Snow day good for reflection

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com 

There’s something magical about a snow day even when you haven’t had to go to school for more than 30 years.

It’s like bonus time — unplanned hours. Time to decorate the tree and order those last-minute gifts. It also gives us the outdoors reborn with a fresh coat of beauty.

The office for my day job shut down because of Thursday’s snow. I would have made it in OK, but eight hours of heavy snowfall and gusty winds would have kept me from getting back up the steep driveway that takes us up on the sandhill we call home.

I’ll take some of the bonus time to look back on random events from the year in nature.

•  Wisconsin has 110 fewer wolves after the first hunt since reintroduction. Hunting wolves was always going to be a reality to stay within the goals set by some real smart guys at the DNR. My objection is that more than half of the “harvested” wolves had to endure leg-hold traps before being dispatched.

•  We have one more eagle than we might have. When an adult bald eagle flew into the grille of Brian Baker’s pickup truck as he traveled down State 10 in Weyauwega last June, it seemed the bird had no chance. Baker called the sheriff’s department, which called DNR warden Ted Dremel, who gingerly pulled the eagle’s head from the plastic shards of the grille. New London bird rehabber Pat Fisher and vet Jim Ziegler nursed the eagle back to health and, a month later, I was able to watch it leave Ziegler’s gloved hands and fly back into nature. The story was picked up by CNN and a picture Baker snapped with his phone made the DNR’s top 10 list of wildlife photos for the year.

Expert says crane hunt inevitable

By David Horst sandhill7@gmail.com

The offer was more than I could refuse. Sit on the bank of the Wisconsin River on pioneering environmentalist Aldo Leopold’s former farmstead, watching thousands of sandhill cranes with an international expert on the big birds.

The evening, and the conversation, didn’t go as expected.

Stan Temple         Aldo Leopold Foundation photo

The program was offered by the Aldo Leopold Foundation, located between Portage and Baraboo. The expert is Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin professor of wildlife ecology. He has helped in the recovery of many bird species, including the sandhill, peregrine falcon and California condor.

It was a great opportunity to talk with a man who held the same seat the great Leopold had 80 years earlier. I asked him how cool that was. Temple said it was so intimidating that he didn’t mention it much when he had the job. Now that he has retired, he uses it for instant woods-cred.

He also rubbed elbows with “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson as a boy working at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He remembered being thrilled by getting a set of birding binoculars that were the same model Carson used.

Unfortunately, there was little to interrupt the conversation, especially cranes. It was Sandy’s fault. Winds from the hurricane made the bend in the river where the observation blind is located inhospitable for cranes. Complicating things further, an imposing adult bald eagle was perched above the cranes’ usual evening hangout. First time I ever regretted seeing an eagle.

Paddle locks up season three

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

See photos on Flickr

Check on plans for Fox-WIsconsin Heritage Paddle 2013 at www.wisconsinpaddlers.org

Season three of the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle ended last Saturday (Sept. 29) on about the most perfect day you could order up.

With the temperature in the low 70s and the wind just a whisper, kayak and canoe paddlers launched from Lutz Park, passed through all four Appleton locks and landed 6.5 miles later at Kimberly's Sunset Point Park.

I was the member of the Heritage Paddle organizing committee who questioned whether the locks paddle had run its course. People may be thinking, been there, done that. Cars with boats strapped to their roofs started arriving early, and kept coming. In the end, 147 boats took to the Fox River. So much for me having my finger on the pulse of the paddling community.

The perfect weather had drawn them all out. The woman with the pristine wooden boat. The two boys with matching recreational boats. The guy paddling his young daughter and her two stuffed dogs. They all paddled with a smile.

De Pere trip leaves paddlers winded

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

The 78 boats easily fit in the De Pere Lock.

GREEN BAY -- The scouting report was not good. Two-foot waves rolling off Green Bay driven by a forecasted 20 mph headwind out of the north.

Our plan was to launch the 78 kayaks and canoes that had arrived at De Pere’s Bomier Park and travel eight miles down the Fox River to the Green Bay Metro boat landing, paddling into the wind and waves with paddlers having varying levels of experience ... in the dark.

This was the Moonlight Paddle of the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle series on Aug. 10, and the plan had to change.

Before launch, we made the decision to cut off the final three miles, where we would be paddling into the worst of the wind. Only the most experienced kayakers bristled at the compromise.

We would take out instead at Zeller’s Ski and Sports, a paddle shop about five miles down river where several of us had purchased our boats. The owners welcomed us. The parking was sufficient. All that remained was to reschedule the shuttle bus from the Green Bay landing to Zeller’s.

That recalled to mind the one item on my to-do list left unchecked: “Get contact info for shuttle.”

The arrangements had been made by Jeff Mazanec, whose brainchild this whole paddle series had been. He was driving back from a business trip. I punched his number on the cell phone and asked him if he had the number for the bus company in his phone. He wasn’t sure, and there was a traffic situation up ahead so he’d have to call me back.

He was laughing when the return call came in. Out of the traffic jam outside of Kenosha, a bus changed lanes ahead of him. Painted on the rear of the bus was, “Go Lamers,” with the 800 number. The Green Bay-based bus company was providing our shuttle. A call to the dispatcher solved our problem.

But the bigger problem was yet to come.