faulker015

Leaving Columbia, Missouri, at dawn, I headed west and soon dipped through a dense ice-fog that filled the Missouri River Valley.  Throughout western Missouri, frost-backed cattle grazed in icy fields while stoic red-tailed hawks patrolled the highway from barren trees and phone poles. In eastern Kansas, an atmospheric inversion had put a lid on the Kansas River basin, producing hazy air and keeping the effluent of factories and power plants within a few hundred feet of the ground; the inversion broke down west of Junction City and bright sunshine lit my course for the rest of the trip.  Throughout central Kansas, where snowbanks lined the highway, numerous flocks of crows, meadowlarks, longspurs and Canada geese moved about the farmlands; the highlight in this region was a large flock of snow geese that funneled down to a crop field, east of Hays. Farther west, on the High Plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado, bright sunshine, dry air and a steady southwest wind warm...

On this cloudy, cool afternoon in Columbia, Missouri, a mix of songbirds and woodpeckers descended on our backyard, partly drawn by fresh seed in the feeding area.  Such feeding groups are common during the colder months, making their foraging efforts more efficient and reducing the risk of predation (more eyes improve the level of alertness); the latter benefit was especially important today. As I watched from the comfort of our family room, the visitors scattered into the nearby shrubs and trees when a Cooper's hawk swooped in for a late lunch.  Fortunately for the songbirds, the powerful accipiter missed his target but the avian party was over. Though we live near the center of Columbia, just west of the University of Missouri, our neighborhood lies between two wooded stream valleys, favored habitat for both Cooper's hawks and barred owls.  We thus get more than our fair share of raptor sightings and the local songbirds are surely aware of that fact.

Most adult humans enjoy both the scenery and the serenity of a country drive, especially during the sunny, colorful months of autumn.  Unfortunately, preteens are not always as enamored with the experience. Since my oldest grandson (a novice birder) is visiting this weekend, I took him on a drive through the farmlands east and south of Columbia.  While the temperature hovered near freezing, bright sunshine illuminated the landscape and an interesting variety of livestock and wildlife were encountered on our journey; raptors were especially common, including numerous kestrels and four red-shouldered hawks.  And though we failed to observe migrant snow geese, waterfowl occupied most of the lakes and farm ponds. It was one of those days when I could have driven about for the entire afternoon, allowing the chilly air to waft through my pickup and soaking in the peaceful scenery.  But my companion was bored within an hour, asking what I planned to do next; a brief stop fo...

The entire Gulf Coast of Florida, from the Keys to Pensacola, is especially vulnerable to storm surge as hurricanes and tropical storms come ashore.  Counterclockwise winds push water toward the coast on the "right" side of storm's eye, forcing it across the low country and up the coastal rivers. This process is accentuated along the Florida Gulf Coast due to the topography of the Gulf itself.  A broad shallow area, representing the west portion of the Florida Platform , parallels the State's Gulf Coast; as ocean water is swept in by the storm, it cannot displace downward and builds to destructive depths across the barrier islands and coastal lowlands, leveling structures and flooding the landscape. Hurricane Michael, now a Category 4 storm, is poised to come ashore near Panama City this morning.  Storm surge is expected to reach 13 feet or more in some parts of the Great Bend before the hurricane and its remnants cut a swath of destruction across the eastern Panhandl...

After my recent travel to beaches and coastal wetlands of the Southeastern U.S., I thought I would visit Coastal Colorado  today, a term I have previously applied to the lakes, gravel pits, sloughs and canals across the South Platte Valley of northeastern Colorado. Unlike the Southeastern wetlands, those of the South Platte Valley are not characterized by lush, verdant vegetation.  Rather, in this semiarid climate, trees (mostly plains cottonwoods) are found only along the river, its primary tributaries or irrigation canals.  Since this summer has been especially hot and dry, the natural grasslands have browned, adorned only by clumps of prairie sunflowers and rabbitbrush.  Though I saw hundreds (if not thousands) of American white pelicans (especially at Barr Lake State Park), most avian species were limited in number; among these were Swainson's hawks, American kestrels, western grebes, cattle egrets, Franklin's gulls, American avocets and shorebirds that were too ...

The Florida Panhandle is known for its sparkling white beaches, a trait that results from their composition.  The "sugar sand" of this region is composed of fine, ovoid quartz crystals, eroded from the Blue Ridge Mountains and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico by the Apalachicola River. Spread by currents within the Gulf, the quartz crystals are a primary component of beaches all along the Florida Gulf Coast but are least "contaminated" with shell fragments along the Panhandle.  In beaches along the Florida Peninsula and Keys, variable amounts and color of shell fragments alter the appearance of the sand; in some areas, the shell fragments predominate and the beach is gray, tan or nearly black. Here on Pensacola Beach, the white sand is dazzling in the bright afternoon sun, squeaking beneath your feet and producing a sharp contrast with the clear, turquoise water of the Gulf.  As one might expect from the above discussion, shells are small, mostly white and far less a...

Since the red tide was worsening on Longboat Key, we decided to head to the Northern Gulf Coast and settled on Pensacola Beach, an area that neither of us had visited.  The seven hour drive was uneventful, rather devoid of interesting wildlife; an exception was a huge number of cattle egrets on ranchlands to either side of Interstate 10, just west of Interstate 75.  Also of note was the change in character of the rivers, from the clear, tea-colored water of the peninsula (flowing through limestone and sandy soil) to the muddy water of the Panhandle rivers, draining the clay soils of the interior. Nearing Pensacola, we cut south on Route 281, crossing the broad east arm of Pensacola Bay to Gulf Breeze before continuing out to the narrow barrier island of Pensacola Beach.  As is typical of the Northern Gulf Coast, Pensacola Beach boasts a scenic strip of white sand, backed by modest dunes and hotels.  While it is surely a delightful location for sun worshipers, surfers...

Yesterday morning, we left Knoxville, driving eastward through the foggy Tennessee Valley.  After crossing the Holston and French Broad Rivers (which join to form the Tennessee), we climbed into the Blue Ridge Mountains, following the course of the Pigeon River.  Leveling out west of Asheville, we crossed the divide between the Pigeon and the French Broad Rivers, encountering the largest concentration of tent caterpillars that I have ever seen. At Asheville, we angled southward on Interstate 26 and crossed the Eastern Divide just south of Hendersonville; this Divide, which snakes north to south through Eastern Canada and the Eastern U.S., separates the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico from those flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean.  South of the Divide, we soon arrived at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and were treated to a spectacular view of the Southeastern Piedmont. After undulating across the Piedmont, hemmed in by a pine-broadleaf forest, we cr...

On our way to a family wedding in South Carolina, my wife and I left Columbia this morning and drove eastward across the Glaciated Plain of Missouri.  After crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in St. Louis, we angled southeastward across Illinois, eventually fording the Wabash River (a major tributary of the Ohio) before climbing across the Shawnee Hills of southern Indiana (capped with Pennsylvanian sandstone). After crossing the Ohio River at Louisville, we drove eastward through the Bluegrass Region of northern Kentucky (underlaid with Ordovician Limestone), crossing the Kentucky River near Frankfort and again south of Lexington; the Kentucky flows northward to joint the Ohio.  At Berea, we climbed onto the Appalachian Plateau (a layer cake of Carboniferous sediments) and crossed the Cumberland River (another tributary of the Ohio) in southern Kentucky.  Entering Tennessee, we climbed across the Allegheny Front, the high, western edge of the Appalachian Platea...

Last evening, my son (a pilot) and I took a flight across the Colorado Piedmont , south of Denver.  Leaving Centennial Airport an hour before sunset, we headed west to Chatfield Reservoir and then turned south, following the base of the foothills. Crossing over Roxborough State Park, adorned with scenic rock formations, we could see the prominent peaks that rise along the South Platte River Canyon to our west and southwest.  Farther along, we passed the craggy mass of Devil's Head and continued up the Plum Creek Valley to the Palmer Divide .  Angling to the east, we followed the Divide for a short distance, catching a view of Monument and Colorado Springs in the Fountain Creek Valley, off to our south.  After curving across the upper tributaries of Cherry Creek (which eventually joins the South Platte in downtown Denver), we passed above the mesas and buttes that characterize the scenic topography of the Castle Rock region. As we headed north, near Sedalia, the sun s...

This week, I started reading Cold Mountain , by Charles Frazier, some 20 years after its initial publication.  This highly acclaimed novel is set in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains during the Civil War; much to my delight, it is accompanied by a map of that region, an area through which I have travelled on many occasions. Before getting too far into the novel, I decided to review the topography of the Southern Blue Ridge, with specific attention to its major rivers.  The mountains themselves stretch along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, extending into northwestern South Carolina and northern Georgia; their highest summit is Mt. Mitchell (6684 ft.), in North Carolina.  This swath of highlands is bordered by the Ridge and Valley Province , to its north and west, and the Southeastern Piedmont to its south and east.  The eastern section of the Southern Blue Ridge is drained by the Watauga River, flowing northward to the Holston River, and the Catawba River...

Back in Cincinnati for a wedding, I am constantly reminded of my past as we travel about the city.  Born and raised here, I finally left after graduating from medical school and returned for only a few years when our kids were young. Nevertheless, memories are powerful products of the human brain, often triggered by sensory stimuli such as sights, sounds and smells.  Of course, my home town is loaded with sights that unleash memories, including certain roads, buildings, neighborhoods and natural landscapes.  Most of these memories might be classified as pleasant nostalgia but some exhume painful or tragic events. While dwelling on our past is generally unproductive, the connections provided by memory lend perspective to our lives and offer insight into how we became who we are.  A trip down memory lane (or through a memory-laden city) can be both enjoyable and enlightening.

While birds and birding are the subjects of most posts in this blog, I am personally most interested in ecosystems and in the landscapes that they occupy.  Landscapes are the products of geology, tectonic forces and erosion, the latter occurring primarily by the action of water or ice.  Terrestrial ecosystems reflect the underlying geology and topography, the regional climate and the availability of water (in the form of precipitation or surface water brought in by streams). It is with this knowledge that I focus on watersheds as I travel about our country or the globe and even pay close attention to them within my home cities.  Water, after all, is both essential to life and the primary architect of natural landscapes.  Understanding the regional topography requires that we know its component watersheds, from the main rivers to their smallest tributaries. In the U.S., some States greatly assist our effort by using road signage to demarcate the watersheds (North Caro...

Yesterday, as I flew from Missouri to Colorado, our route took us across the central latitudes of Kansas.  The low morning sun angle and clear skies provided ideal conditions for observing the topography below and I got a good look at the Smoky Hills. The Smoky Hills Province of the Great Plains stretches across north-central Kansas and into south-central Nebraska.  It is characterized by low hills that have been sculpted from Cretaceous bedrock by the tributaries of the Smoky Hill, Saline, Solomon and Republican Rivers (south to north).  That bedrock, deposited within and along a Cretaceous Sea that once covered most of the Great Plains region, is comprised of three bands: Dakota Sandstone, Greenhorn Limestone and Niobrara Chalk (east to west). Those who drive across Kansas on Interstate 70, cross the southern portion of the Smoky Hills Province between Salina and Hays; there, some ridges of the Province are adorned with turbines of the massive Smoky Hills Wind Farm....

On our flight back from Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday, the route took us over the southern tip of Greenland, the largest island on our planet.  It was our first encounter with that land of ice, rock and scenic fjords and, for twenty minutes or so, we were mesmerized by the spectacle, 34,000 feet below. Sparsely populated by humans, this Arctic nation is an independent territory of Denmark.  Mountain ranges run along its east and west coasts while a massive ice sheet covers 80% of the island's surface.  Icebergs speckled the fjords as we passed over Greenland and the majesty of its landscape was truly inspiring. Of course, one cannot mention Greenland without invoking the fact that its Arctic ecosystem is threatened by global warming.  The rate of melting has sharply increased and the total loss of Greenland's ice sheet would raise sea levels by 24 feet, a disaster for island and coastal communities and ecosystems across the planet. See also:  Greenland and Ice...

Yesterday, we took The Glacier Express, Switzerland's premier train experience, from St. Moritz to Zermatt; en route, we crossed four major watersheds and enjoyed spectacular alpine scenery. Leaving St. Moritz, we climbed northward through the Inn River watershed (a tributary of the Danube) and then passed through a tunnel to enter the vast watershed of the Rhine; one of Europe's major rivers, the Rhine eventually empties into the North Sea near Rotterdam.  In Switzerland, two major branches, each with several large tributaries, merge to form the Rhine west of Chur; we descended northward along its southern (or Posterior) fork to that junction and then climbed westward along its western (or Anterior) fork.  At Oberalppass, we crossed into the watershed of the Reuss River, which flows northward to and through Lucerne (or Luzern) before entering the Aare River .  Finally, another long tunnel (the longest in the Alps) took us into the Upper Rhone Valley and we descended west...

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...

The eruption of a volcano in Guatemala and its tragic consequences have drawn attention across the globe this week.  Some will blame the event on the random violence of nature while others will see the hand of God in the destruction and suffering.  But if you must accuse someone or something, blame the Atlantic Ocean. During the Permian Period, some 250 million years ago (MYA), the Continents had merged to form Pangea.  By the Triassic, about 200 MYA, the Tethys Sea opened, separating Laurasia (the northern Continents) from Gondwanaland (the southern Continents).  Then, during the Jurassic Period (some 150 MYA), the Atlantic began to open and the American Continents were pushed westward, a process that continues today.  In concert, the oceanic Farallon Plate was forced to subduct beneath the advancing Continental Plates; today, the Juan de Fuca Plate (in the Pacific Northwest), the Cocos Plate (west of Mexico and Central America) and the Nazca Plate (west of Sou...

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 ...