2013 In Images

Sunset-North Dakota

End of the year.  I could look ahead and decide to tackle some big photography project, like a 365 or something, but instead, I decided to just look back.  I've done this  for years now and it's always interesting to relive little things as I flip through the photographs.  I didn't strictly stick to one per month and they are not all great photos.  They're selected because of why we make pictures.  To make something beautiful, to relive a memory and to record an important event.  More or less chronological, enjoy the past year in pictures.

Deep Winter

Happy Holidays!

The Joy of Crust Biking

Pedaling the Sweaty Yeti

Head Coach Melting in South Korea

The Big Snow

The Sandhills are Early

Sturtz Prairie in Winter

East Snow Creek Turkey Woods

Horn Lake Camp

Isle Royal Beach

Gnomefest Derby

Oxbo Paddle

Molly in Blind-North Dakota

Frustration

Happy Trey

Dave Spreading Deeks

Snowy Owl Invasion of 2013

Trey and Gpa

Lights and Shadows

NoDak 2013

Duck Hunters wear waders cause of the stories they tell.

For my Wisconsin duck hunting friends and myself, the almost-annual fall hunting trip to North Dakota really begins about ten miles down the hiway the previous year.  12 months earlier, we are already talking about “next year” and what we can do different and what we learned during this addition-no shortage of curriculum there at all.  Being from a state that really isn’t known for high volume waterfowl  traffic or emptying a lot of ammo boxes, my group of buddies look foreword to the wide open pot hole country and the opportunity to clean the cobwebs out of our 12 gauges.

All of us hail from the Wausau area originally and grew up in the woods, often at the end of the day streaking out of the doors of the high school, searching for coveys of grouse.  Back then a couple of .20 gauge shotguns and tattered bird vests in the trunk in the school parking lot was no big deal. Close friend Mike lived on Lake Wausau, so he had duck hunting in his blood and I’d tagged along with my Grandpa Schutlz bagging a few mallards and Woodies when I was a kid.  As all of us grew up, we made it a point to hit the woods and marshes together as often as we could.  That’s all well and good, but we also wanted to experience what “real” hunting was like- out west….shooting box after box of shells at endless flights of ducks and pheasants. Chatting with a Neillsville neighbor one day, I learned of a farmer in North Dakota with tons of land and reasonable rates.  Perfect opportunity. Some quick calls and consultations with the hunting buds and soon reservations were made for the following fall.  It was a good decision back then-we’ve  had good years and slow ones but never unsuccessful if one measures in number of laughs, stories and solid camaraderie.

 Prepping for the trip may start in our minds right away the preceding year, but for the dogs, it really begins in earnest during the hottest months of summer.  This year would be my 5 year old Black Lab Molly’s first out-west trip.  She’s performed well on pheasants in state, but retrieving on big cold North Dakota water through a pile of decoys could be tougher.  Several times a week, we’d  head down the road and do drills in a small lake.  She enjoyed this game immensely and even when I set a handful of decoys out off the beach, she managed to navigate though them to make the retrieves.    I felt she was ready and couldn’t wait to see her hit the water,

The guys are scattered a bit now-Mike and Moe in Wausau, Dave in Ladysmith,  Mikes son James (with a new dog Wally) near the cities and I’m in Neillsville.  With a bit of coordination we all gathered and shoehorned gear, guns and dogs into two trucks and a trailer.  I’d also be delivering a young golden retriever puppy to a new owner in ND as a favor and she was no problem during the 8 hour drive.  At one time landowner Allen’s cash crop farm was over 5000 acres, but he’d downsized now and we had to work harder to find which potholes the birds were using.  Pheasants suffered a huge downturn this past year, so we hunted those as incidentals as we jump shot marshes.  Our intent was to try goose hunting as well, and no expense was spared getting deeks bought, painted and prepped-they never left the truck box.  Crops were still standing and finding giant Canadians proved difficult.  Snow geese would tease us, but are tough to hunt.  We stuck to what we’d learned over the years-set decoys in the morning, jump shoot later, relax and catch the sun lengthening shadows late in the day.

We’ve hunted  NoDak in about every conceivable kind of weather-from unseasonably warmth to breaking ice on ponds cold.  No different this year.  We arrived at 3:30 am and caught some zzzz’s in a gas station parking lot only to find snow blanketing everything an hour later.  Typical North Dakota.  Melting snow meant soils turn to black grease and the truck stayed in four wheel drive all week.  Overcast and damp actually helped duck hunting as one would expect and we managed to get plenty of shooting opportunities the first 2 days.  Bluebird skys and temps sliding up to the 60s seem to put the kabash on our waterfowl hunt later.  We did get a few more, but they were tough to find-no cold front flights of northern birds would arrive this year.  We managed a few rooster pheasants, but the hens outnumbered them 15 to 1 if we did find them.  No matter, we still were in a beautiful place and away from work and for the dogs, it was nirvana every day.

I think we all appreciate the opportunity to make this trip and don’t take anything for granted.  We’ve learned that hunting here doesn’t have to mean pounding the fields and marshes every minute of every day like maybe we did when we were younger.  We stop more, we quit earlier and we take the time to breathe it all in.  As we sat one night this year making a point to watch the sun go down,  we all agreed that even though it takes a good deal of effort to pull this off, it’s all worth it.  An early exit by 3 of the guys for a family emergency lead to a text from Mike the following day- “We need to do more of this kind of thing….life is too short.”  I couldn’t agree more.

 

The Prairie Fire Revisited

The renewing power of fire in nature cannot be understated and the other day I had a firsthand chance to witness it.  A few months ago, a controlled burn was used on a tall grass prairie established and maintained by close friends, Rick and Toni Sturtz.  They are caretakers of this plot of land, returning it to a native environment common to much of Wisconsin a hundred plus years ago.  In an age of habitat loss, it’s refreshing to see even a small gain in restoring what was once here.

 As a photographer, I think I need to tackle a project, a theme or body of work from time to time-just to force myself into something different.  Three graduate credits for a photo project will work too!  My idea was to return to this prairie I’d photographed during the fire, to take a close up view of it now that the black ash of the burned vegetation is swallowed up by new growth.  I drive or pedal by it every day it seems during the summer, but that’s not the same as walking among the Big Blue Stem, cone flowers and Bee Balm.  Of course, with a camera and extra lenses along, it also changes how I walk and what I’m seeing.

 With the sweltering days and humidity, it’s been pretty common to have ground fog in the morning and with the addition of some clouds, a beauty sunrise.  Photographers call it the “Golden Hour” for a reason, and once the sun climbs a few too many degrees in the sky that magic light becomes mundane.  The low fog on this morning added a mysterious quality to the landscape and the east sky didn’t disappoint.  I switched up lenses from time to time, wanting to capture the vastness of the prairie ( it’s just 35 acres or so, but the largest parcel of tall grass around here) with the wide angle and then sometimes a long lens to pull in the smallest detail of what is hidden here.   I’m no wildflower expert, so part of my shooting was just “collecting” images to identify later.  It’s amazing how much variety is really out in a prairie.

 Although some species of wildlife need and thrive in tall grass, many times, they stay hidden, but on this morning I caught fawn looking at me, looking at her.  “She” was hunkered down near a scrape pond, sunlight making her alert ears glow.  I managed a couple frames before a few steps too close sent her bounding high across the field.  I continued on, finding some interesting dew beaded spider webs, some Prairie Blazing Star, and Queen Anne’s Lace.  Along the way, other flowers were past their prime, flowering earlier in the summer to start off the season with a flourish of color.  It’ll be interesting to watch different species move to the forefront as the days shorten and temps cool.  Never a dull moment here. 

 The First Nations people living here long ago knew the importance of fire, just as mother nature always has in renewing and revitalizing some habitat.  I’m grateful to have such great stewards of the land just a few miles away and the opportunity take in, with all my senses (and camera) this unique and beautiful land.

 

 

 

 

 

Burn Notice-The Sturtz Prairie Fire

 

At one time Wisconsin had over 2.1 million acres of tall grass prairie,  reduced to only 0.5 percent of it’s original ecosystem today, often degraded and fragmented into small plots.  It was the result years ago of farmers moving in and plowing the fertile prairie soil and of fire suppression, which led to the invasion of woody vegetation.  Luckily, some have a vision of the importance in restoring our prairies and see value and importance in preservation, of bringing back rare plants and wildlife and maintaining this diverse genetic resource.  And…their beauty.

As stewards of the land, Rick and Toni Sturtz have this vision-after acquiring an old historic farmstead near the ghost town of Columbia (in southwest Clark County), they set forth an effort to create a place to live in harmony with the natural environment all the while upgrading their home and surrounding outbuildings.  The Sturtz’s have unparalleled vision and creativity, along with a generous spirit and willingness to share with others and future generations.  Their tall grass restoration project is not only for them, but for others to catch a glimpse of what parts of the state looked like a hundred or more years ago.  This was the home to rare grassland birds and wildlife, grasses like Big Bluestem, and Switchgrass, not to mention the beauty of native flowers.  Within a few short years, converting this fallow 35 acre field into prairie has attracted everything from  Cranes, Northern Harriers and  Bald Eagles to endangered Ornate Box Turtles.

Fire plays a crucial role in maintaining prairie ecosystems.  At one time lightning or Native Americans burned dead vegetation and woody material promoting plant growth and returning nutrients to the ground.  A call from Rick a few days ago, gave me a heads up that a prescribed burn would take place on their prairie and perhaps I would be interested. I was anxious for the opportunity, for it would provide a rich environment for some photography but also pique my interest in the process of a prairie burn.

 

The local volunteer fire department took this as a chance to train new firefighters on wildfire control and very quickly set up and burned a perimeter back burn against the wind. Once a safe “black ground” border was established, the fire could be spread across the entire prairie and in an astonishingly quick time, the entire 35 acres was  burned.  I was amazed at the sound-the loud crackle and echo off the surrounding forest of the dead grass quickly igniting, and the speed of the flames shooting skyward.  I have a whole new appreciation of wildfire, its dangers and of firefighters who battle them.

As quickly and dramatically as the fire consumed the prairie, just as soon it became black and silent. A few smoldering embers remained, its' smoke to waif across the field. In time, and a little rain, nature will quickly restore the vegetation with renewed vigor. I can’t wait to watch the progression this year as new life emerges from the soil...it should be simply amazing.  

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