A Sacred Place
By Cindy Owsley
“This is an emotion that surprises me,” I confessed to my friend in a hushed tone. Aldo
Leopold’s historic shack had been on some informal list of places I wanted to visit. Now, here I
stood, in the shadow of the towering white pines planted by Aldo and his family. Here were the
remnants of last year’s colorful forbs on the path beside us. And there, just coming into view was
the converted chicken coop made famous in A Sand County Almanac.
This experiment in land restoration had been initiated by the Leopolds back in the 1940’s when it
was a completely novel idea. I’d read and reread the Almanac like it was some kind of bible. I’d
even copied their idea by building as much habitat as I could on a small acreage in West Central
Illinois.
Perhaps mostly to acknowledge my feelings, I related, “Aldo Leopold is my favorite
conservation writer, but I didn’t expect this. It’s not even a word I would normally use. It feels
sacred here.” As we mosied on the trail that looped near the Wisconsin River, it seemed that my
feathered acquaintances were paying homage to the famous conservationist.
Okay, perhaps that’s a bit anthropocentric even for me. But in a short mile jaunt, we saw 29
species birds in a couple of hours. Many would be added to my life list. Certainly, it is no
exaggeration that the birds enjoy the improved habitat made famous by a pioneering land
manager and his followers.
As a relatively new birder, I mostly search for my winged friends alone or with a very indulgent
husband who would be every bit as excited about watching paint dry. I aimed my binoculars on
the orange and black bird I’d never seen before – and really had no clue about what to call it. I
was impressed when my friend suggested, “Try redstart.” How about that! She was exactly right!
On the car ride in, we hadn’t been so lucky. “Who’s that?” I queried. My friend, guessed “grebe”
at the same time my brain chunked out that very name. She parked her car dead in the middle of
the road and we stood in the oncoming lane looking through my field guide for a more definitive
answer.
The bird looked as though someone had given it shocking news… or a really bad perm! “I think
it’s a horned grebe or an eared grebe,” she concluded. And the bird, as my then 4 year-old
granddaughter would once have described… mis-appeared… leaving us guessing about its
identity.
I was certain it was an earned grebe as I had seen a horned grebe the year before. The horned
grebe had a flatter spot on its head. My friend threw a monkey wrench into my certainty. “Yeah,
but this one was displaying.”
Binoculars drawn again, I call out, “bright yellow bird – a little dark on the end of its wings.” My
friend says definitively, “yellow warbler.” I am not so sure, “I don’t see any orange streaks on
its breast.”
We repeated our observations like a needle stuck on an old 45 record. Finally she playfully
demanded, “Would you give up on the orange already?” At about the same time, I saw the same
species of bird with orange streaks and conceded that it must be a variation of the Golden Book
illustration.
After we’d been walking for quite awhile, my friend noted, “We have to head in. My feet hurt
and I’m hungry.” My stomach seconded her motion, “Oh, yeah, I guess I am those things, too.”
Shortly later, she spotted a pair of ducks. “Mallards,” I say. “No, they aren’t mallards,” she
proclaimed.
Not convinced, I asked, “Okay, what do you think they are?” “Scaup,” she says.
“No, they aren’t scaup,” I reported. “What else do you think they are?” I queried. “Ringneck,”
she offered almost as a question.
Binoculars up, I report, “Green head, dark front, necklace, curly feathers on the tail.” My friend
was completely dejected and embarrassed and subsequently made me promise not to use her
name in print. “Okay. I don’t want to say it… but mallard. But it looks too skinny.”
I chuckled, “I’ll give you that. It doesn’t look like our cornfed Illinois mallards, but it is a
mallard.”
Though the one thing we agreed to a long time ago was that it was time to go in, we trekked even
further. I pointed to some showy vegetation, “Oh, look at these white flowers! Aren’t they
pretty?” She immediately named them, “Trilliums” while I was still looking for the wildflower
field guide in my head.
“I’ve never seen any so big!” was the first thing that came to my mind. My friend remembered,
“Yeah, Ang said they’d be in bloom.”
We made a flying trip around the Baraboo, Wisconsin area. We stopped at the International
Crane Foundation and checked out cranes with “perms” similar to my eared-grebe. We birded
along the Wisconsin River, some nearby wetlands and even Devil’s Lake State Park. We could
easily have stayed a couple more days, but our itinerary took us south to the Upper Mississippi
River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
Unlike the professional birding trips, my “guide” did not rouse me at the crack of dawn the next
morning. At something like 7’ish, she dragged herself out of bed mumbling, “Yag.”
Her tone of voice is in a range I can’t hear, so I was certain I misunderstood. “Yag,” she repeated
for my hearing impaired benefit. “I’d say good morning, but I think I’m not there yet.”
Fortunately she did eventually wake up and get back to her guiding duties. Though she got an
“F” in mallard identification, she did a darn good job teaching me to bird by ear. My unnamed
friend conceded that “the shack” was an interesting destination that she would like to visit again.
Perhaps next year we can make a return visit to the only chicken coop on the Register of Historic
Places.
,
Aldo Leopold purchased 120 acres in Sand County, Wisconsin; then converted a chicken coop
into a simple shelter for his family to use on their forays.
Trilliums in Wisconsin are much larger and showier than they are in Illinois.