January’s Short-Eared Owl, Pole Farm, off Cold Soil Road - Brenda Jones

When one is firmly instructed, regarding a cane, “Don’t leave home without it,” how can one access the wild?

When I was still in post-op mode, ‘extending the surgical leg’ and ‘building core strength’ became the heart of the matter of my odd life.

It occurs to me that others, without even having met the knife, may hesitate to set out on New Jersey Trails.  Even though I’ve been raving about them all these years, in NJ WILD and in print; even though you can go onto NJ TRAILS.org and discover super hiking spots in most counties in our state.

If you’re a beginner, or a somewhat reluctant returner to trails, where might you start?  Where might there be gifts for you, without the daunting?  If weight loss is mandated, and diet isn’t enough, where might you slim and strengthen, while being delighted by New Jersey Nature?

I’ve decided to list nearby trails that have turned me back into a walker, even though trails that climb are still verboten.  I’m setting out with prescribed cane and friend’s arm.  I have now been given official permission to set out alone, with my two trekking poles for balance and trip-protection.  None of these is far from Princeton, as you well know.

Bluebird in Full Cry, Brenda Jones

All hold gifts.  Give them a whirl.  I’ll see you out there!

My first trail adventure was the Hamilton/Trenton/Bordentown Marsh.  (www.marsh-friends.org).  There’s a flat road that circles Spring Lake, formed by a spring even before the land became sacred to Lenni Lenapes.  As those who read NJ WILD know, even though I could barely make 1/4 the lake road on that first forasy, we were greeted by a raft of the tiny white-billed coots on the lake; one stately swan; an unidentifiable flock of migrant birds against the lowering light; then a descent of silent geese into jungley waters to our right.  We barely made it in and out before sundown that time.  I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

Today, that friend and I are heading back to the Marsh to do the entire lake road.  Those who can cross over the bridge into wooded areas of the Marsh are in for treats beyond counting.  Even with its watery name, the trails are dry and waterproof footwear is not essential.  In the Marsh in all seasons, I have found owls in the daytime, fox dens, and owl pellets.  Directions are on the Friends for the Marsh web-site.

Fox Listening for Vole, Pole Farm, Brenda Jones

My second trail excursion was the road alongside the quarry that is now a lake at Plainsboro Preserve.  It’s a broad flat expanse, with a sacred beechwood on the left and a shimmer of water hiding the former industrial might of this site.  In winter, rare ducks stud the lake surface.  Inside the beechwood, the temperature is ten degrees warmer in winter, cooler in summer — because of the microclimate.  I only ventured into the beechwood this time, because that trail is rough underfoot for ‘the surgical leg’.  In season, probably June, the beechwood hides exquisite secret plants, the frail white Indian pipe, and the ruddy almost invisible beech drops.  On our road, my friend and I were surrounded by bluebirds, like the house-cleaning scene in Snow White in my childhood.  We both yearn to return for bluebird blessings.

http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionCenters/SectionPlainsboro/Introduction.aspx

Numbers never matter to me - so I don’t know which treks were the footbridge over the Delaware River, from Bull’s Island to the Black Bass Inn and back.  That luminous, windswept stretch was the site of final hikes with the leg that very nearly refused to work.  I have now accomplished it twice and merrily, in full sun and exuberant wind, above the river I fought so hard to save in the 1980’s from the dread and all-conquering PUMP.  There is a fellowship of the footbridge that is a joy in any season.  Taking others inside the Black Bass to encounter the real original zinc bar from Maxim’s is a thrill for all my francophile friends.  The food is delightful and the riverside setting cannot be topped.

One could even push someone in a wheelchair along the footbridge.  It’s necessary to enter on the Jersey side, usually — few parking places in PA.  They don’t cherish their towpath and canal as we do…  There’s plentiful parking at Bull’s Island, and many (rockier, rootier, not yet for me) trails which are a joy, especially in spring, when I have encountered trees on the Island with more warblers than leaves.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/bull.html

The Sourlands is full of trails, again to be found via NJ TRAILS.org.  I have twice now been privileged to hike the one off Greenwood Avenue, (north from Route 518, Hopewell, at Dana Building.)  Once, that earthen road was used to carry out the boulders now preserved, to turn them into gravel to build New Jersey Roads.  Now the roadway leads ever inward, among boulders that bring Stonehenge to mind.  The overstory reveals beeches and tulip trees, the occasional shagbark hickory.  The understory is brightened and softened by mosses and ferns.  The air is alive with the sound of visible and invisible watercourses.

On Saturday, children’s voices rang ahead and behind us on the trail.  I wanted to find Richard Louv and tell him, In the Sourland Mountain Preserver, there are children in the woods, and they are laughing and even splashing, in January!

Sourlands Trail in January, Brenda Jones

This coming weekend, I’ll try Griggstown Grasslands, newish preserve off Canal Road, where I live, just south of the Griggstown Causeway.  We’ll drive up the steep entry and take that long earthen road, weather permitting.  There are lovely grasslands there, tended for the sake of birds who require especially in nesting season.  At Griggstown Grasslands, as we did on Saturday at the Sourland Mountains Preserve, I can pick up the welcome whiff of morning’s fox, who had obviously been assiduously marking his territory.

Foxy Close-Up, Brenda Jones

http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionConservation/FranklinTownshipSomersetCounty/GriggstownNativeGrasslandPreserve.aspx

I’m not currently essaying the D&R Canal and Towpath, because of too many storms and floods - fearing too much unevenness underfoot(e).

No, I haven’t made it to the Pole Farm, yet.  This has been officially designated an Important Birding Area, and holds wild treasures in all seasons.  There’s a road, there, longer than all I’ve described here.  The short-eared owls should be soaring at dusk, foxes ever-possible.

http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionIBBA/IBBASiteGuide.aspx?sk=2938

The moral of this post is, even tethered to a cane, the Princeton region is full of the wild. It’s easily accessed and will enrich you beyond measure.

And keep an eye on the skies around Carnegie Lake - ‘our’ American bald eagles should be courting and nest-building as we ’speak’.

American Bald Eagle, Millstone Aqueduct, Brenda Jones

How fortunate we are to live in WILD New Jersey…

THIS JUST IN: Steve Hiltner’s marvelous Sustainable Jazz Ensemble will be playing at Labyrinth Books every other Friday in July - July 1, 15, 29.  Labyrinth is at 122 Nassau, and the music takes place downstairs.  Steve’s inimitable humor assures us that “no virgin timbres are harvested for these performances.”  Michael Redmond, Lifestyle and Time Off Editor of the Packet, urges, in his Packet Pick: “Be There or Be Square.”  The time is 6:30, and BYO is o.k., says the Packet Pick.

On Another Note Altogether, Steve and I are in synch.  I have his permission to use his Princeton Nature Notes posting on the beavers of Princeton:

Steve Hiltner, of Friends of Princeton Open Space, writes of a joyous beaver memory within a moonlit pond, hoping that such scenes “can serve as a bridge of kinship between people and nature.”  Recently, that bridge was seriously shattered in our community.

I am fascinated to see results, when I Google, Princeton, Beavers, on electronic sites, showing that others are still disturbed that the lovely waters of Pettoranello Gardens proved fatal rather than life-sustaining to our Princeton beavers.

Steve maintains a charming blog, Princeton Nature Notes, which I have quoted here in the past.  He officially linked to NJ WILD recently on the beaver tragedy.

Steve is also a superb musician - whose jazz last Friday graced Labyrinth Books, in their summer Friday jazz program.  I so enjoyed it many Fridays last year - hearing jazz with friends surrounded by books — what could be better.  Keep an eye on the Labyrinth web-site, to see when we can hear Steve’s jazz anew.

I was at the Brandywine Museum that night for Jamie Wyeth’s opening of his farm art.  More to come on that after I download pictures from his father’s beloved Kuerner farm site, setting the tone for Jamie’s impeccably rendered farm creatures.

Here’s Steve’s wise reading of the beaver situation.  Thanks for linking, Steve, to NJ WILD and to D&R Greenway, which shares your preservation mission in our region.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Beavers

The killing of two beavers at Pettoranello Pond two weeks ago brought into the spotlight two sharply contrasting views of the animals. Beavers are adorable, and impressive in their craftsmanship. One of my most serene memories is watching a beaver swim peacefully across a moonlit pond. Their approach to living–find an auspicious spot, transform it to your needs, and make a living there–has parallels with ours, and so can serve as a bridge of kinship between people and nature.

Their inclination to change their surroundings, as in the sticks and mud they were using to obstruct water flow under this bridge, also triggers a distinctly negative view of beavers as nuisance animals. People get a pond just the way they want it, plant some pretty trees, and then a beaver comes along, changes the water level and starts eating the trees. That’s what was happening at Pettoranello Pond. Of course, if beavers are stigmatized for changing the environment, imagine what an animal community that could form and hold opinions would be thinking about us.

Beavers have been living in the canal and Lake Carnegie for a long time, and I had been wondering why they hadn’t made it up Mountain Brook to Mountain Lakes and Pettoranello Gardens. Now that they have, I’d expect more will come. My hope would be that some way could be found to accommodate the beavers while keeping the pond level stable and any valuable trees protected. There are devices that allow water through dams without the beavers being aware. In my opinion, the beavers would do Pettoranello Gardens at least one favor by thinning out its thick stands of alder along the water’s edge. If the beaver’s additions to the dam obstructed storm flow, then a spillway for heavy runoff could be dug somewhere along the bank. The pond already has a bypass upstream of it for storm surges.

Posted by Stephen Hiltner at Saturday, May 28, 2011

FRUITS OF HABITAT PRESERVATION, COURTESY OF BRENDA AND CLIFF JONES

Essence of Spring - Robin at Hobler Park

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NJ WILD readers know how Brenda’s stellar work enriches this blog, year-round, from the beginning.

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Beaver Close-Up, from when we met

When I met her, Brenda and her faithful “field collaborator” husband, Cliff, all three of us seeking the beavers of Mapleton (between Princeton and Kingston.)

You may not realize that Brenda’s art has now graced the 1900 barn walls of D&R Greenway Land Trust in two art exhibitions- Birds Bees and Butterflies, and now, Born of Wonder: Childhood and Nature. You may stop by on business hours of business days to see her art in our Marie L. Matthews Galleries, and to purchase it to take home.

One of her Baltimore Oriole Pictures - it’s pulling snagged fishing line for its nest

Brenda’s first gallery appearance was in Birds Bees & Butterflies.  She brought nine works, tried to take home three at the end.  However, someone had seen her Baltimore oriole, so she had to ‘turn right ’round’ and bring it back, with new art for the current show.  We sold many of her early works twice (she’d make prints and have her uncle frame them.)  The first work to sell at Born of Wonder, Childhood and Nature, was Brenda’s of the great blue herons feeding their great blue offspring!  We sold a painting from this show for four figures last night at the Poetry Walk; and most of the art in the Upmeyer Room was sold at the April 8 opening.  However, the art will be up and available through July 15.

Mocking Bird this week at Hobler Park

And you’ve had the pleasure of her artistry, free, all along!

Diving Kestrel, right near home

Brenda and Cliff go on nature quests, beauty quests as often as they possibly can.  She sends them to me, and you are the richer for it.

American Kestrel From the Back

Spring finally came to Brenda and Cliff this week - look at these amazing images, from Hobler Park (right here in Princeton at the corner of the Great Road and 518! - I’ve written about it for you - the images of Hobler that I find could be states away, Ohio, for example, plain and sturdy barns and silos, acres of wildflowers, and no Princeton in sight!  It’s a great place to go in autumn because high, oddly enough.  The light stays longer at Hobler.  From Heinz refuge down below the Philadelphia Airport.  From Baldpate Mountain (in our state, and D&R Greenway’s had a hand in the preservation and stewardship of that land and those trails, under our new Chairman of the Board, Alan Hershey, who so energetically also heads New Jersey Trails.

Yellow-rumped Warbler, formerly ‘Myrtle’

Brenda Jones: American Bald Eagle in characteristic straight-winged flight

One of my all-time favorite birding sites is Hawk Mountain, over in Pennsylvania.  Once birds, especially raptors, were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands in migration time.  One brave woman, Rosalie Edge, said, “Enough!”  She gathered forces human, financial, political, adding them to her own formidable courage.  Rosalie literally stood on that mountain, once she’d succeeded in having it declared a Wild Life Refuge, and stared down furious hunters with guns.

I try to do my bit for Mother Nature, but my physical courage never equaled Rosalie’s.  Luckily, it need not now, where birds are concerned.  (However, according to scientist/author Carl Safina, in his splendid Song for a Blue Ocean, there are remote islands in our world where ecologists are seen as enemies, as potential hostages, and even are eliminated for taking stands for the fish.)

At Hawk Mountain now, one arrives at nine a.m., climbs awhile through woods and rocks to the North Lookout, and spends a sacred day with fellow bird enthusiasts and winged miracles on all sides.

Brenda Jones:  Duck Flight Before Storm

Here’s what I’ll be missing while on the Mississippi.  Assuming The Father of The Waters chooses to become less turbulent, to carry less flood debris, to ’stay in his bed.’  LeClaire Iowa and Dubuque, where we will embark and disembark, are in watery peril right now.  The Mississippi is not supposed to flood in October.

People on the North Lookout don’t need to worry about floods.  Instead, they train their eyes on qualities and quantities of rarities, beyond belief.  Brilliant birders on all sides serve as gentle coaches.  They’re the ones who taught me, when I inquired watching a kettle of golden eagles, “How many birds in order to call it a kettle? (a swirl of raptors riding thermal lift currents):  “Takes two to kettle.”

Go to Hawk Mountain for me.

Smiles

Brenda Jones: American Kestrel in Flight Carrying Vole

Hawk Mountain Migration eUpdate for Sept 28

Weather and Migration Predictions for This Week:

A frontal boundary to our south moved north yesterday bringing occasional showers and rain for today as a low pressure system from the south moves north along the boundary. The front will move off the coast tonight and stall, bringing the potential for more rain on Thursday. The current forecast calls for northwest or north-northwest winds Thursday through Sunday.

Sharp-shinned hawks will be the most numerous migrant this week with counts of more than 100 birds expected on most days. Ospreys, Bald Eagles, and kestrels should be seen daily as well.

Sightings of Merlins and Peregrine Falcons also should increase this week. Days with northwest winds should offer great views of migrating raptors as they hug the ridge and fly close to the lookout. Based on weather forecast, this weekend should be ideal!!

Brenda Jones:  Gees Pass Moon

For more detail on flights and timing, your best bet is to call the Info Line: 610-756-6000×6 or monitor the Hawk Mountain Facebook Page (click here).

Migration for Last Week:
The number of Bald Eagles have been well above average this year and on Saturday the previous record of 245 set in 2008 was broken when an adult Bald Eagle soared past the lookout at 1 p.m. By day’s end, the new record stood at 251 and by the end of the day Sunday it was already at 255. At this rate, a count of more than 300 Bald Eagles this season is very possible. Other highlights last week included 817 Broad-winged Hawks on Thursday and a season high 55 American Kestrels on Saturday.

Reminder: Our Migration Info Line is updated every evening after 6 pm. To hear the day’s count and a weather and flight prediction for the following day, call 610-756-6000 x6. You also can see the day’s count on our website, also updated every evening on our home page, OR, view the season total or use the searchable database(click here to link and bookmark)

Last Week’s Count/Season Count
Note: weekly total is Mon-Sunday; Season-to-Date is thru Sept 26

Other Migration Highlights:
The composition of non-raptor migrants has started to change. Fewer warblers are being seen in the morning and sightings of kinglets, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Canada Geese are increasing. Flocks of Blue Jays were seen migrating past the lookout including a high of 116 jays on Thursday. American Goldfinches also have been increasing: a high of 61 goldfinches were seen Tuesday. Other highlights last week included a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on Tuesday, a White-crowned Sparrow on Thursday and 2 White-throated Sparrows on Sunday.

AUTUMN LECTURES:
Hawk Mountain: the world’s first raptor sanctuary
Sat, October 2
Presented by Jim Wright and Kevin Watson
An overview in photos of the sanctuary and what makes the Sanctuary and its people so special

Scenes from the BP Oil Spill
Saturday, October 23
Presented by Shawn Carey, Migration Productions
See footage and hear Shawn’s first-and account from his own week-long trip to Louisiana to document the largest oil disaster in U.S. history.

Pennsylvania Vista - Carousel Farm    cfe

NJ WILD readers know that I sometimes stray across my beloved Delaware River (windows open so I can take in her aura through almost all senses) to Bucks County.  When I lived there, from 1981 through 1987, I explored every back road.

Carousel Farm Welcome

Even so, I was not aware of Carousel Farm — where animals for Broadway shows thrived on rolling fields between performances.  Many theatre people peopled Bucks County in those days, from Hammerstein onward — this may be the Bucks County connection.  Today, those supple hills bloom every summer, lavender to the horizon, its scent on the air and the sound of happy bees in my ears.

A Visitor Enjoys the Lavender  (a cloudless sulfur butterfly)

This July (2010) was clearly stressing these purple stalks, even though (I know from my life in Provence) they are drought-tolerant to the max.  Soaking hoses twined among sage-green foliage, as yet another 90-+-degree day surrounded my excursion companion and me.

Espaliered Apples Ripen

Carousel’s products are what drew me there in the first place.  Their fragrance is that of French lavender, not the less pungent, too-sweet English scent.  And their creams actually soften skin, lasting for hours, unlike too many ‘hand lotions’ which only coat then vanish.

Venerable Window

Here are scenes of July 2010.  Wander lavender fields with us:

Looking from Arbor toward Stable

Lavender Farm’s Private Haven

“Vive La France” in the middle of Bucks County

The Quiet Garden - a fine place to write poetry…

The Good Life, Carousel Farm Donkeys

Carousel Farm Beauty and Precision

(the stable is so clean, it smells only of oatmeal…)

Nobility of Yesteryear, Carousel Farm

Cloudless Sulfur [Butterfly] Sips

Stable and Espaliered Fruit

Lavender Abundance - ‘Lavender Fields Forever…’

WHY SAVE FARMS!

Tomorrow, I am returning to the Carousel, to the scent of lavender brushed by hot summerwinds, to the buzz of very happy bees, to Pennsylvania’s soft rolling hills outside Doylestown.  Here’s how it was last time.  How will tomorrow be different?  Stay tuned…

NJ WILD READERS know how I am about preserving and utilizing farmlands…

Provence-in-Pennsylvania : Carousel Farms Lavender

Carousel Farms Barn

When is a farm more than a farm?  When it’s a source of lavender, –the color, strength, extent and fragrance of lavender fields of my beloved Provence.  Near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, we are privileged to have not one but TWO lavender farms to visit.

For beauty alone, these sites are worth the journey.  For scent alone, –admittedly arriving on gentle Pennsylvania breezes, not upon the strafing mistral.  One is Peace Valley Lavender Farm, the other is called Carousel.

The pictures are of Carousel Farm, taken last September.  This haven is named for stage animals kept there for use on Broadway and at the Met, in those heady years when New Hope and Doylestown were star-studded, literally.

Algonquin Round Table bons vivants visited, bought homes, a remarkable coterie of our most successful artists and writers, residing and createing in Bucks County.  They brought along friends, enemies, lovers and family for inspiration in the country.  And when they needed live creatures for all those Broadway plays, from Carousel Farm they would come.

www.carouselfarmslavender.com

Nowadays a man from Crete, whose air is Provencal, instead tends various lavender species.  A splendid photographer, from him, you can buy not only true lavender oil, la vraie essence, but also soaps, candles, hand and body cremes [that really nourish the skin while imparting my favorite scent upon earth], as well as this superb photographer’s book of remarkable scenes.

All this and all organic!  Open only on Saturdays from 9 - 5, I made the excursion because I’ve bought Carousel Farms lavender products, in Frenchtown, in Clinton, and always been amazed (1) that the scent is that of Provencal lavender; and (2), the products work!  http://store.carouselfarmlavender.com/index.html

His lavender products, of two French and two English species of the flower, do not simply just smell good and feel good.  Hours later, my hands and arms and anywhere else are still soft, even gleaming.

One of my favorite products, –bought from a farm wagon last September, in addition to creams and real lavender oil–, is their lavender candle.  One burns it after certain cooking tasks, such as making soup or bacon…  NJ WILD readers know that I love cooking and cooking aromas, but not several hours later.  Carousel Farms’ lavender kitchen candle, –studded blossoms of real lavender embedded in opulent wax, in its square tin with the handsome Carousel label–, solves that dilemma.

Here is the all-too-humble owner’s description from his website:

The Carousel Farm, first established in 1748, has had many lives over the centuries, –once a dairy farm, later a horse farm and, in the mid-20th century, an exotic animal farm.

When we moved to the farm 7 years ago, our challenge was to put our unique imprint on the farm, maintaining its rural beauty, yet enhancing it with something beyond.

The inspiration for Carousel Farm Lavender came when we were traveling through the beautiful Provence countryside, where rolling hills are graced with old grape vines and lavender fields, against a stunning backdrop of centuries-old fieldstone barns and farmhouses.

Our farm, with its fieldstone farmhouse, 18th-century stone barn and rolling fields broken only by fieldstone walls, seemed the perfect place to replicate the South of France.

Our fields, now over four years old, are nothing short of amazing. Despite our initial worry that the harsh Northeast climate might not be ideal for the project, after testing the soil we carefully selected  four varieties of plants, both French and English, and the plants are flourishing.

We have over 15,000 organically-grown plants, each one planted, pruned and harvested by hand. The beauty of our fields is attested to by the many of local painters and photographers who spend their days drawing inspiration from the fields.

Good for the Bees, Good for the Butterflies

As you can tell, we are proud of our lavender fields, but perhaps we are most proud that, despite the striking natural beauty of Bucks County, we  have found a way to enhance this historic community with something at once rural, beautiful, unique, and–yes–all organic!

All Organic Means, Good for the Bees

Old Ways Are Best, Where Real Farming is Concerned

Having given an art opening for two hundred or more at D&R Greenway Land Trust last evening, I waken ready to roam.

All week, I’ve not only had this major reception ‘on my plate’, quite literally.  I’ve also been absolutely alone with all phone calls.  My office mate is on a long journey, her back-up down with asthma.  You get the picture.  Long before 9, I was in the car, not knowing why nor where.  Knowing only that I had to be untethered.

Perhaps this morning’s was the oddest reason for a breakfast choice that I have ever known.  Headed toward my cherished Delaware (River), I’d thought Lambertville was the breakfast-site-of choice.  However, the radio filled my car with the flower song from Lakme, Sutherland above all.  Followed by my ‘Ur’ duet - that from the Pearl Fishers.  So long as it cascaded around me, no WAY could I stop to eat, not even at the Full Moon.  Onward and upward I drove, on the New Jersey side, along the River, (the ONLY river…), as the voices of Warren and Bjoerling swirled as they had in my twenties.  Then, I lived on Kellogg’s K, in order to afford Obstructed View Seats at the Old Met.  There, I met (pun intended) Tebaldi as Traviata, Siepi as the Don (Giovanni), Warren and Bjoerling over and over until Leonard literally died on that well-worn stage.  I was not in attendance, but I had heard him that very week.  And now, that voice was stilled forever.  Until May 15, in the 21st Century, when Warren and Bjoerling swept me north along the Delaware River, to an unexpected feast.

All the electricity of last night’s art reception still swirled about me, but I had to keep driving, north, through small but not forgotten villages of this state I have come to call my own.  Except that my geographical center is not a state, but a Valley, the Delaware Valley.

The villages were sleepy, still, as I was not.  Other drivers seemed captured by the morning’s scintillation.  They were all driving a good ten miles below the speed limit - how amazing in the 21st Century!  And even more astonishing, I didn’t care - I was glad they were doing the car equivalent of sauntering - about which I wrote for NJ WILD readers when this blog first began.

Sun on spring leaves had that special glint of light when there’s a river near. I drove green tunnels all a-glimmer, green upon green, and under that the black glisten of rocks that winter garlands with white ice.

No one else is on so many stretches of my runaway drive!  So color dominates.  There is a sudden eruption (are there slow ones?) of pink and mauve and magenta, and I realize it is the season of wild phlox.  Tall, stately yet dainty, the clusters resemble innocent prom girls, when voluptuousness was the farthest thing from those pristine minds, when dresses were sewn by tender mothers from fabrics with names like dimity.  Shy, the way we were, these blooms, nodding, like Asian women behind coquettish fans, hiding in spring shadows.  The prom-flower maidens are suddenly stirred by river winds - as we were by currents of the future.

Pearl Fisher majesty ends.  I am in Stocton, New Jersey.  The town of “There’s a small hotel, with a wishing well,” which song I heard at midnight on a May night when I’d voted at dawn to DUMP THE PUMP, then hustled into Manhattan to share a musical with a Michigan friend.  And what song was the center-piece of that production, but ‘There’s a Small Hotel.”  Written at the Stockton Inn, beside a wishing well I knew in my other life, with my once splendid husband.  And when I heard that song on the bridge in the middle of the Delaware River heading home to Bucks County, I knew our referendum had won.  What I didn’t know was that it was non-binding.  Our opponents were laughing up their sleeves, knowing what I could not foresee — that the Pump would be built that year when I ran away to Provence.  That all the land owned by lawyers and judges and chemists and utilities insiders would suddenly pass its perk tests and be worth thousands if not millions.  That Bucks County would be profaned.  That McMansions would rise on all sides in that rustic, rural Paradise.  That my few years in Bucks County would prove to have been its apex, lost forever.

Probably that battle, that loss, fuels me even now.  I will never get over the perfidy of all politicians save Peter Kostmayer, –who did win, whose position papers, speeches and release I wrote, who did name as much of our beloved Delaware as could possibly qualify, as WILD AND SCENIC.  Without whom,  we wouldn’t have all those shad fishermen and shad festivals up and down her banks in the 21st century.  So wall was not exactly lost.  But Bucks County will never be the same.

Stockton is fully alive this early.  River light blinds me, though I cannot quite see the river.  Only after I park do I realize I am before “one of my favorite things” — as though this town could have heard me singing: a Farmers’ Market!  Tiny triangle flags in simple primary colors strain at their moorings in this morning’s gale.  Hand chalked lists of today’s specialties inform me that the quaint wine shop next door proffers wine tastings at noon.  Well, that ’s a long way off.  Imagine shopping for local sustainable produce (and, I learn, for fish, for shellfish, for chocolates, for lavender, for cheeses, for grass-fed beef, for quiches and cookies and muffins and pies, for dried herbs and glass gardens (nearly succumbed to this) and baguettes and bacon, and on and on and on, to the tune of a country fiddler.  I have to go back, in a produce mood, do justice to the Stockton Farmers’ Market.

Sun dazzles, so that I am stopped literally in my tracks, at THE tracks of the Delaware and Belvidere Railroad.  Of course, it was ultimately gulped by the omnivorous Pennsylvania Railroad.  Which is why I somehow overlooked this precious journey opportunity - from Trenton to Easton, awash throughout with the ‘belle-vedere’ — beautiful viewings — which gave this train its name.

A Sicilian restaurant mis-spells its signature fish, which I am sure will be succulent and unforgettable nonetheless, were I to be here in the fish hour, which I shall not.

My quest is Miel’s - the quirky restaurant where I shall feast on crispy/fluffy corn fritters and hearty sausage patties.  Miel’s has presided at this simple corner since I lived in New Hope for most of the ‘eighties.  It was the brain-child of feisty women, and I swear the same ones are still here, turning out the identical home cooking specialties, which were exotic in the eighties.  They had roast turkey and stuffing, also meat loaf and mashed potatoes, every night of every season, back in those stupid years of la nouvelle cuisine….

What I love about Miel’s, in addition to its feisty women and hearty real food! - is their mismatched plates, cups, glasses, and the like - as though out of an Ohio great aunt’s kitchen.  On the walls now is an historian’s dream of Shad Festival posters.  It looks as though the shad itself has gone somewhat out of favor.  Cats appear.  Buildings are honored.  The river’s scarce.  The funniest is words - “To Shad or Not to Shad?”, “Shad Now or Later?”.  My favorite is a standing shad, in a red convertible, with a white scarf, a la Lindbergh or Isadora, take your pick.  This year’s was so clotted with information as to be nearly illegible, non-informational for all those words, and the shad a ghost of its former self.  I lived in New Hope when we all, on both sides of the Delaware, celebrated the historic return of the fish that McPhee insists saved our army, its general, and created our nation, that First Fish…

But I’m not here for fish.  I don’t even need the menu.  Bring me those corn fritters, that unlikely raspberry mayonnaise, the sturdy homemade sausage patties.  Ply me with water full of ice, as I wish the Arctic still could be, for my cherished polar bears.  Bring me coffee that stops me in full flow of description and memory with its hearty redolence.

Beside me rises an iconic hand-made quilt, featuring panels of other times, exhorting guests to choose the MOST DELICIOUS HAMBURGER EVER @ 25cents, or TRY OUR BLUE PLATE SPECIAL

We don’t have blue plates. Glasses are striped with Depression-era hues of orange and brass and chartreuse.  Blue willow is the oval holding my sizzling sausage patties.  My crunchy yet gossamer corn fritters, studded with real corn kernels, rest on a pink version of faux-Spode flowers of simplistic Crayola colors. A sturdy crock holds heftily-seeded raspberry jam, so thick it does not move as I tip the pot to see what treasure it holds.  In my daily life, in a more sophisticated venue, everyone’s health is so compromised that I can never find seed-filled jams and preserves any more.  A tinier pure white ‘petit pot’ holds butter I will not need.

Waitresses exult, “Great!”, “Fantastic!”, as dazzled customers finally make food choices.  In all this time, I haven’t been called a guy, nor subjected to overhearing narratives studded with the useless and to me thoroughly discouraging word, “LIKE”!  True, one woman speaks of financing, financiers, her desk, the Internet.  But she is the only one, in her hammering cadence, to interject these remnants of the bottom-line work world into my Stockton retreat.

Someone asks the waitress about all the pictures on the menu, high schoolers of various eras, seemingly especially the 60’s.  “Everyone who works here,” the questioner is told.

In the bathroom are murals of the wooded hills through which I drove to reach this true restaurant - for the phrase in France came after their Revolution, when chefs without aristocrats were driven to prepare soup for anyone, referring to these sites and those meals as something that restored: hence “RESTAURANTS”.

A French opera brought me to Stockton this day.  I will not go on to Frenchtown, erroneously named for a Swiss - they couldn’t tell the difference.

I will, instead, seek out Bowman’s Wildflower Preserve, see if the yellow lady’s slipper is anywhere to be found.

And forever thank Bjoerling and Warren, for luring me north to Stockton on this limpid Saturday morning!

Rocks That Ring, Bucks County, PA, by David Hanauer

Most people claim, when I mention Ringing Rocks Park, –above Upper Black Eddy on the New Hope side of the Delaware–, that they’ve always been MEANING to go there.

However, most people I know visit for the first time at my side.  And, frankly, they don’t quite believe me that we’ll strike boulders with hammers to call forth a concert.  Frankly, I am usually the only one determined enough to carry a hammer.

Barren Rock Field, Dense Tree Line, Visitors Ring the Rocks - David Hanauer

Except for the time I was privileged to introduce a Princeton University geologist to the rocks — he portaged an entire collection of purely metal professional hammers, which resulted in the finest rock music of my nature-life.

At Ringing Rocks, minerals and placement are proposed as the reason that certain rocks ring.  Humans need hammers to call forth the chorus. Some use other rocks, but that exquisite pinging sound does not result from rock on rock. Hammers without cushioned handles strike the purest notes.  Rocks with white ’scars’ in profusion, tend to be the ones that ring best - others insist red rocks sing most truly.  I don’t know and I don’t care — the experiment is the whole point!

This rock field has been measured at ten feet thick.  Basically nothing grows among the boulders, unlike the rest of the forest in this Bucks County Preserve.  I’m assuming this will change in a few millenia.

Oddest of all is that the rocks were not left by glaciers, which did not progress this far.  And they are not at the base of a mountain, not a rock slide, not tumbled there by coursing waters.  ‘My’ geologist insisted it’s all about weathering of rocks once molten…  Hard to believe — but he should know.

In addition to music and new playfulness, there are other gifts in Ringing Rocks — above all, what calls me forth any day, WILD BEAUTY.

Near the Waterfall in Winter, Chuck Rudy

Other life essentials exist at Ringing Rocks in profusion.  For example, the opportunity to listen to silence.

Birding by ear is a vital skill in this dense forest.  We heard red-wings, robins, distant crows, the purring of the red-bellied woodpecker, the insistent identification of Phoebe! Phoebe! - who conveniently, but needlessly, revealed himself upon a waterfall-side bare branch.  We were blessed by red-tail shadow and the tipping search of the turkey vulture.  On the way over from Hopewell through Sergeantsville, we’d had bluebirds upon bluebirds, flashing iridescent beauty at the side of the road.

Bells of Solomon’s Seal Also Ring at Ringing Rocks, cfe

Photographer Anne Zeman Zeroes in on Waterfall’s Gifts

Birding-by-ear was also essential, since our eyes (and lenses) were fully occupied with a bounty of ephemerals - spring wildflowers that will vanish the moment the tree canopy fully leafs out.

Jack-in-the-pulpit, some with burgundy stripes; some with royal purple.  May apple - well before May, its white smiley-face blossom peering out from green umbrellas at every trail meander.  Sensitive fern, hay-scented fern, Christmas fern, and some even my garden-savvy friends could not name.  Spring beauty - already bleached, barely revealing the red/pink landing-stripes that guide pollinators earlier in their blooming.  Violets peeked from below heart-shaped leaves - mostly truly violet, some yellow, some even white, — elongated, slim ballerinas upon the stage of that woods, rock music pinging in the background.  Best of all, at the brink of the falls, saxifrage lived up to its name, literally breaking the rocks of Ringing Rocks, nodding sturdy-delicate white tufts above the rush of falling water and its delicate spray.

Saxifrage-at-the-Brink, Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Deeper into the Ringing Rock woods were the semi-circle leaves of bloodroot, the lacy leaves of Dutchmen’s britches, their frail white flowers ‘gone by’ a week or so ago, as this tree canopy leafed out.

Today, what remains in my mind, however, is what rangers call ‘bear sign’.  On standing trees and fallen trees, on stumps, everywhere on either sides of their drinking water, the falls, we found paw-sized scrapes and entire raked trees.  Some sites old, browned-over, and had risen, with trees themselves, far above our heads.  Some were raw and golden.  Even without having ridden a tree-elevator, these scrapes were well above our heads.  Some were raw and golden and about at the height of our waists — baby bears fresh from winter’s den?

Bear Browse Near Falls, Ringing Rocks   cfe

Bear-sign, –where I learned it, out West–, meant places where these monarchs of the glen had torn at bark in quest of insects.  Preferably old bark.  Preferably trees already marked as failing and therefore housing insects, –marked by the presence of turkey tail fungus, nature’s restaurant sign to woodpeckers and bears.

But here, even newly fallen trunks had been raked from brunette to blonde, and not long before our visit.  Bears usually flee humans, and mid-day is not their feeding time.  I admit to deep regret on these scores…

Bear Sign Near Waterfall, cfe

Where the Bears Feast, cfe

THE GIVING TREE - TO WOODPECKERS AND BEARS   cfe

Second to bear browse, I remember what I call either “The Hall of the Mountain Kings” or “Indian Council Rocks”.  Towering above wild greenery and us, imposing rocks remind that the Transcendentalists insisted that God, the spirit, even life itself was in everything, not only trees — also rocks.

In the center of the waterfall trail is a cluster that resounds with echoes of Indians gathering here, perhaps to debate yet again who really had a right to all those grasshoppers, essential bait for shad in the nearby Delaware.  Not far north of Upper Black Eddy is Indian Rock Inn and beyond that the Indian Rock itself, where the Grasshopper War played out to its tragic ending for one tribe, victory for another.  I always feel that great decisions were made among these boulders.

Some resemble whales, coming up for air.  Others, manatees.  One, an elephant’s eye.  Bowling balls downstream from the falls.  Snails.  THRONES.

To presume to sit upon one of these monarch rocks is to allow rock power to stream into our beings, buttressing and sustaining.

Rock energy seeps into every cell, the way iron would seep in from a sip in the stream.  Calming and strengthening, all at once.

Animate Rock, Ringing Rocks   cfe

High above, all that time, is another form of music.  What my sister calls ’soughing’ and no one can convince me whether it rhymes with ‘canoeing’ or ’stuffing’ — do YOU know?!  It is wind’s humming, especially poignant when caught in spring’s first leaves.

There is a visual flickering which translates into the audible.  Each leaf is ignited in April light.  Each leaf seems a newly arrived moth, a butterfly, before we’re seeing many or even any of these, at least any we can identify.  Tethered moths, attached butterflies, all a-tremble in the light breeze.  And, in the background, always the ping, ping, cling of so many hammers.

Also in the distance is the song of the falls.  Far gentler than either Vivaldi or Handel with their water music, which is either too frenetic or too triumphal for the sound of Ringing Rocks Falls.

It is the whisper of shy waters, so elusive, indeed, camera-shy.  They seem to carol, “We will do our work,” these trilling waters, “of refreshment, nourishment, of holding the sun itself, here at the corner of these flat rocks.  We choose the shadows, near-invisibility.  Nearly inaudible.  Essential…”

If you need ‘my’ geologist’s ‘explanation’, this is the best I can manage.  Basalt, long ago deposited as molten, has been pried by time itself, its cracks intensified by snowmelt, spring surges and cataclysmic floods from the nearby Delaware before it had a name.

Violet Profusion, cfe

Striations were deepened over milennia.  Now, bitter green moss fills some cavities, darkening yet highlighting.  The molten time gave over to the cracked time, turned into the time of the rocks.  However ‘time’ is absolutely the wrong word here, since this all happened in the time before time.

Now each rock has its own voice, shrill or dull and everything in between.  Called forth by toddlers playing and singing “Jesus Loves Me” and by their parents and strangers returning to toddler, just for this moment.  The ‘anvil chorus’ blends with the soughing of overhead trees, in fresh spring garments, and the hushed trills of waterfall, far far away.  These woods are truly “alive with the sound of music.”  Real music.  Wild music.

The Kingdom of the Rocks, cfe

Rock music of the winds — true WOODWINDS!  The wild music of invisible birds, bent upon breeding in the shadows.

I rejoice also in the music of children, unplugged for this one afternoon, scrambling among the boulders, heading eagerly yet cautiously toward the falls.  Rapt, as we are, by light in the dark wood, caught in wildflowers beyond counting, spilled at our feet.

Only one of my guests breaks sanctuary, by having brought her cell phone, turned ON, on our wild walk.  News, bad news — any news is bad news in the wild — shatters until I say, “We are leaving that, now.  We are here for the WILD.”

It’s not NJ WILD, I admit.  But it’s only an hour away - cross the Delaware at Frenchtown and turn north or Milford and turn south.  Either way, you’ll never regret hours at Ringing Rocks.

In July, we can find Indian pipes, white bell-like flowers without chlorphyll, which feed upon decaying wood in old forests.  True miracles — they enchanted the geologist’s (Certified Master Gardener) wife even more than the rocks that rang.  I can hardly wait…

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I send NJ WILD readers only my pictures now — for it is too late for words this night, too late to blog

Here are images from April 2.

Excursions to Bowman’s Hill Wildlife Preserve, just below New Hope, reveal spring’s hurtling  — latest and earliest blooms all ‘popped’ at once - and trees all leafing out, which spells the end of Bowman’s ephemerals for this year

Naturalists at D&R Greenway Land Trust, and morning’s classical music announcer on WPRB mourn, “They’ve squeezed my spring into a handful of days.”

global climate change — beautiful and terrible, all at once…

Artist/Writer Anne Zeman As Intense as the Spring She Photographs

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Emergent Dutchman’s Britches

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An Ignition of Skunk Cabbages

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Intrepid Toad Trillium

Eagle At Eye Level, Brenda Jones

www.hawkmountain.org
linkevich@hawkmountain.org
610-756-6961

Long-time NJ WILD readers know that one of my favorite birding sites is Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania.  Normally, one zooms over there in the autumn, arriving at North Lookout around 9 a.m., the time of the first of each fall day’s thermals.  These are upward spirals of air from warming earth which lift raptors, speed them on their journey.  Jaunty birders refer to thermals as ‘raptor elevators.’

Even though I’m signed up for Hawk Mountain alerts, I can tend to forget that ‘what went down must come up’, in terms of who migrated south, who must migrate back north for essential breeding and raising of young.

“The Ridge” - Courtesy of National Women’s History Project

In a cathedral hush, visitors to the stony spine of that Kittatinny Ridge are guided by knowledgeable official counters in everything you ever wanted to know about identifying migrant birds on the wing, most at eye level.

This enraged osprey by Brenda Jones is near our Lake Carnegie

But we wouldn’t have osprey without the courage of people such as Rachel Carson,

Rosalie Edge, and even Mrs. John James Audubon - all of whom called attention to extinctions.

Here is an unpublished sketch by Rachel Carson about her visit to North Lookout in 1945.

Road of the Hawks

They came by like brown leaves drifting on the wind. Sometimes a lone bird rode the air currents; sometimes several at a time, sweeping upward until they were only specks against the clouds or dropping down again toward the valley floor below us; sometimes a great burst of them milling and tossing, like the flurry of leaves when a sudden gust of wind shakes loose a new batch from the forest trees…On the horizon to the north, formed by a series of seven peaks running almost at right angles to the ridge on which we sit, an indistinct blur takes form against the sky. Second by second the outlines sharpen. Soon the unmistakable silhouette of a hawk is etched on the gray. It is too soon to make out the identifying lines of wing and tail that mark him from one species or another. On he comes, following the left side of ridge, high up. Sometimes he banks steeply and his outlines melt into the sky.

Perhaps it is not strange that I, who greatly love the sea, should find much in the mountain to remind me of it. I cannot watch the headlong descent of the hill streams without remembering that, though their journey be long, its end is in the seas And always in these Appalachian highlands there are reminders of those ancient season that more than once lay over all this land. Now, I lie back with half-closed eyes and try to realize that I am at the bottom of another ocean—an ocean of air on which the hawks are sailing.

Here’s Hawk Mountain’s beginning of the spring report.  Think about joining them, financially, to preserve the first place where the shooting of fall migrants was forbidden, thanks to feisty Rosalie Edge.  Think about driving over there, making the brief climb, toting a lunch and water of course, to watch the miracle of return of creatures once slaughtered there by the thousands!

American Kestrel in Flight with Vole, Brenda Jones

FROM HAWK MOUNTAIN:

Nature Notes

The recent warm weather had wildlife moving. Chipmunks and squirrels were out in full force, and we also saw phoebes, fox sparrows and a purple finch at the feeder windows. It was all about amphibians in the Native Plant Garden : on warm days the wood frogs were loudly calling (or should I say squacking?), and salamanders were floating on the pond surface. It all leads up to the Spring Migration Watch that begins April 1, which marks the unofficial start of the Hawk Mountain spring season. This is a great time to visit the Sanctuary for a hike, some birding, or just to take in the views and enjoy the annual ‘green-up’.

As spring returns, remember the words of our founder Mrs. Rosalie Edge, which ring true six decades after her writing:

“Come early and do come often, remembering that it is your Sanctuary. Time spent mid the peace of Hawk Mountain brings the strength and inspiration which in these times we all need so much.”

Rosalie Edge, who stood alone against armed hunters, to preserve the raptors

Thank you, as always, for your support and enthusiasm and I hope to see you here soon,

Mary

Mary Linkevich, Communication & Grants Manager
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

www.hawkmountain.org
linkevich@hawkmountain.org
610-756-6961