My Favorite Story of the Year

One of my favorite shots of all time is not because it’s a great shot, but because of the circumstances that enabled me to get it.

I was working on a short film for the UWOL Challenge. UWOL, or Under Water Over Land film challenge, is a nature and wildlife competition for filmmakers across the globe. Filmmakers are given a topic and have three weeks to complete a three minute film based on that topic.

The topic this round was wildlife. Since we were in the middle of a 500 year flood. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a lot of wildlife as some of the prime wildlife habitat was already under water. I also wanted to minimize any disturbance that I might create since this was a time of extreme stress for the animals displaced by the flood.

Every night on the news, they would talk about how many homes had been flooded, how many people had been displaced. But no one was really talking about what effect the flood had on the wildlife.

The wastewater treatment plant was flooded and out of commission which meant twenty-five million gallons of raw sewage was being dumped into the Cedar River every single day.

So, I decided my film would be about how this epic flood was effecting wildlife and their habitat.

On the first day I was able to get out and shoot, I was up and out the door before 5AM to try and get some footage for my entry.

I headed out to some of the worse spots along the Sac & Fox trail but it was so mucky and some roads were still closed so I couldn’t get any good shots.

So, I went to the Rosedale area of the trail as it was a bit farther from the worst spots right by the river.
It was still pretty bad. The trail was covered in muck and large sections were washed away. But, I was able to follow the trail a ways and found some good shots.

I was filming some cool water ripples ( which didn’t make it into the film ) and I heard some splashing and whimpering upstream.
Two dogs were trying to cross the stream. But, the water was deep and fast so they would go back and you could see them struggle as they sunk in the muck and the mud. They would keep trying to cross and then move a bit downstream to try again. But, they couldn’t make it across. After each failed attempt, they would whimper and try to find another place to cross the stream.
They had collars on so I knew they belonged to someone.

I hopped in my car and ran to the store to get a big box of milk bones. I figure it would hold them over till I could get some help. I had no idea how long they had been out there or what their situation was.
When I got back, they were no where to be found. I was able to toss most of the box of bones across the creek in hopes they might come back.

I hung around and filmed some more and hoped they would come back but no sign of them.

As I was packing up my gear and headed back to the car, who comes walking down the road on my side of the creek? Yep, the two dogs. They must have made it to the bridge that crosses the creek and crossed over. They were headed down the road when I saw them. Now I was worried that they might get hit by a car as they were walking right down the middle of the road.

I called to them and they turned around and came over to me. I had a few bones left and they wolfed them down. They were obviously hungry.

I was able to make out the phone number on their collars and called it. The owner was an hour away from where I was with the dogs.
He said they let the dogs out several days ago to do their business and they never returned. There was a storm that night and he thought maybe they had been spooked and became disoriented or maybe they had chased a skunk and had simply lost their way.

So, I loaded up the dogs in my car, offered to drive them home but he said he would come and get them.
The dogs were exhausted. They were asleep in the car in less than a minute. Every now and then, one would lift his head to check things out but then would fall back asleep.
So, we all hung out till the owner came and picked them up. They were sure happy to see him and he likewise.

He said he had had one of the dogs “Hot Rod”, for almost thirteen years and she had arthritis and couldn’t get around very well. Struggling in the mud had exhausted her.

The other dog “Stubby”, was a rescue dog that they had only had for a year or two. She had spent her entire life locked up in a small cage on a damp concrete floor. He said that they were inseparable. Where one went, the other would always follow.

I said goodbye to “Hot Rod” and “Stubby” and started to pack up my gear and was getting ready to head out when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A doe and her fawn had made their way down to the stream to drink. They were in shadows except for one spot of morning light that lit them up. It was almost as if I was being rewarded for taking the time to help out a couple of lost dogs.

If I hadn’t hung around to hold onto the dogs for an hour, I would have missed the opportunity to get this shot.

The doe and her fawn put a “face” to the wildlife that were displaced by the 500 year flood.

Kind of nice when karma works for you.

My Favorite Story of the Year

I’m not sure how many days I go out filming every year, but I know the number has to be up there quite a ways. Course, however many it is, it’s never enough.
Usually I have some tale to tell from staring down a huge whitetail buck to watching a kingfisher dive for a late evening meal.

But one story means more to me this year than all the others. It’s a story about karma and how doing the right thing oftentimes rewards you when you least expect it.

Look for it on Christmas day.

Where Do You Hide 500,000 Snow Geese?

I’ve been checking the weekly bird counts at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge since mid-October for the migration of the snow geese. It’s a spectacular sight with tens of thousands of birds arriving in a single day. But the numbers never rose above a couple hundred at best.

I emailed refuge manager Larry Klimek to find out if I had missed them somehow. Larry informed me that something caused the snow geese to change their migration patterns. In fact, the geese haven’t made DeSoto a stop in their migration for the last five years. They now come through Central Nebraska on their way South.

So what has changed to cause half a million birds to find refuge elsewhere? Has so much land along their Iowa route been turned into housing developments that they’ve shifted their route? Has global warming done something to change it?

Whatever it is, Iowan’s have lost the opportunity to view one of natures true spectacles.

But it’s not just us that have missed out. Eagles, coyote, fox and other predators have one less source to help sustain them into the winter months. Might this effect their populations in Iowa? Can they make the shift as well to follow the geese? Will we see a decrease in their numbers? Only time will tell.

Hopefully next Fall I can witness the mass migration with my own eyes before it is lost forever only to reside in fireside chats on a cold winter night.

Global Warming Ice Age?

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal,” and that human activity has “very likely” been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had “likely” played a role.

Scientists and governments will debate this to the last person standing. Trouble is, by the time there’s a consensus will it be too late to reverse it if they find global warming is a reality?

If you ask an Iowan if there’s global warming they’ll laugh in your face. Seems the last few winters have been pretty brutal. Last year, several cities beat their all time snowfall totals.

So what gives? Is the Earth warming? If so, why does it seem that Iowa winters are getting colder and nastier?

What a lot of people fail to mention is that as the Earth warms, weather patterns change. Places that were warm are cooler,places that had little rain have more etc. Chances are you’ve probably noticed a change in the weather patterns where you live.

But if the Earth is warming, how can Winters in Iowa be getting worse instead of better?

One theory is that the polar ice is melting and cooling the ocean which is changing weather patterns. These weather patterns create changes bringing in colder Arctic air which Iowa happens to be in the way of.
So, in the Arctic scientists are seeing ice shelves break up early, freeze later and glaciers retreating at a record pace.

Scientists are concerned that the melting ice will cause the extinction of the polar bear in the wild within a generation.

Polar bears are drowning because they can’t find Arctic ice shelves to haul them selves up on. There have been reports of polar bears swimming sixty miles from the nearest ice or land mass.

So as I watch the radar this evening and wait for the snow to hit, it’s hard sometimes to believe that we’re warming the planet with our greenhouse gases. But even if it was all a bunch of bologna, how much more can the planet take before it does collapse if it isn’t in the process already?

Bighorn Sheep

 

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) once numbered in the millions in western United States and were an important food source for humans. The “Sheepeaters”, related to the Shoshoni tribe, lived year-round in Yellowstone until 1880. Their principal food was bighorn sheep and they made their bows from sheep horns. By 1900, during an “epoch of relentless destruction by the skin hunters” (Seton 1913), bighorn numbers were reduced to a few hundred in the United States. In 1897 Seton spent several months roaming the upper ranges of Yellowstone Park and did not see any, although about 100-150 were estimated to be present. He reported that by 1912, despite a disease (scab) contracted from domestic sheep, bighorns in the park had increased to more than 200 and travelers could find them with fair certainty by devoting a few days to searching around Mt. Everts, Mt. Washburn or other well-known ranges. In winter, small bands of sheep could then be seen every day between Mammoth and Gardiner …”4 great rams with about 40 other sheep…so tame that one could get pictures within ten feet…”

Bighorn sheep are named for the large, curved horns borne by the males, or rams. Females, or ewes, also have horns, but they are short with only a slight curvature. Sheep range in color from light brown to grayish or dark, chocolate brown, with a white rump and lining on the back of all four legs. Rocky Mountain bighorn females weigh up to 200 pounds, and males occasionally exceed 300 pounds. During the mating season or “rut”, occurring in November and December, the rams butt heads in apparent sparring for females. Rams’ horns can weigh more than 40 pounds, and frequently show broken or “broomed” tips from repeated clashes. Lambs, usually only one per mother, are born in May and June. They graze on grasses and browse shrubby plants, particularly in fall and winter, and seek minerals at natural salt licks. Bighorns are well adapted to climbing steep terrain where they seek cover from predators such as coyotes, eagles, and mountain lions. They are susceptible to disease such as lungworm, and sometimes fall off cliffs.

The Magic of Winter

In past years it wasn’t often that we had a white Christmas here in Eastern Iowa. We might get a dusting here and there but soon temperatures would rise above freezing and it would melt away.

But now it seems that we wonder if we’ll have a white Thanksgiving or not.

While the winter storms that roll in every other day are hazardous to those on the road, it makes for breathtaking scenery begging to be captured. There’s something about a silent snowfall in the woods that makes me feel more alive with nature than most any other time.

I don’t think you’ve ever experienced silence until you’ve stood in the middle of a forest during a silent snowfall. It’s so quiet, you can hear the snowflakes hitting the branches of trees.

I hope this winter I can capture a small sliver of the feeling winter has for me.

Stay tuned!

The Sounds of Silence

The morning was mute, quiet and still

as I awoke from a peaceful rest;

The sounds of silence were a soft calm

and peace was mine – I was blessed.

A hushed world was solemn in thought

at the silence all around;

Snowflakes fell like pure-white feathers

and never made a sound.

A lull like this, in a busy world,

was Nature’s gift of wonder;

I stifled thoughts of anything

that might put it asunder.

For just awhile on a winter’s morn,

I turned within, in awe;

Listening to the sounds of silence

and the beauty that I saw.

~ Joan Adams Burchell

Clip of the Week

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Another of my favorite spots in Yellowstone is Grand Prismatic Spring. Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone. Only in New Zealand will you find two springs that are larger. The Hayden Expedition in 1871 named this spring because of its beautiful coloration. Early sketches of the springs seem so exaggerated that geologist A.C. Peale returned in 1878 to verify the colors.

The vivid colors in the spring are the result of pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The bacteria produce colors ranging from green to red; the amount of color in the microbial mats depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids. In the summer, the mats tend to be orange and red, whereas in the winter the mats are usually dark green. The center of the pool is sterile due to extreme heat.

The deep blue color of the water in the center of the pool results from a light-absorbing overtone of the hydroxy stretch of water. Though this effect is responsible for making all large bodies of water blue, it is particularly intense in Grand Prismatic Spring because of the high purity and depth of the water in the middle of the spring.

The spring is approximately 250 by 300 feet (75 by 91 m) in size and is 160 feet (49 meters) deep. The spring discharges an estimated 560 gallons (2000 litres) of 160°F (71°C) water per minute.

You can view this clip here.