Lingering Cautions

I could feel the fixed stare of several pairs of eyes as they closely followed me while I moved from the front end of my truck around to the back and even as I quickly climbed into the box. The stares remained set upon me for a couple more minutes while I readied my cameras for the morning's work. Completing my preparations, I turned one of the cameras around to study this wall of shaggy beasts firmly entrenched about 30 feet away.

The eyes belonged to a group of nervous bison cows, most of them mothers to calves no more than ten days old. Typically, the cows had encircled an area 20-30 feet wide in which were confined a half dozen of the little golden tykes - now mostly napping - to protect them from potential predators. As I panned my lens past each set of eyes, there could be little doubt as to the fate of any creature foolish enough to attempt entering this circle.

This procedure of "circling the wagons" has been in use by cows like these since the days of the last ice age, a time when North America was roamed by numerous and huge predators like the short-faced bear, saber-toothed cat and probably a cheetah as well, just to name a few. Nearly all of those ancient marauders became extinct during the close of that last ice epoch, leaving creatures like the wold and cougar as the only predatory threat to bison with most of that being confined to calves and sick or injured adults. And even that pressure has been severely reduced with wolves and cougars being mostly eliminated from habitats where bison are typically found nowadays.

But time has done little to dull a bison cow's instincts as is evident this morning with their lingering cautions, as they are still responsive to ghosts from the past. And I only have to recall my one negative encounter with a bison for further proof - the time I was chased by a new mother cow and ended up diving under an old fallen cottonwood tree to escape her wrath.

This morning will present to such danger however, as the cows relax and go about their business - caring for interacting with their young. And while seated safely in the box of my pickup truck, I can go about my business, which is creating images of the lives of these great creatures.

(above) After a nine month gestation, a cow usually goes off by herself to give birth and then keeps the calf protectively secluded for a couple of days while the two bond.

(left) The calves soon become restless from the seclusion and very curious of their surroundings, prompting the mothers to rejoin the herd with their newborn.

(above) As the calves join the herd with their mothers, they begin to form close ties with each other that also include the usual antics & play typical of all childhood.

(right) As is with most infants, everything becomes a plaything for a bison calf - even a dried stalk of grass from last summer.

(above) A bison herd is constantly on the move and the young calves quickly learn to keep pace with the rest as falling behind leaves them vulnerable to predators during their first weeks.

(left) This little bull calf stretches as he rises from a long morning nap taken within the safe confines of the circle of cows.

(above) Weighing about 60 pounds at birth, bison calves between now and the first snows of late autumn will gain about six times their current weight in preparation for winter survival.

(right) A worried mother cow steps in front of her calf to cast an eye of warning on the photographer as the curious youngster peeks from behind.

(above) With her recently born calf following along as best it can, this cow heads across the grasslands into the orange sky of a prairie sunset.

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."

Chief Seattle

HAPPY EARTH DAY

~30~

Strange Land

The light dusting of early morning snow has already diminished before an emerging afternoon sun that has quickly rubbed out one of winter's last attempts to hold off the inevitable. Once again the early spring sky is saturated with rich hues in the waning light of the day. Yet there is little warmth - only a swift, cold wind whipping across this lunar-like landscape, beating on the eerie rock formations like a blacksmith's hammer on his anvil.

Seated on top of a sandstone butte, I am waiting for the good light to return. Waiting is a big part of my job, one of the best parts I think. I get to sit and simply feel the character of places such as this one - Toadstool Park in the northwestern corner of the Nebraska Panhandle, set in the midst of the Oglala National Grasslands. Some call it the Nebraska Badlands.

The process that formed this haunting and surreal hinterland began about 30 million years ago. A broad shallow river washed over this region that - like much of early North America - existed in a tropical or greenhouse climate with high sea levels around the globe. Vegetation was widespread and lush. Huge conifers rose above a jungle of ferns, palms and other flowering plants. The stench of rotting plant matter was everywhere, smelling like a greenhouse at the peak of the growing season.

Then suddenly - on an evolutionary timetable - things changed.

The river, along with the tropical climate and vegetation, dried up and disappeared - leaving only ground water. Minerals carried by this ground water mixed with the sand and it became more resistant to the effects of constant wind erosion than the clays that lay beneath it. As this process continued over the eons, balls and plates of sandstone were left delicately balanced on the narrow pedestals, forming the "toadstools" and other startling rock formations that we see here today. Eventually, Nature would hew and sculpt herself a magnificent work of art.

And her work continues today. As mere humans with our limited scope and time reference, we tend to look at a phenomenon of nature and see it as something completed rather than the work in progress that it always is - and that we ourselves are too for that matter. A place like Toadstool Park dispels such a shallow notion. It is impossible to walk this naked, raw landscape and not sense the worlds that were here before ours - or not to imagine that other worlds will succeed ours. We are but a chapter in the story and life of Earth.

This park is astounding with its dreamlike panoramas and sandstone tops poised at seemingly impossible angles, like something that doesn't even belong on this planet. The isolation and loneliness of this land is actually its allure and causes no despair or loss of heart. Surely ancient people came here for reflection and reinvigoration - and so too can we.

Toadstool Park is a place for those in search of solitude. It is the stillness that is most engrossing, almost frightening. There is the slight sound of the wind amongst the pillars and through the valleys, but all else is still - like the Cambrian quiet that is "heard" in the Grand Canyon.

Such a strange land. I sometimes wonder why I am so attracted to places like this one - but then, I really know.

(above) Working with wind and ground water as her mallet and chisel, Nature began this work of sculpture eons ago during another time in the life of our Earth.

(right) The quality of light in Toadstool Park is stunning at any time of the day, but to fully appreciate it, one should especially experience the sunset. That amber light that concludes a day here gives an incomparable resolution to the gray, brown, yellow and green hues.

(above) The stark landscape and bizarre rock formations give Toadstool Park a look that is almost lunar, certainly more befitting of the moon's surface than what we usually see on this planet.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"When I went to be alone at Djemila, there was wind and sun and a heavy, unbroken silence - something like a perfectly balanced pair of scales. And I would stand there, absorbed, confronted with stones and silence."

Albert Camus

"To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to never have known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone."

Joseph Wood Krutch

"Wilderness... The word suggests the past and the unknown, the womb of earth from which we all emerged. It means something lost and something still present, something remote and at the same time intimate, something buried in our blood and nerves, something beyond us and without limit."

Edward Abbey

"I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion who was so companionable as solitude."

Henry David Thoreau

~30~

Grasslands Music

A trace of light steals across the broad prairie sky, emanating from a slight amber radiance growing slowly over the eastern horizon. The mantle of darkness lifts. Vague outlines of familiar forms - a distant tree against the eastern sky, the line of a far ridge - emerge from the dark's obscurity. Most things still remain enshrouded to the eye.

Laying my head back against the wall of my plywood blind I close my eyes and shut down my visual senses for the moment, drifting into the ongoing production.

The prairie is awake - and alive with a symphony of sound that is stereophonic as it broadcasts from the waning night. The song of a meadowlark here answers a chorus of howls from a coyote pack over there. The gobbling of a tom turkey mixes with the occasional bray of a wild burro in nearby Custer State Park. It is a time for the ears.

Muffled drumbeat-like sounds merged with others begin to dominate the predawn chorale, reverberating from the darkness just outside my wooden walls on this remote prairie ridge at the edge of South Dakota's southern Black Hills. "Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Coo-oo. Coo-oo. Coo-oo." The music seems to be growing.

Suddenly the piercing howl of a single coyote knifes through the darkness - this one much closer. Panic ensues. I hear the furious beat of many wings mixing with a more urgent version of "chuk-chuk-chuk, chuk-chuk-chuk, chuk-chuk-chuk" - all quickly fading into the night. Then.... Silence. Not even a meadowlark.

Knowing that the music will return, I shift my cramped feet out in front of me and go on sipping coffee from my plastic car cup. To get here I dragged myself out of bed at 3:30 am and then hiked half a mile through the dark of a moonless night so I could be in this blind about an hour before sunrise. Why? - to watch and photograph the mating displays of the sharptail grouse.

One of the real treats of early spring across the grasslands of Nebraska, Wyoming and the Dakotas is the opportunity to observe these very striking birds as they put on one of nature's most spectacular displays of courtship behavior, usually beginning in mid March and running through mid May.

During the first hours of the day, the cocks and hens gather on a prairie ground called a lek - typically the top of a knoll or hill with good visibility in all directions. Here the males perform a spring dance in which they extend their white-spotted wings and six inch tail feathers, inflate purplish neck sacks and stamp their feet at a speed of about 200 repetitions per minute. Their foot motion becomes a complete blur, causing the "fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit" automatic firearm sound, as they shoot back and forth across the ground like little powered toy cars - all to impress and gain favor with the hens. In other words - "pick me, pick me, I'm cooler than him." At times this competition becomes more than just display as the cocks go into fits of jealous rage, engaging in pitched battles as they jump on and even peck each other, sometimes even drawing blood.

In early May the hens begin nest building in areas with taller grass than what is generally found on the lek and, after a 24 day incubation period, hatch a brood in early June of 4-6 chicks. Soon after hatching the hen will move her brood back into areas of shorter grass where the youngsters will quickly grow and fledge on a diet of grasses, seeds and insects. As is with most ground nesting birds, the males play no role in raising the chicks.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The silence that had fallen around the blind is cut once again by the familiar beat of wings as the birds return to the lek in resumption of their business. Once more the music grows. I hear the meadowlarks and of course...."Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Coo-oo. Coo-oo."

I can see color now in the eastern sky as well as silhouetted figures scurrying about in the grass before the front of the blind. There is the usual chill of a mid April dawn on the northern prairies and a slight breeze, but none of the heavy gusting spring winds that tend to cut down on the birds' activities. A good photo day is coming.

"Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dit. Chuk-chuk-chuk. Chuk-chuk-chuk." Even if I fail to get a single usable image this morning, the time is well spent just listening to the music.

(above) As the dawn light spreads across the prairie, a sharptail grouse male puts on his best show for the hens during the annual courtship display of one of North America's most striking birds.

(right) As is typical with most ground nesting birds, the sharptail male possesses a much brighter colored and more ornate plumage than the hens with these features becoming very pronounced during courtship displays.

(left) The hen's plumage is much more drab, giving her a natural camouflage that allows her to blend into her prairie surroundings. This advantage helps her escape the notice of ever persistent predators like eagles, badgers & coyotes while she is nesting and raising chicks.

(above) With their tall & sharply pointed tails fully extended, hence their name, these two cocks strut about each other with "mad dogging" stares like a couple of junior high school kids egging each other on for a fight.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

(above, right & below)

At times these rites become much more intense than just display and showing off with the birds fighting, pecking each other and even drawing blood.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

(above, right & below)

Spring snows are common on the great plains where winter does not easily relinquish its grip. But as long as the cold is not extreme or bitter, the grouse will show up at the lek and even display in the snow.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

(left) As spring moves on into May, grouse activity on the lek begins to wane as fewer birds show up there or stay as long.

(right) The appearance of a hen now on the lek is rare as most of them are busy building nests for the eggs that will soon be coming.

(above) A cock walks among fresh spring grass that is already tall enough on the lek to nearly hide this bird from the dawn light creeping across the prairie. The spring dances are almost at an end.

~ 30 ~

Sympathy with the Seasons

"I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, -- to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society."

Henry David Thoreau

SPRING

(above) Freshly cleared of winter's ice, the waters of Stockade Lake now reflect the dawn light and become a painter's canvas for this beautiful Black Hills high country setting.

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

Henry David Thoreau

SYMPATHY WITH THE SEASONS

When Henry Thoreau first took up his now famous abode in the woods at Walden Pond, he called that excursion an experiment.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," he said, "to front only the essentials of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

"Live in each season as it passes," advised Thoreau, "breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her."

With this end in mind, we embark today on an experiment of our own -- The Spring Creek Chronicles. This endeavor will be a journalistic excursion, a sojourn in which we shall attempt to keep sympathy with the seasons. Through a combination of pictorial and written essays, Spring Creek Chronicles will observe the cycle of the seasons throughout the year in a way similar to what Thoreau did at Walden. The theme will be nature, what it did on a given day and what it meant to humanity. As Thoreau said, "It is in vain to write on the seasons unless you have the seasons in you."

Always, the Chronicles will be anchored by a strong visual orientation, with images from the Black Hills of South Dakota, the northern prairies and other great North American wilderness settings. Pictures will frequently take literary quotes and passages for their captions.

It is fitting that the last work of Henry Thoreau is"Faith in a Seed," -- how nature uses and disperses them, and the miracles nature derives from them. For Thoreau himself was a seed -- one that has germinated and blossomed to give shape to a unique genre and expression of American literature and one of its most important contributions to the literary world -- the nature essay.

It was Thoreau who -- by bringing about a synthesis of dissimilar and previously distant elements, such as private diaries, extended letters, scientific data and conventional essay forms -- sowed the seeds that paved the way for 20th & 21st century writers such as Aldo Leopold, Norman Maclean, Edward Abbey, Linda Hasselstrom and Barry Lopez.

The nature essay has become, as author and book editor John Murray describes, "a remarkably diverse and elastic literary form that is natural, loose and open in its structure with boundaries much broader than they have ever been previously... Just as nature grows, the literature is also growing. The three major themes of Walden -- communion, renewal and liberation -- continue to pervade the genre even now, at the dawn of the 21 century."

As we journey through the seasons of the years to come it is my belief that if the Spring Creek Chronicles can help us later think, say or write what Thoreau did of his own excursion, then something wonderful will have been accomplished.

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours... the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; for that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

May the Spring Creek Chronicles be part of such a foundation.

(above) In late March a western meadowlark heralds the start of spring from atop a small rock on a South Dakota grassland. For many who make their home on the prairies, the day they first hear the melodious song of the meadowlark marks the beginning of spring.

(below) This seemingly delicate little blossom of the spreading pasqueflower pushes its way up through choking clumps of dead grass to give the first color to an emerging spring.

"The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also. How many springs I have had this same experience! I am encouraged, for I recognized this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself."

Henry David Thoreau

(below) Spring on the prairie is foremost a time of procreation with the courtship rituals and dance of the sharptail grouse being among the most spectacular. Although the antics are mostly display, the birds do become combative at times.

(right) A huge tom turkey does a full fan as he struts for the hens during another of the prairie's classic mating displays in the light of a setting sun on the edge of the southern Black Hills.

"Life consists of wildness. The most alive is the wildest. In literature it is only the wild that attracts us."

Henry David Thoreau

(above) Among the most colorful of the prairie's spring wildflower displays are the brilliant yellows of the hymenoxys surrounded by the purple of the showy peavine.

(left) The brilliant colors of the spiderwort blossom, about the size of a quarter, become a staple sight across the prairies by mid May.

(above) A recently born bison calf and its mother share a moment of bonding in the spring grass of Custer State Park where the birth of about 300 of these golden tykes takes place from late April to mid June.

"We need the tonic of wildness -- to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

Henry David Thoreau

SUMMER

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

Henry David Thoreau

(above) A rising sun begins the day with an equally firey sky over the South Dakota Badlands.

"This world is but a canvas for our imagination."

Henry David Thoreau

(right) In typical play, this little bison calf aggressively chews at a stalk of fresh grass on an early summer morning.

(left) Though many beautiful wildflowers are found across the North American prairies, among the most striking has to be the bluestem pricklypoppy which grows to a diameter of nearly four inches. This wonderful blossom opens shortly after dawn and closes with the heat of the afternoon sun.

(above) A summer moon rises over the pink and red bluffs of the Indian Creek Wilderness area in western South Dakota near the Stronghold portion of the Badlands National Park.

"To one whose elastic and vigorous thoughts keep pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not the labors and attitudes of men, morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me."

Henry David Thoreau

(left) A double-crested cormorant air dries its wings after diving for breakfast shortly after dawn at this prairie pond. These remarkable birds actually swim underwater to catch their prey.

(right) Now about six weeks old, this little antelope buck fawn has reached the stage of insatiable curiosity as he peeks through the sage at the photographer.

(above) A huge monarch butterfly takes a sweet reward from a sunflower during late summer in a Custer State Park meadow.

"Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you; but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

Henry David Thoreau

AUTUMN

"The landscape is so handsomely colored, the air so clear and wholesome, the surface of the earth so pleasingly varied that it seems rarely fitted for the abode of man."

Henry David Thoreau

A golden aspen leaf floats down this high country creek in the central Black Hills as autumn comes to South Dakota.

(left) Early autumn marks the rutting time for "the prince of the prairie", the pronghorn or antelope, as the high plains are filled with this uniquely North American animal. Here, a buck makes his move on this doe.

(right) By late autumn, the Black Hills high country canyons near Blue Bell are filled with mighty centurions like this bighorn ram doing battle for the "hand" of the lady.

(above) The amber light of dawn grows as it spreads across this prairie meadow containing a single cottonwood tree in the southwestern corner of South Dakota.

"I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere of autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light come the autumnal tints."

Henry David Thoreau

(right) Fallen leaves strewn this Spearfish Canyon hiking trail leading to Roughlock Falls in the northern Black Hills of South Dakota.

(below) The canopy of this huge aspen tree grove is ablaze with autumn color in the high country of South Dakota's central Black Hills.

"The hillside forest is all aglow along its edge, and in all its cracks and fissure, and soon the flames will leap upwards to the tops of the tallest trees."

Henry David Thoreau

(above) On their way south to wintering grounds in Texas and New Mexico, these sandhill cranes stop in for a couple days rest as the sun sets along the Missouri River flyway in central South Dakota.

"The brilliant autumnal colors are red and yellow, and the various tints and shades of these. Blue is reserved to be the color of the sky, but yellow and red are the colors of the earth-flower. Every fruit on ripening, and just before its fall, acquires a bright tint. So do the leaves; so the sky before the end of the day, and the year near its setting. October is the red sunset sky. Color stands for all ripeness and success."

Henry David Thoreau

WINTER

"Winter is thrown to us like a bone to a famishing dog and we are expected to get the marrow out of it... if its fruit is harder to get at, then it is no doubt the more concentrated and nuttier."

Henry David Thoreau

(above) In the southern Black Hills, two bison bulls engage in some winter play on a snowy morning in South Dakota's Custer State Park. Come July when their rut gets underway, tussles like this one will be much more serious.

"To make a perfect winter day like this, you must have a clear, sparkling air, with a sheen from the snow, sufficient cold, little or no wind; and the warmth must come directly from the sun. It must not be a thawing warmth. The tension of nature must not be relaxed."

Henry David Thoreau

(left) The final light of the day washes across one of the pillars of Slim Buttes as the sun sets on this pristine Harding County landscape in the northwest corner of South Dakota.

"Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle."

Henry David Thoreau

(below) Two bighorn sheep ewes cross the icy waters of French Creek near Blue Bell in the central Black Hills of South Dakota.

(left) Born during late May or early June, this six month old mountain goat kid pokes about in a winter landscape, feeding on lichens that grow on the granite rock surfaces. Come early spring, he will join up with a bachelor group of other billies.

(above) This icy formation was formed on Stockade Lake in the central Black Hills during early winter because of thawing and re-freezing effects.

"There are two different seasons in the winter; when the ice of the river and meadows and ponds is bare -- blue or green, a vast glittering crystal -- and when it is all covered with snow and slosh; and our moods correspond."

Henry David Thoreau

~30~