A few shorebirds (and an impostor)

This black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola) was hunkered down in the sand, and stayed that way the entire time Jessa and her camera were present, but it hardly matters, as the bird is in winter plumage and does not currently have its namesake black belly. It probably needs the rest: inveterate travelers, black-bellied plovers nest in the high Arctic and winter on every continent except Antarctica.

The piping plover (Charadrius melodus), on the other hand, is an exclusively North American species.  There is an inland population—they nest on sandbars on the Platte River here in Nebraska—but piping plovers are more typical of sandy coastal beaches.

Their congener, the killdeer (C. vociferus), is found almost everywhere on the continent.

Jessa took most of the photos in this post, but I shot these American avocets (Recurvirostra americana) at Grand Isle. More to come.

The ruddy turnstone, Arenaria interprens, has at various times been classified as a plover and as a sandpiper. Like the black-bellied plover, it is a cosmopolitan bird, nesting in the Arctic and wintering on six continents. These birds are in their winter plumage, but even so the harlequin pattern is distinctive.

Sanderlings (Calidris alba) are familiar as the "clockwork sandpipers" that advance and recede with the waves. Utterly charming.

The Alaskan-nesting western sandpiper, C. mauri, is one of several Calidris species known collectively as "peeps". (Sanderlings are a disputed peep, but I count them in.) Quick test: ask someone to define "peeps". If they respond "small Calidris sandpipers", you're talking to a birder. If they respond "marshmallow chicks", you're not. (And if they answer "people", just say "Aww, that's adorbs!", pat them on the head, and walk away.)

Peep tracks.

The northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a passerine, not a shorebird, but this one was doing his best to fit in. And here on the beaches of Pontchartrain, perhaps we should call him a southern cardinal...

Ten-cent crabs and hermit crabs

We observed two different types of crabs on the beach at Grand Isle, in close proximity but living very different lifestyles. The "ten-cent crabs", so designated because they were about the span of a dime, survive through a combination of speed, camouflage, and burrowing. (The crab is at five o'clock relative to the dime in each of these photos.)

[Some of the burrows, with crab tracks leading to piles of jettisoned sand, were quite aesthetically pleasing.]

The hermit crabs, of course, take their protection from their borrowed shells (mostly whelks and periwinkles) and from the tidal pool in which they lived. Speed is decidedly not their forté.

[Hermit crab in situ, carrying a whelk shell.]

[Hermit crabs in periwinkle shells (the more common housing here), held by Jessica and Heather.]

Barrier island kestrels

We spotted this kestrel hunting amidst the mostly empty houses of off-season Grand Isle, Louisiana. She eyed us warily for a moment and then got back to the business of scanning the ground below.

With far better taste in real estate was this one, who eschewed the town side of Grand Isle for the beach at the state park.

We watched her hover-hunting in the breeze off the Gulf almost the whole time we were there. This is just what she does, every day. This is her domain.

The battle

Alligators aren't the only predators cruising Bayou Lacombe. When I first spotted this pied-billed grebe (I confused the girls by calling out "peanut butter grebe!", an old nickname from my Audubon days), I thought it was trying to swallow a fish. The challenge was actually more difficult: a blue crab bigger than the poor bird's head.

But the grebe persevered, and, spinning this way and that in its exertions, managed over the course of several minutes to subdue and swallow its unwieldy prize. Jessa documented the fracas with her camera.

[Almost done...]

[There! One self-satisfied grebe.]

Later, we enjoyed some soft-shelled crabs ourselves, on po-boys. The grebe may have been an inspiration, but then again how much encouragement do we really need?

[Swimming off in triumph.]

American alligator

We weren't specifically looking for alligators on our most recent trip, any more than we were looking for any wildlife, but we sure did find them. Jessa's sister Heather was the first to see this smallish one on the lower reaches of Bayou Lacombe, close to where it flows into Lake Pontchartrain.

Heather also spotted this one on the way to Grand Isle, having determined that it was neither a trash bag nor a blown-out tyre (gator equivalents of the notorious "insulator hawk").

But the largest alligator we saw was our "house gator", a magnificent specimen who liked to bask most mornings next to the canal under the balcony of our rented flat in Slidell.

Heed the signs.

Blogging in the time of SARS-2

I started this blog with a question, "what am I going here?", and the question still stands twelve years later. To be honest, I've never had a single clear conception of who my audience is or what my blog's purpose should be, and my approach to writing it has no doubt shifted over time. But I'm still here twelve years on, long after many of the blogs that have interested me and inspired me have gone dormant, and so there must be some purpose after all.

In large part I write for myself. Whatever else this blog may be, it is in part a repository for photographs and other memories. It probably ends up being, to a certain extent, a record of whatever has held my attention at the time, but it should not be read too literally in that sense: while there is much of my personal life in Flyover Country, it is by no means a complete record, and obviously there are facets of my life, sometimes large facets, that are not reflected here.

I sometimes think that my true external audience may be "posterity", in the form of Ellie and any other children I may one day have, inshallah, with Jessa; in my cousins and hers; in our nieces and nephews. And I wonder on occasion what they will make of the gaps in the fossil record alluded to above.

Here we are, for example, four years into what may be considered "the Trump era", and not a word to this point—I know, I just checked—on the shitshow of cynicism, corruption, and incompetence that is the Trump Administration. For the record, I don't subscribe to the theory that Trump is America's Hitler; I see him as America's Mussolini, and hope he may someday meet a similar end. (We have plenty of filling stations...) My explanation for this otherwise puzzling omission is that some things are simply too big, too complex, too fast-moving, and/or too depressing to deal with in this particular forum.

Likewise with the current pandemic, designated "COVID-19", caused by a novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2. This is decidedly on-topic for this blog; see previous posts "Stellaluna and Wilbur will kill us all: a review of Contagion" and "Spillover reviewed". [Note also my description of "SARS as a lucky escape, an epidemic that could have been so much worse than it was (and one that may yet get another bite at the apple)."] But, until now, I've avoided the topic as too big, too complex, too fast-moving, too depressing. Particularly depressing is the schizophrenic societal response to the virus, as people simultaneously over- and under-react to the new circumstances.

Today, as Jessa and I helped Ellie move from her dormitory to an off-campus flat, I saw a whiteboard message left by another departing student:

COVID BACKWARDS IS DIVOC
WHAT DIVOC IS GOING ON?

What, indeed.

While the pandemic is an undeniably real-life topic, I'm happy to say that there are other topics that also represent real life, and I hope that readers—my friends, blog neighbours, and even "posterity"—will not mind if Flyover Country focuses for the time being on some of those. New photographs, new memories...perhaps, if I'm lucky, an insight here or there.

We're recently returned from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, so expect more soon. Thanks for reading, whoever you are, and be well.

A Pirate's life for me: a gear review

It was the handwritten note that did it. That personal touch converted me from satisfied customer to enthusiastic advocate.

"Thank you for your order & support of small business! Let us know how you like your patches."

Well, this review is by way of feedback, and the note is just one of the rewards of supporting a small business. They don't get much smaller than Pirate Fly Fishing. I already knew from my pre-purchase research that Pirate is two people: Justin West is the businessman of the pair, and Maddie Bonthron the designer. (She's also, I suspect based on the handwriting, the author of the note.) The Colorado-based business started in 2015 with a single product, the original Pirate's Fly Patch, and has stayed true to its mission of "bringing useful and good-looking products to anglers who are always on the move".

The Pirate's Fly Patch was designed to clip onto the visor of a vehicle, but I naturally fish out of the back of my wagon, and have scant need to fiddle with flies from the driver's seat. But the clips are perfect for the milk crate which keeps my gear organised in the car and serves as my centre of operations when fishing the lough. (My crate is not a plastic cube made for fishing and dorm-room storage, but an iron-and-wood antique from a local dairy; it actually held milk bottles back when those were still made of glass. However, I digress.)

The company's more recent fly patch, the First Mate, forgoes the clips in favour of hook-and-loop (Velcro) tape, plus a hole at the corner of the polycarbonate frame that can be clipped to a retractor. I intend to take advantage of this versatility: hook-and-loop tape for the hull of my kayak, and retractor clip for wading with my sling pack. And in addition to the high-quality slit foam it shares with the original, the First Mate has a pair of neodymium magnets, strong enough to hold tools as well as flies.

So much for "useful". As for "good-looking", Maddie's trout spots (bright yellow brown trout print on the original, and brookie print on the First Mate) take what could be a "merely" utilitarian item and make it beautiful. And fly-fishing is, after all, largely about aesthetics. (The colourful fly patches are a good match for my MFC fly boxes, nach ea?) Mission accomplished, then.

I heartily recommend either or both of these patches to any fly-fisher who may read this. I can't guarantee you'll receive a handwritten thank-you note with your order...but I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Playing the hawk's game

Stekoa is normally a very co-operative hunting partner, following well and paying close attention to me and anyone else in our party. On our most recent outing, however, he was bolshie from the start.

We were working a riparian area, following a creek that feeds one of the Salt Valley Lakes, and we had had a successful hunt there just the previous weekend. I expected him to remember and follow with perhaps even more than the usual enthusiasm; instead, he took a perch overlooking the grass along the creek and proceeded to ignore me with an intensity that seemed quite deliberate. I of course worked the brush below him—when he is stubborn, it's generally for good reason, but in this case my diligent efforts produced no game—and then I tried to get my hawk back on the move. Still Stekoa sat.

Worse, he seemed to be paying more attention to the opposite side of the creek. On my side: open riparian woods with abundant quail and rabbit tracks in the snow. On the opposite side: just a few trees in a wide expanse of grass, an ideal habitat for mice and voles but marginal for anything else.

Mice and voles are an unavoidable aspect of hawking here, and I truly don't mind if Stekoa dabbles in mousing while we're afield, but it's not the reason I drag myself out of a warm house when the temperature is hovering in the single digits Fahrenheit. And on this particular afternoon, I'm afraid my temper began to fray about the edges, not that Stekoa would have known. I muttered dark threats and imprecations, alternating with what I hoped were encouraging exhortations to for crying out loud follow me down the creek in search of cottontails or even bobwhites.

And then he flew across to the other side.

My ire was not lessened by the fact that, despite the frigid temperatures, the creek right here was running clear, forcing me to backtrack to the road so I could cross at the bridge. And as I approached Stekoa, my suspicions were confirmed: the only tracks to be seen on this side were of small rodents. Happily, though, once I reached him he began to follow me, and in my wake he caught first a deer mouse and then a fat vole. Okay, some success and some warm calories for him.

The direction of our travels took us to a bend in the creek, where I was relieved to find that some combination of lower flows and deeper shade had produced walkable ice at this point. I crossed, and Stekoa followed. Now we were in rabbit country. Immediately we began finding sign; no quail now, but plenty of rabbit tracks and scat. Networks of tracks, in places merging into bunny highways. Tracks everywhere.

Tracks, but no bunnies. I worked through the woods, Stekoa tuned in to my efforts, but to no avail: the authors of the tracks were either underground or elsewhere, and we saw not a single rabbit where the previous weekend we had seen several.

As we continued downstream, the creek wound back and forth, now out of sight, now looping back toward us. And when we again found ourselves at the edge of the woods, overlooking a strip of Indian grass and little bluestem  growing along the creek, I realised I had a choice to make: continue an apparently futile search for traditional quarry, or play Stekoa's game and let him have some sport on mice.

I headed back upstream, beating the grass with my stick, and immediately had rodents on the move. Stekoa, watching from the trees at the edge, had numerous opportunities, and within just a few minutes had caught another vole and three more deer mice. He wasn't gently parachuting down on them, either, but launching himself from the trees, flying directly at me, and slamming decisively into the ground. Decent flights—more than decent, in fact. They were impressive, and I was glad to be reminded how versatile redtails are, how determined they are to survive, how thoroughly they seem to enjoy their work.

I was also starting to wonder just how long I should let this continue. Stekoa now had four mice and two voles in his crop, and while he was still eagerly watching my every move, I didn't want to push my luck too far. He launched again, flew at me, then rocketed past, his wings pumping hard, and veered back toward the trees. A rabbit had flushed, unseen and unheard by me, from the grass at my feet, and Stekoa bound to it at the edge of woods and riparian meadow.

Back at the car, as I finished field-dressing the rabbit, I raised my hand toward the cold, distant sun, laid it gently on the earth's snowy surface, and said my thanks—not just for the rabbit, but for the mice and voles; for the trees and grasses; for the chickadees and nuthatches foraging overhead; for the quail we hadn't seen but might next time; for all the life in these winter woods and fields. For all my relations—mitakuye oyasin. And I remembered again Sitting Bull's declaration that "When the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom."

Ginger binger 2019

For the convenience of long-time readers (I think we still have a few) and newcomers alike, I've finally created a "ginger" label for easier access to previous editions of our New Year's Eve tasting of ginger beers and ginger ales. "Ginger binger 3" is the most comprehensive, complete with GB/GGA/DGA definitions; subsequent write-up have been limited to new entries, and this post will adhere to that format, so take a few moments to look back if you will; we'll be right here.

This year we (Jessa, Ellie, and myself) were joined by Jessica's sister Heather, a first-time ginger binger. And away we go...

We begin with a blast from the past. Our case of ginger sodas, for various reasons, is always a mix of old and new, and while we usually don't revisit a previous review, Ellie and Jessa insisted on one. I originally reviewed Dr. Brown's Original Ginger Ale in the second season of these reviews, and described it as "not a flavour standout". Ellie's verdict was far more blunt: "This one just makes me sad." Dr. Brown's actually does begin with a mild ginger bite—it is a DGA, after all— but the finish is nothing. "After the first sip, it's just water." I doubt Dr. Brown's finds its way into our box again.

On to the new...

Americana Honey Lime Ginger Beer has been a favourite of ours for years now, but it's taken us 'til now to encounter its straight-shooting, non-honey, non-lime sibling. Americana Ginger Beer, this one sweetened with pure cane sugar, has a nice golden/amber colour (though hidden in brown glass) and a fantastic flavour curve: smooth to start, but with a nice afterburn. (Ginger extract and other natural flavours, thank you very much.) Most similar, I thought, to what we still call Goose Island, but Jessa noted a similarity to Vernor's as well. By a narrow margin, the best of the new entries, and a very worthy stablemate to the Americana Honey Lime.

Australian Style Hot Ginger Ale appears to be a Rocket Fizz house brand, and as such definitely Australian style, not Australian, despite the prominent kangaroo. And like many American ginger sodas, it is miscategorised: a GA per the label, a GB in fact, with a GB's slight murkiness. It does have a good bite, but a surprisingly mild aftertaste. The most unique component, though, is a slight aroma of Play-Doh; when I mentioned this, Heather said with full conviction that it was actually closer to a green putty the girls' dad used on home improvement projects. Not unpleasant, but a bit odd, this—and certainly no match for Bundaberg or Buderim. Clear glass, cane sugar, natural flavours.

The most unique of this year's new entries, and perhaps the most eagerly anticipated, was Fever Tree Smoky Ginger Ale. In the bottle, it appeared to have a greyish cast, but it turned out to be a very golden ginger ale in a subtly tinted bottle. The trickery was quite unnecessary, as this GGA has a distinctive smoky taste, the ginger ale equivalent of lapsang souchong tea. This is a natural effect, as applewood-smoked water is used in its production. Ellie, who starting from her time in Oxford has become a minor gin aficionado, intuited that this would pair nicely with Hendrick's (which it did), but we rather enjoyed it straight as well—a campfire in a glass.

From the same source comes Fever Tree Spiced Orange Ginger Ale. If the Smoky Ginger Beer is lapsang souchong, then the Spiced Orange must be something like Constant Comment. It does have a prominent orange colour, scent, and flavour, along with heavy notes of cinnamon, but none of us felt that it made as good a stand-alone beverage as its smoky sister. (In fairness, it should be noted that Fever Tree's ginger ales are sold in small bottles, clearly intended as mixers.) All flavours natural, and sweetened with sugar, as is the Smoky Ginger Ale.

How in the world did we get this many years down the road without reviewing Jones Ginger Beer? Perhaps the brand's ubiquity caused it to be overlooked, and that's too bad for us. Like all of Jones' sodas, their ginger beer uses pure cane sugar and all-natural flavours; the result is a pleasantly musty GB with definite notes of like and lemon, reminiscent of a Caribbean brew. I shall try to keep a sharper eye henceforth.

And then the one that almost missed the boat. A friend from work kindly gifted me a bottle of Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Brew,—thanks, Karen!—but Jessa, apparently not realising I was saving it for New Year's Eve, thieved the bottle and shared it with Ellie and Heather in my absence. In the end, she redeemed herself by purchasing a new bottle—and what a bottle it is. Oversized (750 ml), green glass, fitted not with a standard bottle cap but a latching stopper. Extra points to Trader Joe's for presentation. And the brew? A lovely GB, cloudy and musty with real ginger root, sweetened with both sugar and honey, with diverse citrus notes from lemon, lime, and pineapple. A very good, very accessible GB.

And that's all for this go 'round. There are yet more out there, so watch this space...

"Crabs for Christmas"

Charm City nostalgia.



No steamers on the menu, but Jessa has crab soup waiting for me tonight, and there'll be crab imperial tomorrow.

Happy Christmas, everyone!