Indiana Farm

An Indiana Farm in the dawn's early light...

Winter Trails

Winter allows no secrets.

Every animal, no matter how tiny, leaves footprints in the snow.

Even Coffee Creek leaves a trail of shelf ice along its banks to catch tiny prints of creatures stopping for a drink.

Winter at the Marsh

A couple of years ago this area, at the Grand Kankakee Marsh, would have been covered with Muskrat Lodges.

Since then the muskrat population has crashed and is now on the rebound; a reminder of the cycles of nature that are greater than a calendar year.   

Mystery Picture Saturday--guess where we are to win some notecards

Last week's Mystery Picture was taken at Oakridge Prairie, a county park in Lake County Indiana. This is a magnificent park to visit first thing in the morning. It's a great stop for a short hike before tackling the work day world.

I can't decide which season makes Oakridge shine the best. I guess they are all my favorite seasons at Oakridge:

This week's mystery picture is fairly easy; so no clue is necessary. Leave your guess in the comments. If it's correct we'll throw your name in the first day of spring notecard drawing:

Indiana's National Lakeshore

Winter is beautiful on Indiana's National Lakeshore where the sky meets the water of Lake Michigan and paints everything a steely winter blue.

Deer Brothers

While hiking on an early spring day at LaSalle Fish and Wildlife area, I came across these two deer brothers enjoying the hiking trail with me.

With their fuzzy new antlers on top of their heads, they were more concerned with feeding on the vegetation than with me snapping their picture.

The Snow People of Coffee Creek

Lovely curley hair!



One of the things so great about winter is coming across a snow creation while on a hike. A couple of weeks ago I was at Coffee Creek and this snow couple was sitting on a bench waiting to greet everyone of us brave enough to be out in the cold.



Baldy must be the Mr. Snowman



Nice buttons!

Stay warm and enjoy your day!

Quail

Quail are fascinating little birds. Normally found on the ground, not in trees, quail will call to each other and gather together in a circle in the evenings; tails facing into the circle, heads facing out to look for danger.

They have an unmistakable call which gives them their common name, Bobwhite.

This bird is male. Females lack the white areas on the head. 

I have often wondered why quail are not considered as song birds. They remain hunted in many areas of the country even though sightings like this bird are rare and their sweet calls toward evening are even rarer. 

Mystery Picture Saturday--Win some Notecards!

Last week's mystery picture was taken at Sunset Farm County Park in Porter County Indiana. The goats have recently taken up residence at the park and are enjoying the winter crowd of people snowshoeing, skiing, and running.

Chloe, a Meerkat/Yorkie blend peering
at goats.

The goats particularly enjoy the parade of dogs walking their people past their pen.









This week's mystery picture is a little more difficult, so a clue is included: This is also in a county park in the Northwest corner of Indiana. Leave a guess in the comments and you just might win the Blue Heron Moon Notecard set drawing on the first day of spring. Good luck!

 

A Summer Deer to Warm Us Up

With the cold and the snow that came overnight, I could use a warm up. So I dug into the archive and came up with one of my favorite deer pictures.

Deer are not very good at discerning immovable objects, so when I spotted this doe, I froze and the deer knew that she had saw movement but couldn't know for sure unless I moved again.

I stood still and watched her forage a little while longer and eventually she moved on. Here's to looking forward to summer on this cold January morning!

January Woods

A walk through the woods, even in January, always seems to nourish the spirit; makes the world fresh and good again.

The sky is so blue, its reflection in the snow sets off a million tiny prisms; sparkling minature rainbows flash at your eyes.

On such a walk, I long to taste the astringent flavor of a falling snowflake or smell the damp papery scent of the sleeping birch tree.

Whitebreasted Nuthatch

The Whitebreasted Nuthatch is a frequent visitor to Indiana feeders in the late fall, winter, and early spring. This little one was chowing some suet during Saturday's snow.

The Whitebreasted Nuthatch moves down a tree head first in search of food filling a niche left by the Brown Creeper that moves up trees head up.

This bird loves to munch suet, insects, sunflowers, and peanuts. It will eat one seed at a time; jamming the seed into the bark of a tree and then pecking away at it.

The Whitebreasted Nuthatch forages with other species; titmouse, chickadees, woodpeckers and they all learn each others 911 call. The more eyes watching for danger the better.

This looks to be a male because of the dark head cap; on a female it would be grayer. 

Mystery Picture Saturday---Win Blue Heron Moon Note Cards

The mystery picture from December 18th was taken in LaSalle Fish and Wildlife Area near Shelby, Indiana. This park is right on the Kankakee River with great wildlife viewing.

The park also has some of the best fishing and hunting in Indiana. The wetlands and fields are a great place to view deer, herons, egrets, swans, coyote, wild turkey, and fields flaming full of wildflowers each summer.

Some really good sized smallmouth and largemouth bass can be caught from the river bank in this park.

This weeks picture for a chance to be in the drawing should be easier; leave your guess in the comments to win the note cards on the first day of spring:

        

A Piece of Summer in January

Great big Water Lilies bloom each summer at LaSalle Fish and Wildlife Area on the Kankakee River in Indiana.

This lily was caught in the act of unfolding. The centers of the flowers are quite interesting. Don't you think?

Black-crowned Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Herons are easy photography targets. They are least active during the day and if you don't get too close will stand for a long photography shoot.

This bird is most active at dusk when it fishes and hunts where other herons fish and hunt during the day.

This heron was photographed in a Hammond, Indiana city park. Other places in Northwest Indiana to view this lovely bird in the spring and summer are the banks of the Little Calumet River in Gary and the Kankakee Grand Marsh.

Purple Martin

From the archives:

A Purple Martin to wish for on this cold December day.

This one was captured a couple of summers past in the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Indiana.

Winter Woods

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
 
A white Christmas is being guaranteed to Northwest Indiana this year; we have a few inches on the ground with more promised. The snow makes everything quiet with hardly a sound from a bird.
 
But signs of life are everywhere in the tracks of tiny creatures that eke out livings in the cold.  

Dark December Days

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
W. Shakespeare 

This week the days stop getting shorter as the winter solstice arrives...finally.

I look forward to the lengthening days even as winter's clutches tighten around us.

Mystery Picture Saturday --Chance to win free note cards

Last week's mystery picture was taken at Oxbow Park, maintained by the City of Hammond, Indiana. Oxbow is a jewel of a park within city limits; full of wildlife--ducks, geese, herons, muskrats and deer all call the park home.

If number of fisher-people is any indication of the fishing at Oxbow; the fishing should be good. The Oxbow is caused by a bend in the Little Calumet River into the park perimeter. The Oxbow creates a wetland; perfect habitat for the wildlife that frequent the park.

This week's mystery picture is taken at one of my favorite places to view wildlife and fish in Indiana. Add your guess of where in Indiana the picture was taken into the comments section to be included in the Blue Heron Moon notecard drawing on the first day of spring:

 

     

Bunny Boon or Bust

The Indiana Dunes had a bunny boon in 2006. The little ones were all over the place that year.

Many species of plant and animal go through boon and bust cycles and many are interconnected in ways that humans are only beginning to understand.

The picture of this little bunny was captured in 2006 when every two or three feet along the path a tiny baby bunny would appear and sample the salad along the path rim. In 2010 I saw a couple of grown rabbits but no babies along the same area.  

A great book to learn all there is to know about rabbits is The Private Life of the Rabbit by R. M. Lockley. This book details studies performed on rabbit populations on a farm in England. Population numbers and rabbit behavior was found to be affected by different stimuli in amazing and interesting ways. Everything you ever wanted to know about rabbits can be found in The Private Life of the Rabbit.