Long shadows

Even though this season has been extremely mild, it's still winter. A see-saw of freezing cold, snow storms and balmy thaw. The days appear to be getting longer, though the sun still seems stuck in the southern sky, only a few degrees above the horizon. When the sun shines, there's the ever present long shadow. This is a time of year that I need to get out often. Winter's getting old. I get stagnant being indoors for long and having the sun warm my face certainly lifts my spirit. There's plenty of work yet to be done around here. There's never a shortage of it but, sometimes it's enjoyable to just take a walk and explore the place, cold, frozen and quiet.

Today I followed a dirt access road on the property back towards the river. There's a drainage culvert that parallels the road and it was frozen over. The road dead ends into the bottoms, an area often flooded, muddy, rarely accessible. There's a natural inlet off the river that cuts back into the property. We refer to it as the slough. The hunt club uses the area quite a bit for duck hunts. An old blind is back there but seem to have be abandoned for some time. A lot of rot and dis-repair. The hunt club has moved to higher ground with their blinds and floods the surrounding area it needs.

I'd been back here before but never to the point where I could walk into areas that were seemingly inaccessible. Perhaps a shallow draft boat or waders. Even then, the muck would make things difficult. Today, the water was frozen enough to support me. The ice definitely wasn't a hard freeze ice, kind of soft, old. An occasional thudding crack from across the ice jarred my better judgement, especially being out here alone but, it did offer a new perspective for the moment. Reflections and long shadows in combinations of satin and gloss planes.

In the bottoms, young saplings sucker up and crowd each other out, never reaching any potential. The trees all seem to have a natural darken trunk near the base from constant soaking or wicking the saturated ground. It is, after all, a natural wetland. The ground is frozen crusted in the forest, soggy in the sunlit openess. The birds are here, geese are present, coopers hawk and eagle are in the area. The presence of deer tracks, so prevalent in other areas of the property, are missing. There's evidence of other activity though, beaver.


Near the open water along the tree line, it became visible. Their activity was fresh, chips on the ground, newly exposed white wood nawed away with precision and perseverance.They're not afraid to tackle the larger trees either. Pin oak seem to be a favorite. The larger trees in the pictures are about 12"-16" in diameter. Only a few of the large trees have fallen. The smaller trees, 4-6" diameter trees have disappeared, no sign of them. From my view, I can't tell where limb and log have drifted off to. The only remains is a stump that looks like it when through a giant pencil sharpener.

I heard that if you remove a beaver from it's place, two or more will fill in the vacancy. I could care less in this area. The pin and swamp oaks will die and there's tens of thousands of trees here anyway. This area for a long time has been flush with wildlife. Beaver, fox, raccoon call this home. It's the fur bearing side of Birdland, in the bottoms. A place not often, or easily accessible. I think that's part of it's attractiveness. As spring approaches, the water level will rise and this area will see-saw back and forth between water and muck, green growth and rot. It's still amazing to see the diversity of life back here, even in winter.

I found a youtube video on the Grand Kankakee Marsh. It's a preview of an upcoming documentary to be aired on PBS sometime this spring. Birdland is in the geograhical region of this once grand marsh.

Click here for the link.