Cranes, wolves and paddling

By David Horst   sandhill7@gmail.com

Here's a look at this and that while we wait to see if spring plans to stay for a few days.

April 13
I stood out in the driving snow pre-sunrise to take part in the annual International Crane Foundation Crane Count. Punctuating the prehistoric cackle of the sandhills was the occasional disquieting crack of ice falling from tree limbs after the ice storm that entombed tree branches like I have never seen before.

My count for the day was 27 sandhills -- seven on the ground and 20 flying over.

More noteable was
the large number of robins on the ground. They were everywhere in the farm field where I count. Mosquito Hill naturalist Jess Miller explained they couldn't perch in the trees because of the ice.

My amazement has not diminished at how sandhill cranes are in nearly ever field you pass, even in pretty urban areas. How can so many of these large birds be living among us? I guess we just aren't as urban as we think.

April 22
I had the pleasure of having dinner with author Richard Louv during his visit here for the Fox Cities Book Festival. Louv is the author of "Last Child in the Woods" and "The Nature Principle." He coined the term "nature deficit disorder" to describe the rising incidence of child ailments -- behavioral and otherwise -- that can be improved demonstrably with more exposure to nature.

Eight of us talked about local nature activities, Louv's work and education. We spent a lot of time on Wisconsin's wolf population and the controversial hunt. Mostly I listened to local wolf expert Cindy Mueller, a naturalist at High Cliff State Park.

We clued Louv in about Mueller's ability to call wolves and encouraged him to have her demonstrate at his Appleton Public Library appearance to follow dinner, which he did. I went wolf howling with Cindy several years ago -- successfully.

Louv started the wolf talk during his appearance at the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley earlier. He told of hiking in Canada and coming upon a pile of wolf scat. Louv excitedly pulled out his phone, photographed it and emailed his excrement art to his wife and some friends.

At that point in the conversation, Mueller pulled out her phone and punched up a picture of a larger pile of wolf scat. Not often will you find 25 percent of the people at a restaurant table packing images of lupus poopus,

I learned Louv, a former daily newspaper guy, as I am, graduated from Kansas University in Lawrence, KS, where I spent a couple of years in my second newspaper job at the not-so-humbly named Journal-World newspaper.

Louv was most passionate in talking about education, how the business-world model of measuring every outcome has caused standardized testing to squeeze teaching time out of the school day. For him, among the greatest losses are field trips and walks around the neighborhood to get kids in touch with nature. It is both educational and healing, as his books document.

May 4
I finally have kicked off the paddling season.

Some of my compatriots in planning the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle series and I have ventured onto the Wolf River to view the returning birds and paddle with the sturgeon.

We launched from the Koepke Landing above Shiocton for an easy two-hour paddle to Barker Park. But a funny thing happened on the way to Bamboo Bend.

The Wolf is way over its banks so we were playing around, paddling among the trees that usually would be on shore.

There are a lot of little channels on that stretch of the Wolf. I knew something was amiss when I came out of the woods and realized I was paddling upstream. We glided through marshy grass and stands of trees in what clearly was a big circle before finding the main channel and three of our paddling companions who had started ahead of us.

We intentionally paddled upstream for a little detour up the Shioc River, up to an old stone bridge that's no longer attached to a road. With the water this high, we had to lean back flat on our decks to get under the Bridge's graceful stone arches.

Three and a half hours after launching, we reached Barker Park. We had seen only a couple sturgeon glide past, but it was — as it always is — a fine day on the water.

Daily
Many have asked. The new dog, Russell, is doing well. Speculation continues on his mix of breeds. He is an uncommonly well-behaved dog. That’s a good thing, but we can’t help but miss the wild spirit of Houdini.