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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Warbler Watching at White's Woods

Her cap says "Life is Good'
                                    
A great place for a dog - seldom another dog, few people to get mad. It's a place where a good dog can run and sniff and not offend. The scents abound - rabbits and groundhogs, whitetails and deer mice, ground squirrels and coyotes. Bud marked so many trees I began to worry about dehydration and I offered him water from my hat. He refused and all I got for my kindness was a wet head. 

May Apple

Dutchman's Breeches

Bellwort

Forest path atop the White's Woods esker. Lower Twin Lake down the ridge to the north - marsh, swamps and ponds to the south. The ester is covered by typical Big Woods trees, old basswood and maples - a Pileated Woodpecker woods. The rest of the park is wetlands and acres of Oak Savannah. - miles of transitional woodland edges where wildlife can settle in and make a good living.

The only other people we saw, two young mothers from near Bear Lake with their daughters. One of the girls had a flower I.D. book, the other one a bird book. One looking down, the other looking up. Very intense and very cute. The woman on the right said they have been visited by a flock of forty Indigo Buntings. Forty! We have had four or five and we think we're rich. But on the other hand we're trying to keep a hundred Goldfinch in Niger thistle seed. I wept because I had no Indigo Buntings until I met a man who had no Goldfinches.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I may be wrong, but it seems to me White's Woods became a county park when my dad was on the county commission. He was proud of any little bit of landscape he could help preserve. He showed me around there and it was beautiful. I remember I came home with multiple woodticks. I haven't been back in decades, but your photos are inviting!

Cheri

Gunnar Berg said...

I think you're right about Gordon.

It was better then. In my opinion it has been mismanaged. A lot of the prairie was planted to trees or was overgrown with brush. (Needs a really good fire) At that time prairie wasn't valued. All of the area south of the road, maybe 20 or 30 acres was plowed up and planted to evergreens planted close. They got big and it's a dead zone.