Skiing with the swans

I picked up my skis at REI and drove to Wild River State Park on Sunday. I've been there a couple times, once last fall and again a few weeks ago for my reintroduction to winter camping. This was just a day trip to get in some skiing and search for the beavers and trumpeter swans which had been seen recently on the Deer Creek trail.


I had to descend a steep hill and fall twice before reaching the Deer Creek trail. It got a little better after that, although I did fall again going down a small hill. I also stopped myself twice by running into a tree at slow speed. No one witnessed any of these mishaps so technically they didn't happen.


I didn't see any beavers but did see the beaver hausen and dam. I spotted a couple swans on the inner part of the Deer Creek loop and snuck down to get some close up photos of them. I would later discover I had accidentally switched my camera to shutter priority mode when I turned it on (presumably because of my gloves catching on the dial). With a shutter speed of 1/100 seconds the photos were OK but could've been much better.

The skiing was OK - a bit icy and very little base, maybe a couple inches at most so the poles didn't always grab hold very well. In the more open areas the base was even thinner, with a few patches of grass showing through.

I followed the trail up the river a little ways and found more swans, some very close to the trail and a larger group out in the middle of the river near an island. A pair of bald eagles was guarding their nest high up in the trees on the same island. I was fortunate to see 2 different groups of swans in flight and got a few photos of that - they are quite large and impressive when flying in formation. The first one has evidently been caught and tagged at some point in her/his life.




The second group had what I'm guessing were 2 young swans and their parents, based on the gray plumage. They were perfectly willing to go about their business, feeding on the river bottom and trumpeting away while I stood their watching. Even another fall from the cameraman didn't drive them away.



Altogether I saw at least a dozen swans and zero beavers, so I called it a good day and skied back to my Jeep and went home. More photos are here.

Eagles and other birds

Saturday was for the birds! That sounds dumb but it's true - we went down to Wabasha to visit the National Eagle Center and then over to Whitewater State Park for a bird banding demonstration. The roads sucked thanks to several inches of snow overnight and windy conditions but we made it without doing any off-roading.

We walked into the Eagle Center just as an employee (or maybe volunteer) was bringing out Angel the bald eagle for photo ops. Of course we took advantage of that.



We looked at a few of the exhibits, but really we just wanted to see the feeding demo. Terp went in to save a couple seats while I took some photos of the eagles in their viewing area.


Sadly, the feeding demo was at the end of an hourlong talk, which featured a lot of info but became somewhat tedious after about 30 minutes. Even more sadly, the feeding wasn't all that exciting, consisting mainly of watching an eagle stand on a piece of meat and rip shred off with its beak. There were a couple of good moments, like when it dropped the meat and then just stared at it like it wasn't sure what to do now. And when it grabbed a piece of meat but then had major issues trying to get its foot on top of it.

Running short on time, we bailed out about a minute before the program ended and hit the road. Thanks to my fancy driving we made it to Whitewater with a few minutes to spare and watched them set up the mist net to catch some birds. In no time they had their first catch, a woodpecker of some sort.



After our demonstrator talked about the bird for awhile and described the bird banding program, etc. she asked for a volunteer to take the bird outside and release it. I don't know who this is, but he jumped up and grabbed that poor woodpecker by the neck and bolted for the door with this goofy smile on his face. The look on the demonstrator's face is priceless: like she's wondering who let the weird bird guy into the program? She's obviously pushing him away and hoping he gets locked outside.



Anyway, the demo went on and was very interesting. By the way, I don't remember the demonstrator's name nor the exact names of the birds, so she will be referred to as "she" and the birds as "the bird" or "birds". Very scientific and detail oriented, I know.

So, she talked about each different type of bird as she pulled them out of the little bird holder thing (another technical term) and was able to keep me interested the entire time, which is not easy to do. The woodpeckers and some other kind of bird (nuthatch maybe?) did not appreciate the attention and pecked at her hand constantly, whereas the littler guys (goldfinches and ??) were much quieter. Those birds were able to be hypnotized - once in hand, just tip them downward for about 30 seconds and they would lie there motionless, even after opening your hand. I had one in my open hand for a couple minutes and was able to transfer it to Terp's hand without it moving at all.



It's not dead, trust me.

Terp waited and waited and got to release the last woodpecker. This time he waited for me to take a proper photo of the occasion.




Following that, we watched a short video on the 2007 flood at the park which closed it down for many months, and then got on the road to come home. Thumbs up for the bird banding, not so much for the eagle center.

More photos here.

City of Lakes Loppet

A co-worker was competing in the skijoring event at the Loppet this past weekend and convinced me (and a few others) to come out and watch. Always encouraging, we wished her well and asked if she could fall down and let her dog drag her so we'd have some cool pictures to show everyone at work. Unfortunately, she didn't help us out with that, although a few other strangers did. Probably the most embarassing was the competitor in the Advanced division who wiped out about 10 seconds into the race, in full view of the hundreds of people gathered to watch the start.

All in all the dogs were impressive, some pulling hard enough their owner didn't have to do anything other than stay upright and go along for the ride. I have a bunch more photos but just wanted to feature this one because it looks cool.

But there was a whole lot more than just skijoring. Bike races on ice, a snow carving contest, sprint races, ski races for various ages and distances and a luminary loppet - a chance for anyone to get out on the lake at night and ski by candlelight, with ice sculptures lit from within lining the course.

First off was the Jr. Loppet, which mostly consisted of high school or junior high kids. This is a shot of them lined up waiting to start (the starting line is also the finish line).

Following that event, the Mini-Loppet took place. This should be renamed the "Take your kid to the lake and let them fall a lot" Loppet. I thought the pond hockey kids were like a puppy pile, but the skiers were a seething, writhing mass of puppies just waiting for the chance to wipe out and take as many kids down as possible. Some of the ones at the front were pretty good skiers but it rapidly went downhill from there. Or actually, not so rapidly downhill as this photo shows.


Race volunteers basically stood at the top of a small hill and stopped everyone until the hill was cleared of fallen bodies, then let a few more go down and repeated the process. Over and over, until at last I couldn't take it anymore and walked over to Lake Calhoun to watch some people parasailing or paraskiing or something which involved a large kite/sail type of thing pulling people across the lake. That also featured a lot of falling down - I believe the theme of the day has been firmly established by now.

Hey, there's a snow penguin!



Later I watched the sprint races and marveled at the color commentary provided, some of it unintentionally thanks to an inadvertant open mic in the main announcing booth. The sprints were fairly predictable - bet on the woman who's a current U.S. National team member to win, and bet on the guy who holds the world record in the 100 meters to smoke everyone. Too bad there isn't gambling on ski races.

I went back late at night to check out the luminaries, late enough so the course was pretty much empty and I didn't have to dodge any skiers. There was an ice pyramid, an icecropolis thingie, and lots of other sculpture things. Really nicely done, and I'd suggest taking part in this event for anyone who can manage to ski a few kilometers. I'm pretty sure they allow snowshoes as well.









You can see 40+ photos here.