Tropica Botanica

Houseplants grow here
Unexpectedly.
We feel a bit deflated,
Having thought our apartment
Was their natural habitat.
Waterfalls,
Not watering cans,
And squalls,
Not spritzers,
Are what the foliage needs.
Now,
We are in their element,
Their apartment,
And imagine them whispering:
Is this their natural habitat?

Eric R. Eaton, circa 1989

Image of Monstera Plants at Rainbow Falls, Wailuku River State Park, Island of Hawaii, by Jeff Gnass and featured in the Wilderness 1989 Sierra Club Engagement Calendar. It inspired the poem.

Bear Creek Park

The El Paso County Parks in Colorado are a real treasure. Among the most used is Bear Creek Park on the western edge of Colorado Springs, abutting the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The park is laced with trails, which actually makes it somewhat difficult to navigate, but the views alone are worth the trouble.

Signs with maps are present at each major intersection of trails, but it took me a minute to decide that the bright yellow circular highlight stood for “you are here.” A large parcel of private land also divides the park, forcing hikers into a frustratingly long detour to get from one side to the other. The landowner needs to at least grant an easement to permit a more direct trail to the nature center located in the northwest corner of the park.

The nature center is spacious, and besides the permanent displays there is a room that can host traveling exhibits. When I visited on January 5, a traveling exhibit entitled “The Hidden World of Bears” was in its final days there. Oh, and they don’t call the place Bear Creek for nothing. There really are Black Bears living in the area.

Many of the exhibits in the nature center are interactive rather than static, but there are the obligatory taxidermy mounts. The original building was destroyed in a suspected arson fire in the year 2000. That it was rebuilt quckly is a testament to the commitment of the Colorado Springs community to continue the park’s commitment to excellence in environmental education and natural history interpretation.

While the front desk is usually manned by a volunteer, I was lucky enough to meet Ken Pals, a semi-retired naturalist with El Paso County Parks. He shared his ideas on how I might be able to help the park by presenting programs there. Indeed, they have a wide variety of activities going on all the time, aimed at children, families, and adults.

There is a paved nature trail in the immediate vicinity of the nature center, with one loop designated as the “Songbird Trail.” It includes several illustrated interpretive signs and a boardwalk close to Bear Creek. There are also feeders that attract a wide variety of birds at any time of the year. I got good views of Dark-eyed Junco, Blue Jay, Western Scrub Jay, White-breasted Nuthatch, Black-capped Chickadee, House Finch, American Goldfinch, and even a Downy Woodpecker in under an hour of watching on the afternoon of January 5. I can only imagine what an early morning visit would be like for bird diversity.

I’m already looking forward to spending some spring days at Bear Creek Park. I hope you will put it on your own list of places to go when you visit Colorado Springs.

Timberline

Hemlock tops
Boughed in prayer
To the Sun God,
To the Snow God.
Winter Water weight gain
Shed with the thaw,
Hemlock heads
Bending like Narcissus
To admire their own beauty.

Eric R. Eaton, circa 1989

Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge

Over the Christmas holiday I had the privilege of visiting the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge on the afternoon of December 27, 2011. Not only did I get to go with my fiancée, Heidi Genter, but also Heidi’s mom, sister, and her sister’s five-year old daughter. At the refuge we met a mutual friend from Facebook, Shelly Cox, and her husband Joey.

No sooner did we arrive at refuge headquarters than we spotted several Bald Eagles, both adults an immature, gliding overhead. It was a good omen. Shelly, who works for the Missouri Department of Conservation, makes regular trips to the refuge; and Heidi’s mother often brought her students their on field trips when she was a teacher at a Lutheran elementary school in nearby Leavenworth, Kansas. So, we were blessed to have people along who knew where to go to see wildlife.

The interior of the headquarters building is full of great information, most of it free for the taking. Brochures, maps, coloring books for children, and even a frame-worthy print of an image of a Bald Eagle by photographer Jim Rathert, are among the items we took home with us. There are also gifts one can purchase.

Beyond the front desk are interpretive exhibits that offer an introduction to the fauna of the refuge. Most specimens are taxidermy mounts, but some are alive. The day we visited there was a very healthy specimen of an Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, Sistrurus catenatus, on display. This is an endangered reptile in the state of Missouri, and a candidate for federal listing as “threatened.”

Leaving the headquarters, we proceeded to drive around the large bodies of water that make the refuge so inviting to migrating waterfowl, raptors, and other birds. You can hear the vast flocks of Snow Goose, Chen caerulescens, long before you see them, but the sight is truly spectacular. An eagle passing overhead sends them into a tizzy, flying up in great clouds of wings, and amping up their already loud honking.

Recent counts put the Snow Goose tally at over 82,000 birds. A month before it was nearly 228,000.

Besides geese (including Canada Goose, of course), Trumpeter Swans are another abundant species. Over 200 had been seen the week before our visit. We also saw several Red-tailed Hawks, and one solitary Rough-legged Hawk, Buteo lagopus (below). The refuge is also a paradise for Muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus. We saw several, but were told they were vastly more common prior to last year’s great flood of the Missouri River that pushed them up to the foot of the bluffs surrounding the floodplain. We also saw one Whitetail Deer, Odocoileus virginianus.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Squaw Creek NWR in 1935, and the Civilian Conservation Corps built most of the dikes, roads, trails, and buildings while camping in nearby Mound City. The refuge is more than just wetlands (3,400 acres). There are also 2,100 acres of grassland, 1,560 acres of forests and woodlands, and 400 acres of crops.

Driving along the berms there are places to pull off the road and look for birds. You can even build your own eagle eyrie at one stop.

Such imaginative interpretive features help make this refuge a popular resource for nature educators.

Late afternoon in late December may not be the best time to visit, but our trip did provide a spectacular sunset view over the open waters, and even a “Sun Dog” weather phenomenon. Fine ice crystals in cirrus clouds can create a short rainbow on either side of the sun (below).

Special thanks again to Shelly Cox for being our tour guide. For more and better images of the birds and wildlife of Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, please browse this Flickr.com group. You will get hooked for sure, and want to add this gem to your list of places to travel to.

Art

The palette knife of Nature
Paints impressionist reflections
In shards of ice.
Mountains merge with sky
On upside down horizon.
Pigments thicker here,
Absent there,
And rough edges everywhere.
Leroy Neiman's landscape,
Stucco patterns in a plaster world.

Eric R. Eaton, circa 1989

Misplaced Waterfowl

Have you ever wondered what constitutes a “duck pond?” Is it the mere presence of waterfowl? Is it over a certain number of acres, or under a certain number? Perhaps it is always an artificial pond, constructed as a decorative landscape feature. The “lake” at the intersection of Interstate 25 and Circle Drive/Lake Avenue in Colorado Springs certainly fits the bill on all counts.

Heidi had been watching the “rare bird alert” for Colorado and discovered that a Long-tailed Duck, Clangula hyemalis, had been spotted in this most improbable of locales. You just can’t get any more urban than this: a pond situated right off a major freeway, with a Doubletree Hotel and Tinsel Town cinemas being the most prominent nearby features. Yet, there it was, this wayward migrant. The duck formerly known as the “Oldsquaw” normally spends the winter along the extreme north Pacific coast, from BC to Alaska, and the Atlantic coast as far south as North Carolina (though scarce). It breeds in the Arctic, spending the summers there.

This specimen was without the trademark long tail, but there was no mistaking that pink-and-black bill. We were pleasantly surprised that the lake was small enough to allow us to get really good views of all the species of waterfowl there. Here on the Front Range, there are not that many wetlands to begin with, and most are large reservoirs that do not allow anything but long-distance views of birds requiring spotting scopes and high-powered binoculars.

A large flock of the Canada Goose, Branta Canadensis, dominated the lake, and you have to watch where you step lest you return home with goose poop on your shoes. Beyond the geese were good numbers of the Common Goldeneye, Bucephala clangula, Ring-necked Ducks, Aythya collaris, and a small number of Canvasback, A. valisineria. A few Mallards were there, too, of course, and a handful of Hooded Mergansers, Lophodytes cucullatus. Oh, and at least three Northern Shovelers, Anas clypeata.

Common Goldeneye drake

Hooded Merganser pair

Heidi has sharper eyes than I do, and she spotted something equally out-of-place. She managed to get a picture, but we are getting conflicting opinions as to whether the bird depicted below is a Greater or Lesser Scaup. Lessers are not uncommon summer residents here in central Colorado, but should be wintering farther south. Greaters are again coastal birds that should have no business this far inland.

The western edges of the pond were already covered in ice, but with days now getting longer, we hope to return regularly to look for more ducks and geese on the remaining open water. It sure beats longer road trips to Chatfield Reservoir and even Fountain Creek Regional Park where we have seen far lower numbers and diversity of our fine feathered friends.

Re-Verb

Ram-impact
Rebounds,
Ricochets off
Rock walls,
Riveting the attention of
Ravens

Rattlesnake shakes,
Re-coils,
Re-enters his
Rodent burrow
Resovling to
Return

Eric R. Eaton, circa 1985