A Winter Buffet

Indiangrass

Sometimes when I'm walking on the Greenway I imagine I'm a bird, and speculate on how I would fill my belly in these long, bug-free winter months. 

I remember the flowers during the summer, bright colors a-flutter with bees and butterflies dining on pollen and nectar. All the frenzied activity of those sunny days leading up to...this. Brown, desiccated sticks topped with plain seed heads. Occasionally a stubborn, withered leaf or two clings after all its companions have long since fallen to the crunchy jumble hidden beneath a thin blanket of snow.

 

Little Bluestem

But those seed heads are a lifeline for the goldfinches and chickadees living on the Greenway. The barren swaths of suburbia offer little to our intrepid feathered friends.  The lawns of nearby subdivisions are a Siberian waste, devoid of food or shelter, save for a few small trees and shrubs.Here and there small garden patches may offer a bit of sustenance; these, however, are designed primarily for people's pleasure.

Tall Coreopsis (photo taken at F.W. Kent Park)

The Sycamore Greenway, like the prairies of old, is--well, not quite a veritable buffet. I suspect the flavor and variety on offer in the winter is more along the lines of a Depression-era breadline. It will keep you alive during the lean times, but it probably won't be as satisfying and pleasurable as can be found in the halcyon days of summer. 

As always, I am partial to the Gray-headed Coneflower. Their matchstick-heads crumble with satisfying ease into long, flat seeds. Tall coreopsis seems a popular choice; its close-packed seed heads often prove empty upon close inspection. Same with Cup Plant, its ragged remnants of cupped leaves clasping the blackened stem, and Prairie Dock, with huge, dappled basal leaves resembling a shed lizard skin resting on the ground far below the picked-over seed heads. 

Prairie Dock leaf

The fluffier seeds--cattail, field thistle--seem less favored, although I have observed another fluffy-seeded flower not common on the Greenway, Blazing star (Liatris sp.) being long since picked-clean at other locations. Asters seeds, too, seem to go quickly, leaving empty, star-shaped heads on branching stems low near the ground. 

Another of my favorites, Illinois bundleflower, takes a bit more effort, enclosing its shiny chestnut-colored seeds in flat pods that form a charming spherical rosette, each a small sculpture against the dreary sameness of winter. I imagine these to be a heartier meal than the flimsy, non-leguminous seeds, though that is probably down to my strong pro-bean stance more than any evidence I have seen.

Illinois Bundleflower

And not to ignore the grasses! Indiangrass, Big bluestem, and Little bluestem all carry nutritious seeds on their swaying stems. To my eye, they seem insignificant, but for a hungry junco in midwinter they may be a lifesaver.

The Joy of the Unexpected

When I was little, I would list dozens of toys on my Christmas List for Santa (who also seemed to share it with my aunts, uncles, and grandparents). There was pleasure in unwrapping one of those longed-for toys next to the tree on Christmas day, but it couldn't compare to the joy of opening a box to find a surprise gift, unasked-for and unexpected but perfect nonetheless. One year it was a little stuffed raccoon, football-shaped head perched atop a beanbag body. The raccoon stayed with me through college and beyond; the rest of the toys have been long forgotten.

I have thousands of my "favorite" songs at my fingertips on an iPod, and I can access almost the entirety of recorded music in an instant via my phone, but I still listen to the radio in my car and feel a moment of joy when one of my favorites is played. It is like running into an old friend on the street when running errands; of course you can call or text them whenever you'd like, but the serendipitous encounter adds an element of excitement to the usual pleasure of the familiar.

Bounding deer dead center.

On a recent visit to the South Sycamore Bottoms one still, silent afternoon, the calm was broken by rustling brush, followed by the tawny blur of a deer bounding along the edge of the pond. There was such joy in seeing the deer just doing deer things, unencumbered by the usual apprehension that accompanies the sight of them crossing roads or wandering closer to neighborhoods in town.

I've felt the same joy finding a tiny turtle the size of a half-dollar on the Greenway trail, or seeing a shooting star in the inky pre-dawn sky. There is pleasure in seeing a thousand gray-headed coneflowers blooming in August, but there is joy in finding those one or two eccentric individuals that put off their blooming until late October, long after their comrades have set seed and faded into the background. Or the setting sun catching the cattails just right such that they glow golden for just a few minutes before fading again in the waning light.

Crystalline dandelion.

Walking on a trail like the Sycamore Greenway regularly is a pleasure, no doubt. You get to know each turn; where the Illinois Bundleflower grows and where to watch for the patches of Joe-pye weed. You know those dull stretches that seem to have nothing but Queen Anne's Lace and Yellow Sweet Clover. But there is always the chance that you will see something unexpected and ephemeral: a common yellowthroat singing briefly on a reed before disappearing, or a pair of Sandhill cranes flying overhead with their raucous calls. Be on the lookout, for moments of joy are all around.

Am I Tougher Than a Chickadee?

No. No, I'm not.

Queen Anne's Lace

I trudged along the Greenway on a recent dreary morning, bundled up in a puffy coat with a hat pulled down over my ears, hoping for a colorful sunrise but seeing only bleak gray sky. There wasn't even a glitter of frost to lend a festive atmosphere. The reluctant dog kept trying to turn back towards his cozy, centrally-heated den, only to be tugged back along the trail. "Get used to it," I mutter, half to him and half to myself.

Gray-headed Coneflower

Then from brush to the north comes the buzzy dee dee dee of our chickadee friends. Their tiny, energetic bodies zip across the trail and flit among the branches of a bare tree. Farther along the trail a cardinal is centered against a dry brown backdrop, reminding me wistfully of the small crimson spot centered in an umbel Queen Anne's Lace from warmer times. The Queen Anne's Lace, soft and elegant no more, has shriveled to a skeletal claw around a nest of seeds. Nearby are some Gray-headed Coneflower, the dignified rounded seed heads half-eaten by goldfinches.

It's amazing and humbling to contemplate the small feathered beings that survive our harshest winters with just a feathered coat and whatever cover they can find among the dry leaves and grasses. Chickadees and goldfinches weigh less than an ounce--about as much as three quarters. House sparrows and Dark-eyed juncos weigh just a bit more, still only around one ounce. Yet they are adapted to survive both the blistering heat of midsummer and the bone-chilling lows of winter.

There's a cardinal in there somewhere.

Sure, I tend to eat constantly in the winter and increase my intake of fatty foods. I minimize bare skin exposed to the elements, and seek shelter from the wind and snow. I'm not as active as during the warmer months. So I suppose we share many strategies for getting through the winter with our tiny feathered friends.

I sometimes wonder, though, if the hardy chickadees ever titter to each other about the wimpy, runny-nosed humans hustling about in bundles of clothing while the birds spend night after bone-chilling night outside with just the feathers on their backs. 

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
-  D.H. Lawrence

People You Should Know: Major John F. Lacey

Major Lacey was the first member of Congress who made the cause of the wild birds and beasts particularly his own.

- William T. Hornaday, from Major John F Lacey Memorial Volume (p. 12)

Major John F. Lacey

Major John F. Lacey is a name that should resonate with Iowans who care about nature and wildlife. A veteran of the Civil War and Republican congressman from Iowa, Lacey helped shepherd through several important pieces of legislation protecting our natural resources and migratory birds, including the Lacey Act of 1900 (which is still in effect today). The largest state park in Iowa, Lacey-Keosauqua State Park, was renamed to honor Lacey in 1926. With his vision and foresight he helped preserve some of our most valued species for generations to come, and laid a foundation for conservation that is still strong over a century later.

We have given an awful exhibition of slaughter and destruction which may serve as a warning to all mankind. Let us now give an example of wise conservation of what remains of the gifts of nature.

- John F. Lacey. "Interstate Commerce in Game and Birds in Violation of State Law; Let Us Save the Birds." Speech to House of Representatives. 30 April 1900. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 147)

The Lacey Act of 1900  was the first federal law to protect wildlife by prohibiting trade in animals or plants that were taken illegally. Originally intended to protect game from poaching and overharvesting when state laws were circumvented, it has also been used to help prevent the spread of non-native species (such as starlings and house sparrows, which had already been recognized as pests by Lacey's time) and the smuggling of wildlife and illegally harvested plants or timber. It is a foundation of the regulation and preservation of our natural resources still regularly invoked today. 

The love of birds is something that ought to be taught in every school.

- John F. Lacey. "Interstate Commerce in Game and Birds in Violation of State Law; Let Us Save the Birds." Speech to House of Representatives. 30 April 1900. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 145)

Lacey recognized the benefits provided by birds and other wildlife not only in our simple enjoyment of them, but also in their service in helping control insect pests in orchards and fields. He acknowledged a mutually beneficial relationship between birds and humans: 

The man who cultivates the birds will have the birds take care of him. They will care for his farm. They will destroy the insect pests, and the man who protects them will be successful wherever he may farm in the United States of America.

- John F. Lacey. "Interstate Commerce in Game and Birds in Violation of State Law; Let Us Save the Birds." Speech to House of Representatives. 30 April 1900. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 149)

Over a century ago Lacey eloquently spoke about issues that are relevant still. On the subject of forestry, Lacey said in 1905

Only a government lives long enough to plant trees extensively. The brevity of human life deters the individual from a project yielding such slow returns.

- John F. Lacey. "Forestry." Address before the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs. 12 May 1905. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 86)

Most things can be handled best by individuals and the private sector, but some problems (such as management of air, water, and wildlife that is not bound by state or private property lines) require a large-scale, long-term investment beyond the scope of any individual entity.

On conservation and stewardship Lacey remarked

Americans have been the spendthrifts of the centuries. It is high time to call a halt and save something of our national resources for those who are to come after us.

- John F. Lacey. "Forestry." Address before the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs. 12 May 1905. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 81)

We owe much to our predecessors who had the foresight to protect and conserve our wildlife and wild places, and we must carry on their work so future generations may reap the same rewards from which we have already benefited.  

We can look to Major John F. Lacey as a statesman who recognized the value of our natural world in a time of rapid change, and who vigorously promoted the protection and conservation of these valuable resources for future generations. His comments on the stuttering yet consistent progress of our nation are as compelling now as they were when originally uttered in 1895:

There has never been a period in any country when there was not a large class of pessimists who constantly held up to view the worst side of everything. Like crooked mirrors they distort everything they reflect. To hear them speak you would believe that this nation was already going over the falls. Every evil is magnified and the good is wholly overlooked....In spite of all these gloomy forebodings, the world has steadily gone forward and upward. There is a constant ebb and flow in progress; things mental, moral, and material, like the waves, sweep forward, fall back, and again advance, always rising a little higher than before.

- John F. Lacey. "At Northwest Iowa Veteran Reunion." 20 June 1895. Published in Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume (1915) (p. 245)

Sources for quotations/additional reading:

• Major John F. Lacey Memorial Volume 
• The Lacey Act: America's Premier Weapon in the Fight against Unlawful Wildlife Trafficking 
•  Lacey Act Fact Sheet

 

Control What You Can

Climate change. Economic injustice. Healthcare, education, and immigration reform. With so many issues requiring urgent attention, it can be daunting and discouraging to imagine taking on any one problem, let alone all of them. So I ask you: do what you can. Control what you can.

You can't implement a national energy policy to mitigate the effects of climate change. But you can enact a small-scale version in your own household. You can't preserve large tracts of wilderness as habitat for declining songbird populations, but you can make your backyard into a small-scale sanctuary bursting with native prairie plants. If even that seems too daunting, how about just planting a couple of milkweeds for the monarchs?

We all know change is hard. Change on a national or global scale is glacial. It is very hard to make the world a better place--but it is incredibly easy to make your neighborhood a better place.

Four of the seven bags from this winter's cleanup.

Case in point: the Sycamore Greenway. Every winter, when the dried grasses have been matted down by wind and snow, a trash heap is revealed. Piles of cans and bottles that had washed into the Greenway from the streets above; plastic bags, frisbees, tennis balls and wiffle balls that had sailed in from above. The City of Iowa City does not have scheduled cleanups at the Greenway...so I asked for some bags and did it myself. A few hours in spring before everything starts growing, a few hours in the winter after everything dies back, and the Sycamore Greenway gets a fresh, clean look (at least until the next big rain).

It doesn't have to take a lot of time and effort. It doesn't have to be hard. It can be as simple as picking up that empty can you see in the street while you're out for a walk. We can't prevent thoughtless people from doing thoughtless things, but we can take control of our patch and make it better in countless small ways.


Special note to my fellow dog owners: I humbly ask that, if you are just going to chuck your dog's poo into the grass near the trail, please don't bother to bag it. Some poor schmuck trying to make the world a better place has to fish out the brightly-colored plastic grenade and clean up your mess. It's gross.

So. Many. Poo bombs.

For more information about making your yard a better place:

• Habitat Network (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) 
•  Plant. Grow. Fly. (Blank Park Zoo)

Supermoon Afternoon

I was told there would be a supermoon.* 

To be fair, it is still an hour until moonrise, if the internet is to be believed. To the north and east are thin clouds, ruffled like a newly-trimmed wire-coated terrier. Directly above they are wispy, clumps of milkweed fluff trailing across the sky. In the west are big, low blankets gentling the setting sun.

 

The sweet songs of summer have given way to a rasping, guttural autumn.  Over the rustling leaves can be heard barking squirrels, the impatient  chirr! of a red-bellied woodpecker, buzzing chickadee-dee-dees and in the distance the chock-chock of a pheasant. 

I am stopped along the north-south spine of the Greenway by rhythmic footsteps a few meters off in the dry grass, maybe even in the dry cornfield opposite. It sounds for all the world like a person creeping along, trying to be stealthy even though every step carries through the chilly air. What could be making such loud, plodding steps? The slow, intermittent nature calls to mind a predator. Coyote? Cat? Whatever it is, it is stealthy enough for though I continue to hear the steps I don't see so much as a slight wavering of dry stems and leaves to mark its passage.

I have been visiting the Greenway weekly through three seasons now, documenting the changing plant and animal life and learning its story. I confess I am worried what winter will bring, that much of the interest has been bled out of the Greenway along with its color. But every week so far this November have happily found something new, something different and beautiful to catch my eye. I may need to slow down a bit more, follow the light or find a new perspective.  But we all go through somewhat dreary periods, and we would be well advised to continue to find what wonder we can, and know that spring will always come again. 

*The chill drove me away just as the fabled supermoon was rising; it peeked above the horizon briefly before hiding itself behind the low clouds that had moved in.