An Uncommon Visitor

Recently my family and I went hiking at a local state park while I was off from work for Christmas. We had heard buzz from a number of bird watcher friends that they had been seeing Saw-whet owls near the bird blind and feeding station. My wife has a special fondness for these tiny owls because she did her ground breaking senior theises on their nest success rates on an aspen plantation in Oregon.

So on a gray, late-December day we bundled up the squeakers (aged 2 years, and 4 years) and made the trek down the road to the state park. We parked the van near the trailhead that leads to the bird blind and made our way as quietly as one can with a 2 and 4 year old along.

We sat for a couple of minutes in the bird blind and enjoyed the sights of the common winter feeder birds, White-breasted nuthatches, Black-capped chikadees, Dark-eyed juncos, Red-bellied woodpeckers, American goldfinches, Downy woodpeckers, Mourning doves, Hairy woodpeckers, and Northern cardinals.

We then began to thread our way through a miriad of trails that criss-cross the flood plain forest that is the state park. We were searching for clumps of Eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) where the Saw-whets like to roost during the day. We had checked all the prime spots closest to the main trail but my wife, ever the birding adventurer, wanted to follow a deer trail deeper into a stand o cedars that we both agreed looked promising.

While she tore off in search of the eluzive owl the girls and I stuck with the main trail and more-or-less walked along and the girls shouted to each other and practiced their Barred owl calls (which need A LOT of work). In spite of the girl's best efforts I did see some game. Namely a very nice looking white-tail buck. We continued on our merry way until I felt my wife would have had ample time to check the cedar grove I tried to talk the girls into heading back. No luck. We had been that way already. Then wanted, neigh NEEDED adventure! So we opted to bushwack it through the timbers and find our way back to mommy and eternal glory! Which we did, and I am very glad. Because if we had not, we never would have stumbled upon our owl.

We made our way into the backside of the cedar stand when I heard my wife give the family "locator whistle" so we veared in the direction of the Bobwhite call and there we found Mommy who stated she had not found an owl. The girls were getting a tad bit cold so we decided to head back to the van, but with heads held high. For even though our goal had been thwarted by the elusive boreal visitor we had spent time in the woods as a family, and there is no loftier goal than that.

The oldest and I took off down a deer trail as Mommy helped the youngest with a mitten emergancy. Just before we were about to emerge from the cedars onto the main trail my oldest stopped randomly (she dominates at doing things randomly, ask anyone that knows her) and started to shake a small tree back and forth vigourously. That was when I caught a flas of yellow out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the yellow flash, and there, 4 feet from me was a very surprised little owl. Had it kept it's eyes closed, we never would have seen it.

I called the oldest back to me and had her sit just off the trail to prevent her from doing anything excessivley random that migh scare off the owl and called my wife up. She was elated, and took the picture you see at the top of the blog from about 6 feet away.

Needless to say we were some happy hikers on the van ride home, and we were all very excited to see what other adventures awaited us during Christmas vacation...

Deer Camp 2011

 We had another successful deer season this year that, yet again, has given us a full larder.  My wife and I each took two deer.  In the picture up above you can see a portion of the crew from this year.  At one point we had 14 hunters*

*Did you know you can fit 14 people in a 4-door Dodge Dakota, armaments included.  Impressive, I know...

My buck

Here you can see the buck I took through the neck (the ONLY place to shoot a deer) at about 40 yards with a .50 caliber flintlock long rifle.  Dropped where he stood.

Shelley's buck

 Shelley took this buck with a .50 caliber in-line.  The ballistic tip bullet she used did amazing amounts of damage from the shock of the bullet.  This was another neck shot and the buck didn't even wiggle.

Dad's buck

My Dad broke from tradition and took this buck literally between the eyes from a whopping 6' away.  How did he get so close?  The trick is all the camo and scent blocking equipment he uses.  If you don't use that stuff you will never get a deer. Obviously...

Look at me... I'm sailing!!!

A few years ago I went to a movie featuring Russel Crowe and Paul Bettany called "Master and Commander: The far Side of the World" and instantly wanted to sail on a tall ship.  A good friend of mine we'll call "Morgan" informed me that the film was based upon a series of books know, collectively, as the Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian which only furthered my desire to sail on a tall ship.  But alas it is my lot to live in land-locked Iowa where tall ships are exceedingly, nay exasperatingly rare.  So what is a bushcrafter to do when he has sailing blood coursing through his Scandinavian veins?  Why he needs to improvise a sailboat!

So I did, during a summer camp at work.

The kids, other naturalists, and I took a couple of canoes down to a lake found near our Nature Center and then set about to find sticks to use in lashing the canoes into a pontoon and for the mast for our sail.  The sail in this case was my ever present surplus poncho.

We lashed the two canoes together with assorted ropes and 550 p-chord and three, wrist diameter sticks each about 3'-3.5' long.

 The sail was supported by a frame made by lashing together four wrist-diameter hackberries (Celtis occidentalis L. ) that were being shaded out by some old cottonwoods.  In this picture you can see me and two other naturalists lashing the starboard (right-hand) mainmast to the thwart located abaft (behind) the bow seat.

 Once we had securely lashed the cross-braces to the canoes thwarts and attached backstays to the mainmasts, and the sail lashed to the spars it was time time to see if she was sea worthy.

 Here you can see two other naturalists lowering the sail after we'd paddled into the wind and swung the pontoon around.  The top spar (not in photo) is square-lashed to the two up right masts.  The bottom spar is lashed to the sail only and is longer than the distance between the two masts.  The overlap of the lower spar pushes into the mast when the wind fills the sail and pushes the whole thing forward.

 Look at me.... I'm sailing!!!

We didn't get going to fast, slightly slower than an easy paddling speed largley because of the way the wind acted on the lake that day.  With a larger body of water where the winds are steadier, and less erratic we could have gone much faster than if we had paddled.  I look forward to trying it again soon.

Anyone else ever improvised a sailboat?  I'd love to hear about it!

My Guide to Field Guides and Journals

I did this post a while back on a now defunct blog.  I was pretty happy with it so I’d thought I resurrect it here. The post is about my choices in field guides for identifying flora and fauna while out in the field.  In it I explore print media, free on-line sources, and also show some of the ways that I use to help me ID plants and animals that are new to me.  

Print Media

There are a wealth of books out there that cover plant and wildlife identification in very broad terms covering entire continents such as the Sibley Guide to Birds to highly specialized books that focus on one family, or species like Stokes Field Guide to Warblers. Selection of a good field guide depends entirely on what you...(wait for it!).... want to identify in the field!  If you are interested in birds alone, pick out a book that covers birds in your region (i.e., Western U.S., or Eastern U.S., etc...).  A little later I will give my recommendations for the series of books that I use.  At this point I would like to give a disclaimer; this is an opinion piece.  These are the books that I prefer to use.  I strongly dislike some books that people better at identification swear by (I am thinking of the Audubon and Peterson guides send hate mail here(include link for email address, do research and find what works for you.  I suggest going to your local library and to check out book layouts.  If they don’t have the ones you are looking for try getting them through a inter-library loan.

OK, so now to the subject.

Birds

For birds I have a couple of recommendations.  For a true field guide I carry the Kaufman Guide to Birds of North America.  I like the Kaufman Guide because of the artwork.  Rather than artists renditions, they are digital photographs, which I find a little more useful in the field.  There are other books in the Kaufman Guides series now covering insects and mammals and that are of the same high quality as the bird guide.  I’ve looked at them but have not purchased them yet.

You’ll notice above I mention Kaufman being a “true field guide”.  By that I mean it’s reasonably sized to be comfortably carried in the field either in a day-pack, shoulder bag, or if you’re built like me, a cargo pocket.  For my “desk guide”  I use the The Sibley Guide to Birds.  The Sibley guides are excellent and go above and beyond simple bird ID by including text on bird behaviors that you may observe.  The wealth of information included in the Sibley books make them a touch prohibitive for use in the field, but they make a great reference to cross check your findings once you are home.

Plants

For plants the books I prefer are a bit specialized and focus on the tallgrass prairies because of my location.  I don’t use an ID book for trees because I was taught those by my Grandpa and Dad growing up.  The prairie book I use is the Falcon guide Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers.  It is broken up by the colors of the flowers rather than my families which makes it nice for beginners.

When it comes to wild edibles I have to go with Sam Thayer’s Foragers Harvest.  I have been lucky enough to meet Mr. Thayer on a couple of occasions through work and the man knows his stuff backwards and forwards.  Mr. Thayer’s books are focused on the Upper Midwest, but a lot of the plants he covers can be found throughout North America.  The layout of the book, the text, and the art work are the best and most concise I’ve ever seen in a book on wild edibles.

Budget Buys

I, like many others in the survival/bushcraft world, tend to be a touch on the frugal side.  So I thought I might take a moment here to endorse some books you can get on a budget.  For a great source of field guides that can easily fit in your back pocket I recommend the small Golden Guide.  There is a Golden Guide for just about every thing you could come across on a hike, day or night such as; insects, birds, trees, flowers, stars, weather, geology, weather, and the list goes on.

One of my favorite desk references, and one of the most important books in my life, is the Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife.  I can remember a copy of this sitting on a shelf in my Grandma’s living room.  I always loved to sit on the floor in front of the kerosene heater on winter evenings after a night of coon hunting and just pouring over the pages.  I think I can safely credit this book with a good portion of my interest in the natural world.

By searching around you can get these guides at very reasonable rates.  If you are a patient lot and as thrifty as I am I recommend setting up an account over at PaperBackSwap.com.  When you set up your account you will get two credits to order books for free; after that you have to mail books out to receive credits (one credit per book).  All you have to do is pay the media mail postage.  You can pay your postage in advance on the site and then print your mailing label with postage right at home.  It isn’t as always as convenient as ordering from an on-line book seller, or going to a local bookstore, but it is low cost and sort of adventurous.  When you set up the wish lists of books you are looking for you receive an e-mail notifying you if one of them has been posted then you just request it and it will be mailed out to you.  You never know when that book you’ve been trying to find will suddenly be within your grasp.

On-line Resources

If you are R-E-A-L-L-Y cheap and aren’t looking to shell out money there are a wealth of websites out there that are very useful for plant and animal ID.  This is all the better you you are tech savvy and have an internet capable phone.  Below you will find a list of my preferred websites and a terse description of what you can find there.

Animal Diversity Web is a excellent source put together from reaserch done by students at the University of Michigan.  Lots of in-depth information no all aspects of the ecological niche’s that animals hold.

eNature is a loss scholarly website geared more towards the layperson interested in animals in there area.  At eNature you can search plants and animals that can appear in your zipcode.  

All About Birds is one of my favorite websites, largely because I love to identify birds.  All About Birds is run by the prestigious Cornell Lab of Ornithology so you can count on the validity of the information you will glean from there site.

American Mushrooms is a site maintained by mycologist an author, David Fischer.   The site has ton of rich photography an text on every fungi imaginable.  Mr. Fischer has also been very good about IDing photos of fungi that I have sent him via e-mail, which is listed on the site.

Kansas Wildflowers is a great place to ID a lot of grasses, flowers and trees, even if you are not from Kansas.  Most of the plants listed on the site occur in my native state of Iowa, and there for can be found across a wide expanse of the Midwest. The site is affiliated with Kansas State University.

Insect Identification is a site I just stumbled across in writing this post.  I had been using a different site for a few years, but i always found it a bit cumbersome to navigate.  In the brief while that I have been looking over Insect Identification it seems that a lot of the problems with my old standby have been worked out.  I am happy about this...

The Importance of Field Notes

When I go hiking I don’t like to carry a ton of ID books with me because of the added weight.  If I carry any ID books at all it will usually be my bird book, or maybe my wild edibles book if I’m on a foraging expedition for new food stuffs.  Instead of carrying a book to ID each new thing I may come across I have taken to carrying a couple of small notebooks that I use for sketching and note taking.  I have found that this technique has greatly improved my powers of observation when traversing the wilds.  

I carry a small Moleskin notebook and pen in my shirt pocket where ever I go.  All day, every day.  Lot’s of important people have done so,  just look here. Then in my satchel (It’s a satchel, not a purse.  Indiana Jones carries a satchel.) I carry and unlined hardcover notebook that I picked up at a local art supply store.  It has a small elastic strap you hold it shut, and a loop on the side where I keep my pencil.

In addition to my satchel notebook I carry an inexpensive set of water colors.  I started out with a set marketed towards children and I had really good luck with it, like this Belted kingfisher.  I purchased my first set of water colors at the lowest possible price for fear I would royally suck at it.   I have since purchased a nicer, yet still modestly priced set of water colors from a company called Reeves.  This kit was appealing to be because of the nice mix of colors it has and it had white, which I have found to be useful for blending and muting colors, etc.

To demonstrate some of the different ways I use field sketches and notes I have included a few of the things I have done over the last few years.  Each sketch was selected to highlight different mediums and different attributes to look for when sketching.

Sketch 1:Pencil Sketch of Bird

I was leading a hike in western Iowa for a group of grade schoolers focusing on Lewis & Clark and the journals they kept when an unidentified bird lit into the top of a nearby tree.  TEACHABLE MOMENT!!!  I deftly reached into my ever present satchel and grabbed my trusty notebook an whipped up this sketch.  I made notes as to field marks that i knew would probably appear in my bird book back home. I promised the kids I would e-mail their teacher when i knew what it was and we continued on our hike.  Upon returning home I was able to easily identify the bird I saw as a Harris Sparrow.

Harris Sparrow

Sketch 2: Pen Sketch of Hawk Tail

One day while my assistant and I were scouting some areas for potential prescribed fires she spotted an unidentified hawk circling above us. As I stared at the distant hawk through my binoculars (don’t scrimp on your optics, cut cost elsewhere) I looked for an distinguishing markings like the shape and length of the wings and tail, and markings on the birds chest.  What stood out most of all was the hawks tail.  So I sketched it in my Moleskin notebook/planner and sketched it.  I also jotted a note next to the picture that the hawk in question was a “Buteo”.  Buteo’s are soaring hawks that have relatively long wings, and short tails that specialize in hunting over open ground.  The “opposite” of a buteo is an accipiter, which generally have short wings and long tails and specialize in hunting in forest environments.

I bring this up because while the hawk in question had the body type of a buteo, and was soaring high above a grassland the tail was marked with distinctive bands, a trait common among accipiters.  Needless to say I was intrigued.  When I was able to look the bird up I learned it was a buteo that has adapted to forest hunting.  Hence the crossover markings on a buteo body of the Broad Winged Hawk.

Broad Winged Hawk Tail Detail

Sketches 3-4: Pencil and Watercolor Plants

Here, side by side, you can see how adding water colors to a sketch can really make a difference when IDing a plant.  Both drawings were done with a No. 2 pencil with notes pointing to where certain colors appear on the plant.  The drawing on the left is a Prairie Larkspur and the one on the right is Toothed Evening Primrose.

Left:Prairie Larkspur Right:Toothed Evening Primrose

Sketch 5: Pencil and Watercolor Bird

Finally I have included an example of a practice painting I did in my kitchen.  I sat down with my bird book and my paints and chose to do a Black-Throated Blue Warbler.  As with any skill it is important to practice to keep yourself sharp.  It’s not always easy to go birdwatching (i.e. the birds are out when the 11 month old is napping, etc.),  so I cross train.  When I can’t make it out I spend time looking over field guides memorizing characteristics and range maps.

Black-Throated Blue Warbler

Conclusion

I hope that this post will be helpful to beginners and experts by showing just some of the resources out there.  I believe that survival is all about observation, and awareness of your surroundings, and that it is arguably the most important skill to have.  Get guide books you are comfortable with, get a note book and a pencil, start taking notes, and sketching.  Paint a picture of a flower.  You will notice intricacies you never before noticed and I believe it will open your eyes and your heart to a world around you that you may have missed.   I hope that you will share your ideas about field guides that I have missed and that it will open a dialog about perception and awareness as it pertains to bushcraft and survival.

The Joys of Childern and Fire...

During Thanksgiving the family and I traveled north to Minnesota to visit with my wife's sister and her family.  The first night we were there my sister-in-law suggested that we all go for a night hike and call owls.  We got the kids bundled up which is no easy task (they have six kids, we have two) and headed off into the timber. 

After we had walked a little ways we stopped to listen and I did a couple of Barred Owl (Strix varia ) calls to no avail.  We walked further up the hill to a large open meadow and stoped to call again.  This time we tried the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus), and the Eastern Screech Owl (Otus asio) in addition to the Barred (none of which should be confused with a Wandering Owl) but again we raised no response.  


The older kids and I stopped near a junction of two mowed trails on our way up the hill to wait for the other adults with the toddlers and infants in tow.  The kids began asking me why I carried a knife with me every where I go, and what other "odd" items I had with me.  I told them all the things I use my knife for from the mundane, opening envelopes, to the exciting, butchering game. While I explained just how useful a fixed blade knife can be on a daily basis I reached into my front pocket and pulled out my ferro rod and grabbed some bull thistle down from a nearby stalk.  This action promoted a whole new slew of questions as to why I need thistle seeds and what the ferro rod does.  Actions speak louder than words so I just showed them.  


I struck the ferro rod with the saw blade on my Swiss Army "Camper" and the bull thistle down burst into flames temporarily lighting up our little corner of the meadow.  My nephew, age 7, was little concerned that I was going to start a grass fire but I eventually persuaded him that everything was ok (I thought for a minute I would have to show him my S-130/190 Wildland Firefighter Card). 


As we were making our way back to the house the the last hint of light disappeared in the western sky and it was increasingly difficult to make out the trail in the timber so I grabbed my rope candle (a 6-ply jute rope coated with wax) from my pocket and lit it with my ferro rod and some char cloth.  I was again instantly barraged with questions as to why I need that.  I though the moment at hand made it obvious but I indulged their inquisitive nature and explained how my rope candle was a sort of pocket torch.  As we finally made it back to the house they decided that they also were in dire need of torches.  I told them I'd see what we could come up with the following day.


The following morning I awoke excited by the challenge of manufacturing torches from what the kids and I could find in the countryside. After we'd had breakfast and the kids had done their chores we headed off to a low ridge north of the house that had a small plantation of Eastern White pines (Pinus strobus).  Once we arrived at the plantation I pulled a coiled up bow saw blade from the billy can in my satchel and cut a Sugar maple sapling (Acer saccharum) whipped up a bow saw and we headed in.


We were at the plantation to gather pitch from the pine trees to act as fuel in the kid's torches.  I showed the kids what to look for as far as tree damage, pitch and how to remove it.  I made a basket out of my handkerchief which we lined with dried pine needle to keep the pitch from sticking to the cloth, handed it to my niece and sent them off hunting.


In the meantime I took off looking for a dead standing pine tree to fell in order to search for "fatwood", or pitch saturated wood at the base of the dead tree's stump.  The limbs of the pines had never been trimmed so there were dead limbs interlocked all over the place which made movement for me difficult.  I decided to cut some branches out of my way with the saw and when I did I realized that the bases of the dead branches were F-U-L-L of pitch, I mean loaded!  I set about cutting dead branches and placing the pitch filled section in my pockets.  


After about 45 minutes of collecting my pockets were full of fatwood, and the kids' basket had a healthy supply of pitch in it.  We headed back to the house and we made a detour past the cow pasture to grab some Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) that I noticed on the way out.  The kids gathered up the mullein and we beat it back to the house where I built a small fire while the kids went and scrounged up a soup can to melt their pitch in.


While the pitch melted, the kids and I had lunch around the campfire and drank tea that I boiled in my billy can. Once the pitch was melted I took the heads of the mullein and rolled them around inside the can until they were well coated then I allowed them to cool.  I repeated this process a few times until they were well saturated, all the while I was explaining to the kids the ins and outs of safe handling of the torches and how they were ONLY to be lit under adult supervision.


Besides making the torches I was able to teach my oldest niece how to make cordage using baling twine from the barn.  I showed her once and within a few hours she had made herself a 4-ply, 10' lead rope to use on her horse's halter. Later that day when we were hiking in the woods she grabbed some inner bark from an Ironwood tree that had been damaged by a log skidder and made a few feet of 2-ply cordage.  I was (and am) a proud uncle.

I took the fatwood I collected home and made a few fatwood matches that I learned about from an article over at Woodsmonkey.com.  The "matches" I made are pictured here on the left.  You light them by hitting the cotton wool wrapped around the "match" with sparks from your ferro rod.  The picture on the right is two of the "matches" burning (Note: the cotton wool has burned away and just the fat wood is burning now).


I also recently made a match-safe from a 12 gauge a shotshell that I have filled with waterproof matches.  I got the idea for the match-safe from Ray Mears' Essential Bushcraft.

To make it you simply heat the brass of a discharged shotshell over a candle just enough that it will slip off and then slide it over the open end of another discharged shotshell.

I went a step further in that I used a hacksaw to cut grooves into the removable end of the match-safe to provide a friction plate for lighting my matches. 

I waterproofed the matches myself by dipping strike anywhere matches in a clear lacquer after I read an article about the process in the latest issue of Backwoodsman Magazine and over at Brian's Blog.

Rope Candle and Bushcraft Manifesto update

This past weekend I was out stargazing and owl calling with my two year old, Monkey, while visiting my mother-in-law in extreme northeast Iowa. While we were out Monkey asked "Daddy can we walk in the woods and look for creatures?". How could I say no? I didn't have a flashlight to help us to spot the tripping hazards but luckily I had a small candle in my pocket. I lit the candle with a cotton ball and my ferro rod and off we went. The candle wasn't giving off much light, and I was having trouble keeping it lit when I remembered a short hank of rope that was in my coat pocket. I pulled it out, poured some melted wax on it and lit it with the candle. Presto! A mini torch! It put out a surprising amount of light and stayed lit easily. When I got back home I twisted up a hank of jute cordage into a 6" section of 6 ply rope and coated it with wax. I carry it in a tin with some char cloth that I use to light it. Not gonna leave home with out now. After all you never know when your little one will want to hunt for creatures in the dark...

Also as a side note I finished my Bushcraft Manifesto (or at least an early draft) and I have it available as a pdf if anyone is interested. Just shoot me an e-mail at norseman55731 @ gmail.com and I'll send you a copy to peruse and critique. I have added some sketches to the Bindcraft section that a gentleman sent me after attending a program I did where I taught my style of cordage making. I think he did great job and it make the text easier to understand.