faulker015

November's full moon, currently brightening the night sky, is commonly known as the "Beaver Moon," a designation attributed to the Algonquin Tribe and now imbedded in American folklore.  The name reflects the fact that beaver are especially active at this time of year, repairing their dams and lodges and storing food for the winter months.  The latter usually consists of small deciduous trees and limbs that are placed underwater for sustenance while ice coats the stream or pond. My wife and I, frequent visitors to Philips Lake in southeast Columbia, have recently noted extensive beaver damage to small trees along the 40-acre lake.  Once a farm pond, the lake is stocked with fish by the Missouri Department of Conservation and the surrounding land was dedicated as the A. Perry Philips Park in 2011.  This is the first year that we have noticed the beaver damage and have been surprised that these large rodents made their way up from the nearby Gans Creek Valley. If left ...

Harriman Lake is a 67 acre water storage reservoir in southwest Metro Denver, fed by an irrigation canal; a 1.7 mile graveled trail leads around the lake and past several wetland areas, offering broad views of the open water and of the Front Range foothills to the west.  Access to the Park is via a parking lot on the north side of Kipling Parkway, a short distance south of West Quincy Ave. Though modest in size, Harriman Lake is a magnet for resident and migrant waterfowl and is one of the region's best locations for viewing and photographing those species.  Last week, as a cold front loomed to the northwest, my wife and I visited this Park; on our walk around the lake we saw an excellent variety of waterfowl, including the first American coot, ruddy ducks and redheads that I had observed this season.  A lone American white pelican lounged on the shore, double-crested cormorants fished on the lake and pied-billed grebes dove with the coot in the marshy shallows. While nat...

On my last day in central Missouri, my wife and I took a walk around Perry Phillips Lake, just south of Columbia.  In late spring and early summer, we always stop at the covered fishing deck to watch the nesting activity of barn and cliff swallows; the former place their nests on the cross beams of the structure while the latter adhere their cavities of mud to angular joints of the roof. Now, in early August, those nests are abandoned.  While barn swallows still strafe the lake and adjacent fields, feasting on insects, the cliff swallows have moved off to the southwest, beginning their long journey to southern South America; by January, during the peak of the Southern Summer, they will head for North America once again, sometimes arriving in the Desert Southwest by late February.  The barn swallows will migrate southward by September, wintering in more northern regions of South America. The abandoned nests at Phillips Lake are just another sign that summer is winding down...

This afternoon, some of our family members and close relatives gathered for lunch at the Sandy Lake cottage.  Since it was a beautiful day with partly cloudy skies and mild conditions, we chose to party on the deck which offers a broad view of the lake. Soon after completing our meal (though not our drinks!) our attention was drawn to the beach by loud shrieking and a frantic flock of purple martins exploded from their apartment complex.  A Cooper's hawk had streaked in at low altitude, grabbing one of the occupants as it strafed the dwelling's roof.  Zooming off with the victim in his talons, the raptor was pursued by other martins until it disappeared into a nearby woodland. Many present were disturbed by the event, the life of a beloved songbird extinguished by a much larger and more powerful creature.  Ironically, most of them had just consumed a chicken sandwich but we humans are reluctant to think of ourselves as predators.  

We have returned to my wife's family cottage on Sandy Lake this week.  A moderate-sized kettle lake in the glaciated Appalachian Plateau of northeast Ohio, it is always a pleasant retreat in summer, offering cooler air and a reliable breeze. While our grandsons relish the chance to fish, swim and kayak, I am content to wander around the lake or sit on our lakeside deck, enjoying the escape from urban congestion.  Ospreys, herons, cormorants and gulls are regular visitors and a large colony of purple martins reside in apartments along the shore.  A female mallard and her attentive brood have been plying the open waters, oblivious of snapping turtles that cruise below the surface. The modest humidity is a welcome change from the Front Range climate and a few heavy downpours have broken the local drought.  More thunderstorms are forecast for later today but most of the week should bring pleasant conditions.  Any unusual observations will certainly be reported but ...

As planned, we took a train to Bernina-Diavotezza this morning and boarded a cable car for a ridgetop vista; unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and our views were limited by dense clouds.  We thus descended much earlier than planned and made the fortunate decision to continue southward to Tirano, just across the border with Italy. While Tirano offered a taste of Italian life and architecture, including a host of outdoor cafes, our journey to and from that  town was the highlight of our day.  On our way south, we climbed to a pass at Lago Blanco and then began a long, winding descent through a broad glacial valley to Poschiavo and its scenic lake; the latter is drained by the Poschiavino River, which we followed to Tirano.  This entire stretch of railroad, from St. Moritz to Tirano, is the southernmost section of the UNESCO World Heritage Railway, mentioned in yesterday's post. Along our journey we crossed alpine tundra, passed remnant glaciers, hugged the e...

Leaving Luzern this morning we caught a series of trains to St. Moritz; en route, we passed Lake Zurich and Lake Walen before climbing southeastward through the Alps.  The rail stretch between Chur and St. Moritz, which crosses numerous bridges and passes through 55 tunnels, has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage railway.  St. Moritz itself sits in the Inn River Valley, surrounded by high peaks, and stretches along the north and west shores of St. Moritz Lake; scenic Lake Silvaplauna is a few miles upstream. Though my personal expectations were that St. Moritz, a playground for the rich and famous, would be a bustling resort town with numerous shops, cafes and clubs, it is relatively devoid of those amenities and proved to be a rather sedate destination in early June.  While historic hotels dot the valley walls, many of the buildings are modern structures that are anything but quaint; we expected a Vail or Aspen like atmosphere and found neither.  St. Moritz doe...

Leaving Interlaken East this morning, our train paralleled the north shore of Lake Brienz and then continued eastward through a broad, scenic glacial valley.  At Meiringen, we climbed northward to cross Brunig Pass and then began a long, gradual descent to Lake Lucerne through the Sarner River Valley.  Lake Lucerne is also fed by the Reuss River which drains the lake and continues northward through Lucerne, eventually merging with the Aare River before the latter enters the Rhine. The city of Lucerne (Luzern in German) sits along the northwest shore of Lake Lucerne and is bisected by the Reuss River as it flows northward from the lake.  Riverfront walks, lined with outdoor cafes and historic buildings, are connected by a number of foot bridges, including the Chapel Bridge, a wooden covered bridge that dates from 14th Century.  Lucerne's Old Town occupies the north side of the river, extending up to the original city wall and its watch towers; visitors can climb one ...

Leaving Montreux this morning, our train climbed the mountain wall to its east and crossed a divide via a long tunnel.  Exiting that tunnel, we were in the broad watershed of the Saane River (or Sarine River in French).  Descending along one of its tributaries, we enjoyed fabulous views of the high Alps to our south.  At Montbovon, we joined the main channel of the Sanne and followed it upstream as far as Gstaad, which sits in a beautiful alpine valley.  The Saane itself flows NNW from this area, eventually passing through Fribourg and entering the Aare River northwest of Bern.  Of interest, the Saane (or Sarine) roughly marks the border between the French and German linguistic regions of Switzerland. From Gstaad, the train climbed northward, leaving the watershed of the Saane and entering that of the Simme River.  After lunch and a change of trains in Zweisimmen, we followed the Simme down to the broad Valley of the Aare River, were it joins the Kander Ri...

This morning, we left Nyon and took a train to Montreux, an upscale city near the east end of Lake Geneva that sits at the edge of the Alps.  A lakefront promenade, through what is known as the Montreux Riviera, is adorned with a fabulous diversity of Mediterranean plants and offers a spectacular view of the Alps as it winds along the lakeshore; a host of shops, cafes, monuments, fishing decks and parks line the walkway. Home to an International Jazz Festival, Montreux is the point at which Switzerland's train network first enters the Alps for those traveling eastward from Geneva.  From here, one can follow the edge of the Alps northeastward to Spiez, Interlaken and Luzern or head into the heart of the Swiss Alps to visit famous alpine destinations such as Zermatt, Davos and St. Moritz. Our plan for tomorrow is to take the train to Interlaken, which sits in the Aare River Valley between Lake Brienz and Lake Thun.  More on that journey and our adventures along the edge of ...

The Aare River, the longest river that lies totally within Switzerland, rises near Grimsel Pass, in the Bernese Alps and eventually empties into the Rhine River along the country's northeast border with Germany.  Flowing more than 180 miles and draining a watershed that covers half of Switzerland, the Aare has been heavily dammed for both flood control and hydroelectric power; the three largest lakes along its course are Lake Brienz, Lake Thun and Lac de Bienne. While the Aare is perhaps most famous for its gorge in the Alps, it and its many tributaries are most often encountered during travel across the central and eastern portions of the Swiss Plateau.  It flows through Bern, one of Switzerland's major cities, and is a scenic treasure for many smaller towns along its course. Today I visited Olten, a pleasant city on the Aare River in the Germanic region of northeastern Switzerland.  Sitting at the base of the Jura Mountains and known for its Old Town shopping district, ...

Today, I made a circuit across the Swiss Plateau using the country's fine train network; smooth and efficient, the trains provide an excellent means to explore the landscape.  The Plateau region, nestled between the Alps and the Jura mountains, is characterized primarily by rolling farmlands (dairy cattle and sheep predominate), dotted with lakes and scenic towns. As a birder, I was pleased to see a large number of black kites and red kites on my journey, joined by a half dozen white storks.  Though I passed through Lausanne and Bern, my primary stop was at Neuchatel, at the base of the Jura Mountains and on the north shore of Lac de Neuchatel.  A visit to the splendid lakeside park turned up several more European birds (red-crested pochards, chaffinches and black redstarts, to name a few) and offered a spectacular view of the Alps to the south. On my final leg of the journey, I found that vineyards are abundant along the base of the Jura Mountains, certainly a reflection...

During our first week in Switzerland, my wife and I will be staying in Nyon, on the north shore of Lac Leman, more commonly known as Lake Geneva throughout the English-speaking world.  Created by glacial erosion during the last glaciation of the Pleistocene, this crescent shaped lake is one of the largest in western Europe, 45 miles in length and up to 8 miles wide. Near Nyon, the deeper Grand Lac portion (to the east and southeast) gives way to the Petit Lac, a shallower and narrower section that extends westward to Geneva.  This latter portion of Lac Leman was subjected to the serial deposition of terminal moraines as the glacier melted back toward the Alps as well as sedimentation from glacial streams that entered from its north and south.  The Rhone River, now rising from its residual mountain glacier in the Alps, flows through Lac Leman and then drains it through southern France before entering the Mediterranean Sea. This afternoon, we enjoyed a spectacular view of L...