January Thaw - for New Year's

New Year's Day at Boys Dam.

Christmas Day

By the Portage River.

Blog Action Day Post

The Blog Action Day topic is "water" which is appropriate here. Southwest Michigan has lots of water; it used to have a serious malaria problem to go along with the water, too. The vast network of rivers provided irrigation and transportation to the Mississippian culture mound builders and farmers, and later to the Potawatomi and other groups. Water power and water based transportation created wealth for the first U.S. settlers in the 1800s; today the rivers are used mostly for agricultural irrigation and for recreation. Dry areas of the US would like to have the water piped from here to their area to pour the water on golf courses and lawns, and allow real estate interests to make money building new subdivisions on now dry and unsellable land.

Meanwhile, other parts of the world would like more water to drink, or maybe fewer people to drink what they have.

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October Sunset

From the top of the dam.

Merry Christmas

A nice but wet snowfall today, and it is surprisingly warm, 26 degrees F. The water continues to run over the Boys Dam, but there is ice all around.

Cold water, warm air

Fog hung over the dam in the morning, but the day was sunny and warm, mid 60s at least. I took a trip up the Portage River in my kayak - and on the way back was caught against a log and flipped - not once, but twice! The water was cold! What I learned: Don't wear a cotton shirt while paddling the river - it holds that cold water like a sponge.

Twice I saw big fish leap and hit something on branches sticking out of the water. I couldn't get a clear look at either of them, moving too fast. Catching bugs?

Lobelia

Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica, growing in the marsh below the dam. There are quite a few of them in bloom. Around it are jewel balsam and the little white aster. It was getting dark, I'll try for another photo later.

Musk Turtle (Sternotherus odoratus)

This forward little critter was found toiling up the steep banks, heading for the street. I thought it might be a female looking for a place to lay eggs, but it was so small (3.5 - 4 inches, less than 10cm). She had a very pointy nose, with that and the color I ID-ed her as Sternotherus odoratus. I didn't get "musked" but the common name is "Stinkpot"! Her back was covered with green algae, not dried out so she must have come up the bank pretty speedily.

From Michigan DNR: "Rarely bask, are generally seen foraging along the bottom in shallow water. May be nocturnal in summer. They eat snails, crayfish, insects, tadpoles, etc. If disturbed, glands along lower edge of shell secrete a foul-smelling musk, hence the common name "stinkpot."...mostly inhabits clear lakes with sand or marl bottoms."

The Portage is a pretty clean river.

Nodding Dragon

Last year a little, now there is a lot! The marsh below the dam now is covered with the bobbing, nodding flower plumes of Saururus cernuus (nodding dragon or lizard tail.) Another mysteriously named plant. The flower spikes are fluffy and dance on the wind, and "give nothing" of lizards.

Big Fish

A man pulled this fish out of the Portage River below the dam. I asked if he was going to eat it and he said maybe, but first he was going to enter it in a big fish contest!

He also said he had caught a walleye in the same place a few days ago, one of the biggest caught in the county this year.

Fish!

On Tuesday there were a whole school of pike - or muskie? Swimming around below Boys Dam. Impressive! They are beautiful and strange looking (and not easily fooled by fishermen.) I didn't get a picture but did get (a blurry) one of a large fish - a carp or sucker - jumping up on the face of the dam. They do that a lot, but my camera is too slow to catch them. A fisherman told me they were eating the algae off the face of the dam.

Besides the human fishermen, there is the heron.

June 14

Nice sunny day. I pulled my kayak into the water below the dam and paddled down to Scidmore Park. A very fast current and some downed trees made the trip more exciting, but all of the sunken hazards were well under water. Upstream is more fun!

April Flowers

Marsh marigolds by the Portage River below the Boys' Dam.

Juneberry.

Trillium on the banks above the river.

Mayapples unfurl with an odd little knob on top. The flat brown lentil like seeds are from the redbud.

New redbud blooms, Portage River in the background.

April 2009

Skunk-cabbages in bloom on April 8, and the marsh marigold buds are opening on the 18th in the marsh by the Portage River. Some are blooming in front of the old horse-drawn piece of farm equipment that is stuck in the mud.

April began with snow; this picture of the river and Boys Dam through the trees taken on April 6.

Dawn, Jan. 1 2009

Jan 1 morning; ice cantilevered over the Boys' Dam and, at the base of Boys Dam, round ice floes scattered across the surface of the Portage River like white water-lily leaves. All melted away when the sun hit, but ice remains at the top of the dam.

Goldeneye! The first of the year, courting on Hoffman Pond. The male dipped his beak in the water, stretched his neck and beak up to the sky. The female held herself low in the water, even dipping her head under a few times, and then stretched her neck and beak up to the sky as well.

Addition -- on the 5th I saw a brown creeper (Certhia familiaris) walking up the trunk of a maple by the river. Only the second one I have seen in two years.

December 2008

The apparently inedible red fruits of the cranberry viburnum hang over Hoffman Pond. The birds and animals will only eat them when there is absolutely nothing else. It's a very pretty native plant though, sold in most nurseries. (Viburnum trilobum, sometimes listed as Viburnum opulus var. americanum.)


Snow and sunshine. This year we had snow for Easter, and snow for Thanksgiving, but still, a lot of blue sky. Swans, geese, mallards and grebes. Signs of beaver.

Not sure what this is

Along the river. Could it be the elusive native bittersweet (Celastrus scandens)? It doesn't look very much like the invasive Asian bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus). No leaves, just the fruit visible.

Because it's June

Right from cold to hot. The peonys in the garden opened today; round fat buds have been waiting, and all popped open at once. The green curtain has descended and the long winter views are gone, hidden behind the sugar maple leaves.

Everything is suddenly growing, moving. The baby birds have already fledged, heartstopping days as they crashed into the bushes and sat there peeping for food. Bad with feral cats everywhere. Twice this week we have had bats in the house!

Buds have shown up on the milkweed...

May

I seemed to have missed May.

It came crashing in on a wave of yellow pollen and I was washed under. The fast change from stark to lovely to lush to dank jungle happened while I wasn't looking, or at least not able to pay attention!

The fishermen and swimming boys are back at the Boys Dam. The dark woods are full of ticks. Jack in the pulpit is blooming and the skunkcabbages are especially big and lush. Puffs of cotton from the cottonwoods are floating around now; the tree flowers are done.

Flowers!

April 11: after a cold night and thunderstorms, flowers! Marsh marigolds pop into bloom while the skunk cabbages unfurl their new leaves. The red leaf-buds of the silver maples, that look so much like flowers, are opening where the trees hang over the water. Another tree is in bloom - I still don't know what it is.

Also various non-natives and invasives have started blooming, but I'm not counting them; since they are from somewhere else, their blooming doesn't signify anything.

Something I hadn't seen before: I've wondered why we are not infested with starlings, since they are so common in the downtown area of Three Rivers, which isn't that far away. Maybe an answer - I saw a starling this week. It was being mobbed by the grackles! I knew I liked grackles, with their shiny purple-black heads, yellow eyes and long tails. Lots of robins, lots and lots of house finches, a few nuthatches and cardinals. The woodpeckers aren't coming to the feeder. Geese are marching along the water's edge, the male watchful, his long neck stretched up high, while the female eats frantically. At one point a female was carried off by the swift current; she looked baffled, sailing backwards, while the male ran along the bank. They sometimes seem to forget that they can fly!

Clouds of mosquitos are rising in the swamp. Good for those that eat them. A sign of trouble to come; drifts of seeds washed into the swamp from the winter flooding. I recognize vast amounts of a twisty herbaceous vine that wraps all around the water willow growing upriver.