On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This series was created by Alain Chamot (1971-2020).
Good morning everyone,
Have a great day and weekend; the alternatives are worse.
Here’s the next installment of images from the spring of social distancing in flyover country. We are now under a state-wide stay-home order starting on Monday March 30. There are two cases (so far) of COVID-19 in my home town, and apparently one of them was likely to be community transmission (the other was a professor who had been teaching a Study Abroad class in London). We can still go out and watch and photograph birds and landscapes, however, so that is what i plan to do. It is remarkable how other vexations can just disappear when you are trying to coax a bird into the right spot for a photograph!
When this part of the state was settled, there were no trees which could be used to build fenceposts. There were plenty of limestone rocks in the recently plowed fields, however. So the early settlers learned how to build dry-stone walls, separating fields and pastures from each other. Most of those were eventually replaced by barbed wire fences and imported fenceposts, but some relics still remain. Here’s one, with a winter Flint Hills pasture behind it.
During a dam-building boom in this part of the state in the 1960’s, the Big Blue River, which runs through my town of Manhattan KS, was dammed to create Tuttle Creek Reservoir. In recent years this reservoir has filled to the brim, keeping at least some water out of the Missouri River downstream to help with the flooding problems there. This last summer was the worst so far. This was one of my favorite birding spots; it was under about 25 ft of water for much of the summer and fall. There is a noticeable “bathtub ring” of dead vegetation and driftwood all around the reservoir; it will take years to regenerate the ground cover and shrubs that formerly made this place a hotspot.
You can also see the remains of another old dry-stone wall on the opposite bank.
We live on the very edge of town; you can toss a rock from our back deck and hit the city limit sign. That means we have some wildlife visiting the place. This coyote was checking out the backyard one foggy morning this spring.
The Wild Turkey population in this part of the state is doing quite well. These three toms were displaying to each other in a stubble field not far from town. The hens were across the road, ignoring their antics.
One of our winter migrants which will leave here in a few weeks, the Brown Creeper. This species is the only North American representative of the treecreeper family, a group which has many more species in Europe and Asia. They forage for insects, spiders, and insect eggs on tree trunks, and I’ve never seen one at a suet or seed feeder.
One of the earliest spring warblers to arrive here is the loquacious Louisiana Waterthrush, a warbler that is common along streams in summertime here. Their loud and ringing song carries well, and they are hard to miss once they have returned from their wintering grounds.
Bur Oak in a prairie, waiting for the fire.
There is a bird in this image too. The dot at the top of the tree was an Eastern Meadowlark, blasting out its territorial call from an unusually tall perch!
Mary G
Love Albatrossity days!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
I’m envious, we’re pretty much on lockdown here. I really, really, really want to go up to the eastern Sierra since they are getting snow, sigh.
Betty Cracker
Excellent photos. The Brown Creeper has a nicely curved beak for prying back bark, and I wish I could hear that sweet little Louisiana Waterthrush.
We’ve got a lot of Wild Turkeys in my neighborhood, and not just in liquor cabinets. One thing I’ve seen them do here in the swamp that I never noticed until I moved here is fly to perch in very tall trees. I’d often seen them walking around or flying to low perches, but here, I’ve seen them near the top of trees.
p.a.
Thanks!
eclare
I love the colors in that tree photo!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@eclare: It’d make a good foreground for a Milky Way photo.
JPL
@Mary G: Same.
Laura Too
Beautiful! Thank you!!
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: They do it every night.
ETA at least where there are trees for them to do it in. I have no idea what those KS prairie turkeys do for roosting at night.
Nelle
I hope you got some Alma cheese when you were in the area. We moved to Iowa from Lawrence a year ago. Before leaving Kansas, we took a farewell day through the Flint Hills. I miss them.
Albatrossity
@Betty Cracker: Our turkeys roost at night in trees as well. And yes, despite the look of some of these pictures, there are plenty of trees here these days. Early pics of this part of the state had no trees but 150 years of suppressing fires means that the prairie creeks are lined with trees, and anyplace where humans built habitations has plenty of trees.
I have a video of the Louisiana Waterthrush singing its sweet song posted on my Facebook page. If you are on FB, send me a friend request and a message that includes the word jackal! The downside of that is that you will see a lot of the images that I send here a week or two ahead of when they appear here. But there are lots of other images, and maybe even some political snark…
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17020225
Albatrossity
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: I can’t go far, simply because I want to be able to get home each afternoon, not stay in a hotel or eat at a restaurant. So a trip that is equivalent to your hoped-for trip from LA to say, Lone Pine, is out of the question for me too.
But I hear you; the eastern Sierras are magical this time of year. I do miss them…
Don
Thanks for these. When I was a student there a friend and I used to get up early and fish Tuttle Creek. Caught lots of little panfish and the occasional carp, which we planted in the back yard garden. Kids were very small back then, but they learned to eat fish, by golly!
arrieve
Thank you Albatrossity! I’ve never been in that part of the US, and your pictures make me want to visit. You know, someday, when our New Normal allows us to at least leave our homes.
Albatrossity
@arrieve: Thanks! If the New Normal arrives, and you do get here, please let me know and I’d be happy to show you around.
MoCA Ace
Love the pictures. I’m lucky enough to live in a rural area on some acreage so I can wander at will. The lawn is just starting to green up and the buds are swelling on the trees. We are a good warm week away from full-on spring!
Jerzy Russian
@Betty Cracker:
As God as your witness, turkeys can fly!
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity: Is Harley still around, or is he already on his way to his home for the next little while?
Eunicecycle
@Jerzy Russian: I wondered if someone would remember that great moment in TV history.
joel hanes
I love the midwest prairies in all seasons — the beauty is subtle, and often lost on those not raised there.
the Big Blue River … was dammed to create Tuttle Creek Reservoir
My father, the amateur naturalist and prairie/wetland enthusiast, often remarked that all our reservoirs are transient, like all lakes, and will make jim-dandy wetlands when they have silted in, which they will do in a geological blink of the eye.
Brown Creepers ascend the tree head first. Nuthatches descend the tree head-first. Fun to watch during the weeks that they’re both around.
The song of the Eastern Meadowlark is one of nature’s blessings, and always lifts my heart. Same with the Hermit Thrush.
chris
Beautiful pictures. Makes me nostalgic for my Saskatchewan prairie days forty years ago. Until I recall the winters anyway.
There’s a youngish red oak about ten feet from my feeders and I have watched in delight as Brown Creepers beetle up the tree without ever going near the easy bounty of suet, bird pie and black oil sunflower seed. Maybe they’re just very specialised feeders?
Albatrossity
@WaterGirl: Harley has not been seen in a week, so I assume he headed north. I also assume he will return in October, and, lord willing, I will announce that here when it happens!
Mj_Oregon
Lovely photos! May I also send you a FB friend request? I promise not to fill your feed with stupid stuff, except maybe cat memes and pics.
J R in WV
Great to see the prairies again, keep up the great work !!!
Albatrossity
@Mj_Oregon: Please do. The more jackals, the merrier, I always say!
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity: So long, Harley, Til we meet again.
NetheadJay
@Albatrossity: Hi, facebook wouldn’t let me add text to the friend request but I’m Jens from pretty far away ;-)