go through our site.  I've never personally hiked from Wolf Ridge to the waterfront - this seemed like a great chance to do that.

The Superior Hiking Trail: great for hiking in the summer and showshoeing in the winter.

Snowshoes are kind of a culturally significant mode of transportation in our region because of their heavy usage by the Ojibwe.  Snowshoes, as it turns out, were invented simultaneously be many different ancient cultures that had to deal with walking around in the deep snow.  The basic principal behind snowshoes it that they increase the surface area of your foot so your body weight is being spread out, thus causing you not to sink as deeply into the snow when walking.  When I take students snowshoeing, they are often disappointed to discover that you do still sink into the snow.  However, when I have them walk around with one snowshoe on and one off, they can observe the big difference the snowshoes actually make.

It's hard work, though.  For our hike, we spent about three hours on snowshoes, and that alone took us over two hours.  We started by crossing Wolf Lake, the ice of which is past twelve inches thick by now.  (I had some students out on Wolf Lake this week and we got to listen to the booming of the ice, one of my favorite winter sounds).  Snowshoes slow you down, and your movements have to be much more deliberate.  Sometimes, as I watch a large group of people snowshoe across an open area, like Wolf Lake, I amuse myself by imagining that I'm observing a zombie attack.

Naturalists snowshoeing across Wolf Lake.

We use pretty modern snowshoes, made of metal and plastic.  Over the years, many different styles of snowshoes have been utilized and designed.  The Ojibwe used wood from black ash trees because of its general flexibility.  The wood was easily bent into the snowshoe-shape.  The webbing is made from woven moose rawhide, which is quite flexible before dried.  The presences of holes in snowshoes is important, as it allows snow to fall through the shoe.

A pair of Ojibwe-style snowshoes (image from: www.canadianoutdoorequipment.com)

After bushwhacking through a couple of cedar groves, we reached the Superior Hiking Trail overlook, a destination we often take students in snowshoeing classes.  From here, we can enjoy a great view of Lake Superior, pointing out the Apostle Islands on the other side of the lake and Palisade Head to the south.  At this point, we were exploring new territory for me, following the trail to the south.  It was a good hike, with a couple of incredibly steep climbs (this is part of section 13 of the SHT, which is known for its steep bluffs).  It was a relatively quiet morning as far as wildlife sightings, but we walked through some beautiful patches of cedar, aspen, and birch trees.

Enjoying the Superior Overlook.

Eventually, we reached highway 1, at which point we removed our snowshoes and walked the remaining mile along the road.  It was a steep final descent to Crystal Cove, the secluded Lake Superior beach-front at the intersection of Highways 1 and 61.  This was my first time to Crystal Cove in the winter, and it was pretty cool to see the snow and the waves coming together.  We made a small fire and enjoyed a snack.

Crystal Cove on a cloudy, winter day.

How we managed to get ten naturalists, their bags and snowshoes back home in a single vehicle is a whole other story.

Chihuly Glass at the Dallas Arboretum

Over Christmas break, I got the chance to see a really cool art display.  Dale Chihuly makes some incredible glass structures.  I was first exposed to his art in seventh grade when we went on a day-long field trip to see his glass at the Milwaukee art museum.  A couple weeks ago, I went with some of my family to the Dallas Arboretum, which temporarily had tons of Chihuly glass interspersed throughout the park.  I was pretty impressed - I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the bizarre, abstract art intermixed with the usual trees and plants and things.

Here are some of my favorite photos from our morning:

I also got a chance to see a number of Texas birds I'd never seen before, including this tufted titmouse:

Christmas Bird Count

The tall pines of Isabella, MN, make for a perfect winter wonderland landscape.

This past week, my return to the North Woods of Minnesota has been full of winter fun.  The snow came down non-stop for three days, creating plentiful opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, boot hockey, and really terrible driving conditions.  On the 30th of December, I got to participate in a winter tradition that stretches way beyond the North Woods, or even Minnesota - the annual Christmas bird count.

At 9:00AM, I gathered with ten other birders in a small café in Isabella, MN, about twenty minutes inland from Finland.  There were ten teams total, comprising about 40 birders.  Together, our job was to survey a circle (15-mile diameter) around the Isabella township for all the birds we could see.  Each team was assigned a section of the circle, our team responsible for the eastern quarter.  This year, over 2,000 circles across the United States and Canada were or will be surveyed between December 14 and January 5.  The Christmas Bird Count is a citizen science survey, in that anyone who wants to volunteer can participate and gather data.  While the surveying techniques are not scientifically fool-proof, the data gathered from this survey for the last 113 years have been invaluable in a number of areas of ornithological research, especially conservation.

After assigning our areas to survey, I joined MJ (fellow Wolf Ridge second-year naturalist), Jenna (WR first-year naturalist), Carrie (WR staff member and marketing extraordinaire), and Margie (former WR naturalist and bird banding mentor) as we drove to a couple of different trails in our zone.  The morning mostly consisted of birding on foot as we hiked different areas, stopping frequently to look for movement and listen for bird sounds.  The trails we hiked were unbelievably quiet and still.  While hiking, we only spotted two downy woodpeckers all morning.  However, while driving back for our lunch break, we stopped and saw seven black-capped chickadees, two red-breasted nuthatches, two more downy woodpeckers, and a red crossbill (a new bird for me!) perched on top of a spruce tree, calling loudly.

Winter birding.

The downy woodpeckers were particularly exciting for us to spot because of some additional research that was taking place.  Some researchers are looking to learn more about what species of trees downy woodpeckers tend to feed on.  So when we spotted a downy woodpecker, we not only recorded the sighting, but also what species of tree it was perched on if displaying feeding behavior (hopping around, pecking at the tree, etc.)  For the record, we saw two feeding on birch trees, and two on dead aspen trees.

A somewhat blurry downy woodpecker feeding on a birch tree.

In the afternoon, I got to strap on some cross-country skis for the first time this winter and Carrie and I surveyed a trail that would have been otherwise inaccessible.  It was awesome to be back on skis and, even though the trail was not groomed for XC skis, a number of snow-mobiles had thoughtfully packed the snow down for us.  Again, a fairly still afternoon - one black-capped chickadee and three red-breasted nuthatches added to our list.  Nonetheless, it was a beautiful area to ski in especially as the sun started to set and the light hit the snow on the trees.

"Almost looks like a Dr. Seuss book." -Carrie Anderson

We spent the last hour car birding along some of the roads that we hadn't covered yet.  As night set in, we got to add two more birds to our list - two ruffed grouses perched high up in trees, silhouetted against the darkening sky.  At the end of the day, all of the Isabella birders gathered for lasagna and the sharing of our data.  In total 865 birds from 20 different species were counted, which is slightly lower than average for the Isabella area bird count.  Nonetheless, it was a great day of birding and enjoying the beautiful landscape created by the snowfall - the North Woods of Minnesota at its finest.

A ruffed grouse perched in the top of a tree at the end of the day.