Three Things That Haven't Disappointed Me (and won't break your budget sort of)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you buy something it will probably disappoint you. Most advertisements are at best misleading and at worst, basically lies. (Consumer reviews aren't always helpful either. I hate paging through five star Amazon reviews that all read some variation of "OMG just got my new binoculars!! They work great can't wait to try them out! Thanx Amazon!" I don't want to hear that you just got them and they work great. Of course they do. I want to hear that you set them on fire and they work great.) Therefore I'm always pleasantly shocked when I encounter some piece of outdoor equipment that not only lives up to the advertising, but goes above and beyond. In recognition of that here's a list of my top three items that have proved to be reliable field companions over the years.

1. Cabela's Rimrock Hiker
The world of women's outdoor wear is a cold and bleak place inhabited mostly by pink camouflage and yoga pants.  I can't tell you how many times I've opted for men's clothing, which, although usually too big and awkwardly-shaped, is miles above the travesty that is the women's department of the average sporting goods store. Onto this depressing landscape the Rimrock Hikers shine like a beacon of hope. Pants, shirts, even coats can be compromised on; but as any outdoorsperson knows, you're only as strong as your feet.
I bought my first pair of Rimrock Hikers four years ago, before I set off for college. They survived an associate's degree with grace and style--and that includes miles of hiking every day, camping, caving, late-night-early-spring-salamander-hunting, wading, chainsawing, ghost-chasing, tractor-driving, an internship with the Forest Service, and just about everything in between. When I graduated they went West, and spent a good solid eight hours a day tromping over the soaked ground of the prairie pothole region in search of elusive grassland birds. For the autumn we headed back east and I wore them from sunup to sundown as an intern at an environmental camp. Afterwards we did a short-distance move to Lexington and, after several months of hoofing it around parks and some duct tape repairs, finally gave up the ghost. I bought another pair, and just in time, because the original Rimrock Hikers were discontinued and replaced with a very similar boot. I don't know why but my hope is that it wasn't to introduce something lower-quality. Don't disappoint me, Cabela's.

2. L. L. Bean Continental Rucksack
The Mary Poppins' bag of backpacks. I can't quite get everything I own into my rucksack, but I can come close. (The car doesn't fit.) It doesn't have bazillions of tiny useless pockets so you can sort out your chapstick from your pencils. Instead it has one central compartment, two water bottle holders on either side, and a biggish front pocket for stuff you need easier access to. There's lots of straps and buckles, so it's easy to batten down the hatches for long-distance hikes. It's also just plain a nice-looking, no-frills backpack. No weird patterns, no built-in water thingie, no large brand symbol, and it comes in several naturalist-y colors such as Tidal Sand and Dark Russet. It's the sort of backpack John Muir might wear whilst overlooking the Yosemite Valley and stroking his beard. The only thing I have a bit of a problem with is the width. It's a very flat pack, which means even when full it doesn't stick out very far in the back. This is a sort of double-edged sword because it disperses the weight better so you don't get tired as quickly, but it's also harder to dig through if you want the thing you packed on the very bottom. Also it's pretty tall and I'm a tiny bit short in the torso for it to fit quite in the way it's intended; for anyone under 5'2 it would probably not fit well at all. All in all though, it's the best pack I've had so far.

"I approve of your backpack." --John Muir

3. Nikon Monarch
I saved the best (and the most expensive at around $250) for last.This is actually a series of binoculars rather than one single model and I'm not quite sure which model I own, simply because most of the distinguishing markings have been worn off by 10 years of use. Mine are 8x42s but you can get Monarchs in just about any reasonable magnification. In terms of clarity, close focus, light-gathering capabilities, and all the other important binocular things, the Nikon Monarch consistently rises to the top of its price class and in my opinion out-performs some models with quadruple-digit price tags. It also just plain looks and feels like a good pair of binoculars--good weight, a rubberized coating that makes it easy to hang onto and more bouncy if dropped, good grips, and adjustable to a variety of faces--there isn't a thing to complain about. And you'd never know it's a piece of delicate optical equipment from the way I treat mine. It's advertised as waterproof and fogproof, but I can state from experience that it's also cement-proof, car door-proof, chocolate pudding-proof, semi-fire-resistant and about everything in between. (Disclaimer: Don't try it, though.) This is truly the cockroach of binoculars and I mean that as a compliment.

The Nikon Monarch also looks super sleek in action.

End-of-Season Hibernation (and a trip to the Red)

I guess it just comes with the territory of being a young, undereducated individual in the field of natural resources, but it seems like every time the end of a season rolls around you're finishing up one job and scrambling to find another. Most entry-level wildlife jobs are transitory by nature and you go into them knowing that in a couple months you're going to walk away and most likely never see those places or people again. I got a little lucky this year because I double-booked myself; in addition to my full-time job with Parks and Recreation, I did a fall stint as an educator at an environmental camp for 4th and 5th graders. Of course I didn't sleep and consumed as much coffee as a small country, but I figure only two months of it can't do too much long-term damage, and it's nice to have Job #1 still there for you when Job #2 ends.

A good day in pond study class

The last school wrapped up at the end of October and I've re-situated myself back at the park and hunkered down for a long slow winter. Like the red-eared sliders in the pond outside the window, wildlife kids undergo somewhat of a period of dormancy over the winter. Exciting seasonal field jobs are scarce; the best strategy is to find somewhere comfortable to pass the winter and spend your time wistfully paging through the Internet wildlife job boards.

As a last celebratory get-together my lovely camp coworkers and I headed down for a day jaunt to Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest. To paraphrase Saturday Night Live's Stefon the tourism correspondent, this place has everything: Poisonous mushrooms, a suspension bridge, a snake venom extraction facility, a haunted railroad tunnel, and a pizza joint that serves rice as a topping. We started with a brief stop-in at the Kentucky Reptile Zoo to get our snake fix:

This absurd and fascinating little guy is a horned viper (Cerastes sp) from North Africa

Bitis gabonica, or Gaboon Viper. According to the interwebs this species has the longest fangs of any viperid--up to 2 inches.

From closer to home, a copperhead showing off his dead-leaf camo. This one is the southern subspecies (Agkistrodon controtrix contortrix) 

The proper way to enter Red River Gorge with style is via the Nada Tunnel. Built for use by a logging railroad during the early 1900s, this one lane, 900-foot tunnel through the mountain is not for the claustrophobic or people who don't like dark places with literal tons of sandstone over their heads. Having gone to school right next to the infamous Moonville Tunnel I have a special affection for haunted railroad tunnels, and the Nada Tunnel has its share of alleged specters and mysterious lights. Tragically, it's a verifiable fact that the construction of the tunnel was not without at least two casualties. One man was killed while trying to thaw frozen dynamite near a campfire; another man was wounded in the blast and a dog apparently died as well. It's hard to know what to say about someone who thaws dynamite out over a fire, but I guess we all have our moments. Some of us are just lucky and live through them.

The Red is full of dramatic rocks.

We were pressed for time and only took a short hike down a connector trail to the junction of the Sheltowee Trace Trail. A suspension bridge spans the Red River at the connection and provides lovely views, as long as you don't mind heights and rotten boards underfoot.

View of the Red River from the Sheltowee Trace suspension bridge

You can sort of see the Sheltowee Trace trail mark on the right hand side of the beam. The trail is named after Daniel Boone, whose name while living with the Shawnee tribe was Sheltowee or Big Turtle.

The Appalachian Trail has been on my bucket list since I was old enough to tie my own bootlaces, but it's hard to come by the time and money to tromp across the country for a whole summer. At around 300 miles the Sheltowee Trace Trail seems much more doable. Maybe next spring I'll crawl out of my den and do a little more wandering around down there.

Blood Moon

If there's one real advantage to jobs in the field of natural resources, it's all the wonderful early morning skies that you'll (be forced to) see. Yesterday's had the added bonus of a so-called "blood moon" eclipse, the second in a series of four supposed to conclude next year. Fortunately I was in rural Nicholas County at my second job as an environmental camp staff member; the city lights of my home base of Lexington are not conducive to astronomy.

The previous day had some weird weather. We were under an on-and-off tornado watch and huddled in the basements for our classes. Surrounding counties had building damage and heavy hail, but we were luckier and--although we were drenched and cold--thunderstorms was as bad as it got. The next morning I got up at 6am to a cold, clear morning with Orion shining brightly above the staff cabin and a big chunk already bitten out of the moon.

 

The copper-colored shadow spread so quickly that by the time I had retrieved my camera from the office, changed the batteries, and come to the realization that you have to remove the lens cap to take a picture, the eclipse was all but complete. By 6:40ish it was setting behind the treeline, still a garish red. Until April 2015, blood moon.

Camera Experiments

I have now officially graduated from an iPhone camera to a step above an iPhone camera with the purchase of a Canon Powershot SX510! Naturally what this means is that even more of my mediocre photography will be unleashed upon the unsuspecting internet. A second job teaching at a fall environmental camp has been keeping me pretty busy, but in between times I've been experimenting with all the different settings that I can't understand. It's a learning process but I'm comforted by the fact that there's nowhere to go but up.

 A patient Great Blue Heron at McConnell Springs Park

Vultures on a cloudy evening

Fall leaves with the palisade cliffs of the Kentucky River in the background--Jim Beam State Nature Preserve

Moonrise in Nicholas County

Sunset, North-Central 4H Camp 

What's Blooming in the Bluegrass: Snapshot in Purple & Yellow

It's time once again for me to grace the internet with my mediocre photography! It's been a dry summer so far in the wild lands of Kentucky, but that hasn't stopped the flowers from blooming. Here's the highlights (so I have no excuse not to recognize them when I see them again next year).

This awesome little flower of fields and roadsides is Coreopsis tinctoria. It's got an obnoxious amount of common names, most of them some variation of tickseed, coreopsis or calliopsis; one of these, Dyer's Coreopsis, comes from its use as a reddish dye by some Native American tribes. 

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta)

The ornamentally-named Everlasting Pea, Laythrus latifolius. Unfortunately it's an introduced species, but it makes quite a show with those hot pink blossoms and winged stem.

Purple Coneflower  (Echinacea purpurea) and friend

Passiflora incarnata, Purple Passionflower. I don't know what's going on with this plant. It looks like three different kinds of flowers that tried to smash together into one, or something from Dr. Seuss. 

Bonus! Who doesn't love some good fungus? Mushrooms and fungus are something I really struggle with identifying, so when I find flashy ones like this it gives me the warm fuzzies. On the left is a type of Bird's Nest Fungus growing on a bed of mulch, one of its preferred habitats. On the right is Xylaria polymorpha, picturesquely known as "Dead Man's Fingers." It's variable in appearance but always pretty unattractive (sorry fungus). 

Camp Nelson, Kentucky: I came here for the birds, but look at all this history

If you get to play in the woods for a job, what do you do on days off? Play in the grasslands, of course. Accordingly this past week I hied myself to the wilds of Jessamine County, Kentucky to explore Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park. A solid thirty-minute drive south of Lexington, it took me even longer when my so-called smart phone got a little confused about what direction we should be going in.

Thanks Siri! I guess the sign did say "No Outlet."

After you find it, it's shockingly obvious. The giant sign and big iron gates help. The park itself is over 500 acres of hiking trails, but as you pull up you have the option of taking a tour of the old officer's quarters, or stopping by the visitor's center, a barnlike structure where you can go for all your brochure and fake Civil War hat needs. I went in and proceeded to get educated.

Originally founded in 1863 to supply Union efforts in Tennessee, parts of Kentucky and Virginia, Camp Nelson eventually became one of the biggest recruiting and training depots for African Americans escaping slavery to join the Union Army. It also housed African American refugees as well as the families of Union soldiers from east Tennessee trying to escape Confederate occupation. The site was originally chosen because, and I shall quote from Capt. T. E. Hall, Chief Quartermaster, as written in the informational brochure: "It is naturally fortified on three sides by the [Kentucky] river and [Hickman] creek, the cliffs of which average four hundred feet high and perpendicular...Every approach to the camp is commanded by mounted guns and...it is one of the most impregnable points in the country."

Not much is left and it's hard to imagine that it was once a giant encampment apparently encircled by some heavy artillery. In spite of the guns, however, Camp Nelson never saw any action. The closest it came was the summer of 1863 when General John Hunt Morgan passed through the area, sacking things as he went. Camp Nelson hunkered down for combat but General Morgan passed by on his way farther north, up to no good as usual.

There's a twenty-minute informational video that hits the high points of the park history, and the museum gives you an idea of what day-to-day life at Camp Nelson would have looked like. It's both informative and slightly creepy as you see.

Reproduction of quartermaster's depot

Soldiers

Hospital ward

Refugee shanty

I'm just not very comfortable with mannequins.

As soon as I walked out past the buildings, I saw the best thing I've seen in Kentucky in a long time.

LOOK AT ALL THIS GRASS!

It's not that I have anything against woods and hollers, but there's just something special about acres and acres of open land that hasn't been attacked by a lawn mower. Although it's mostly timothy and other man-introduced grasses, if you squint you can sort of imagine it looking like the oak savannas that occurred naturally across Kentucky hundreds of years ago. The first bird to greet me at the trail head was a singing Orchard Oriole, a first for this year. A few dozen yards in and meadowlarks started exploding out of the tall grass like popcorn. It's hard to imagine, standing in the middle of the field and going deaf from the meadowlarks, but according to a nearby marker this is the mass burial place of Camp Nelson refugees who succumbed to disease and poor conditions. Over 200 Union solders were also buried at "Graveyard One" but were later removed to the Camp Nelson National Cemetery down the road.

Once I got used to the clamor of meadowlarks, I picked up on the sound of some very irritated nesting Bobolinks as well as a Grasshopper Sparrow's thin buzz. Judging by the noise bobwhites were abundant, but none of them seemed inclined to show themselves. After soaking in the grassland birds for a while I made my way toward the far side of the park where, according to the map, old stone fortifications overlooked the valley of Hickman Creek. I should mention that up till that point the trails were very wide mowed paths, shorts and sandals friendly. As soon as I entered the wooden portion of the park I realized that such luxuries could no longer be expected (after all, trees are harder to mow over). But if there's one thing that I really took away from my college education it's that trails are for sissies.

See that trail? Neither do I.

Besides, up until that point all the important historical landmarks had been marked by big yellow flags, and how hard could those be to find? Parks are always covered in helpful signage to help the confused public understand how to navigate them. Presently I came upon this helpful sign:

This way to Union soldiers 

The woods were very dense but I could approximately orient myself by the sound of Hickman Creek coming from the valley to my left. Around three hundred mosquito bites later, when I was beginning to have the feeling of having taken a wrong turn, but was soon reassured by the presence of another informative sign:

Still haven't found those Union soldiers? Keep going.

After a few hundred miles with no Union soldiers or signs thereof, I was forced to assume that I'd missed a turn and walked straight off the map. I backtracked all the way back out to where I had entered the woods. In spite of the fact that I was doing some serious speedwalking, I was able to nab the usual woodland suspects--wood-pewee, a couple species of woodpecker, a pair of hen turkeys, Red and White-eyed Vireos, and a few more. A doe flushed out of the woods and there were plenty of coyote and raccoon tracks. 

There's a lot more to explore and I'm sure I'll be heading back out to Camp Nelson to tour the officer's house and find the Hickman Creek fortifications without getting lost in the wilderness of Jessamine County. Or I might just go sit in the middle of the timothy and listen to meadowlarks and pretend it's a prairie.

Then go home and pick off ticks for five hours.

What's Blooming in the Bluegrass

Disclaimer: This is mostly for my own reference, since every spring I seem to forget all my flowers and have to relearn them. That being said, here's a far-from-exhaustive roundup of late spring wildflowers in the Bluegrass (pictures are from McConnell Springs Park and Raven Run Nature Sanctuary in Lexington, KY).

Appendaged Waterleaf

Carolina Horsenettle (Solanum carolinense). In spite of the name, this awesome little plant is actually a member of the nightshade family so don't eat it because it will screw you up.

Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohioensis)

Golden Ragwort (Packerea aurea) keeping its feet wet

Coreopsis hiding out in a stand of switchgrass.

A rainy woodland clearing full of Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare)

Everyone's favorite, Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). This native of eastern Asia seems to have taken over most of Kentucky.

Motherwort  (Leonurus cardiaca) 

Good old Rosa multiflora. I'm used to Ohio, where this species overwhelms everything it touches with its spiny little vines of pure evilness, but down here Multiflora Rose doesn't seem to have attained the same status as a major invasive.

A shady patch of bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

This fantastically awesome creature is our native Kentucky cactus, the Eastern Prickly Pear or Indian Fig (Opuntia humifusa). 

Let's take another look at that cactus, because it's just way too awesome not to.

Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis) and skipper butterfly

There's lots more blooming but we're starting to see more summer flowers now, so expect Part II, "Asters I Can't Identify," sometime in the future.

iLike My iPhone (iThink)

Hiding place in a drystone fence (taken with iPhone)

It's been getting on a year since I switched from a caveman cell phone to a smart phone and I can finally begin to say, with some level of confidence, that I sort of understand how it works. I can take pictures (and put filters on them); I can theoretically download Minecraft; Facebook and eBird, with their streaming updates of rare birds, are now available everywhere I go. Siri is always there to guide me to the nearest gas station or coffee place; getting lost, which used to be a sort of ritual for my roadtrips, is now a thing of the past.

My iPhone has come in handy in the great outdoors, too. My previous phone took pictures any Bigfoot hunter would be proud of; the iPhone, while not up to snuff with a "real" camera, definitely does a passable job. Combined with binoculars or a tripod it could even be used to document distant or moving targets like birds.

Bullfrog, unedited picture with iPhone through binoculars

And unlike a true camera, you almost always have your cell phone handy, so no missed photo opportunities. (For the sake of honesty I feel like I should admit that all my photos are iPhone photos. I have future plans to win the lottery and outfit myself in National Geographic photographer equipment, but until then, the phone camera is a bit cheaper.)

It's got other advantages too. The first app I downloaded was the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's free bird ID app, Merlin. Set up like a simplified field guide, you can choose to either browse the 350 species included or have the app guide you through a series of questions to help you decide on the identity of an unknown bird. Merlin's weak point is the restrictive species list (looking for Empidonax flycatchers? Better hope the old Sibley is on hand). Its strong points are that it's FREE and includes 800+ audio records of songs and calls, very handy for those times in the field when you know it's a warbler but you just can't remember which one. And the iPhone's usefulness as a hiking partner doesn't stop there. Can't figure out what that flower is? Hit up Google Images. Directionally challenged and forgot your compass at home? There's an app for that. It even calls people, so if you fall and break your legs you can call 911. 

So I guess when it really comes down the wire, iDo like my iPhone--for the most part. I realize that my adoption of the wonders of technology isn't nearly extensive as it could be, but I do occasionally have the nagging feeling that my 12-year-old self would be very disappointed in me. My tendencies were towards the Luddite, partly due to financial constrains and partly because did Daniel Boone have an iPhone? Did Audubon? Did Roger Tory Peterson, for pete's sake? I learned my birds with the aid of the 1980s edition of Peterson and a pair of binoculars about as effective as looking through a couple of trash cans taped together, and about the same size. My views have mellowed since then; I've come to realize that Audubon didn't have an iPhone not because he was above such things, but because the technological advances of his time limited him to a shotgun. Still, I feel a faint twinge of guilt at the words of Aldo Leopold: "Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim," he writes. "We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry." My iPhone still comes with me into the woods--but I do make an attempt to be a little less trigger happy with Google Images.

IPhone photo of foxglove beardtongue

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