October party

We had a great time last night just having fun at the Raccoon Creek Community site. Absolutely nothing practical was done! More than 20 friends visited, and some stayed until well past 10 PM.

The weather was nice all day and it wasn't too cold after dark. A nice fire and good conversation made a perfect end to the day.

Those who came before dark got a tour of the site, and almost everyone got a walkthrough of the process of turning a tree into a barn post, though a few of these were done by flashlight.

The milling operation continues this week.

In a very small tree on the edge of the clearing I found the small nest in the picture below. I have no idea what species built it. It looked as though it hadn't been used for a month or so.

Ever see a walking stick?

I found this guy on the tent Monday morning. It was about five inches long.

What a lift!

Yesterday and today I had to drive to the Raccoon Creek Community site for two different reasons. Yesterday I met with a fellow from the power company, and today I met a class from Indiana State University. Both meetings were fruitful, but that's not the lift I'm referring to.

The "lift" I'm talking about is seeing cranes, sandhill cranes, lots of sandhill cranes.

As we were about to leave the site yesterday we heard the cries of the cranes from as much as a mile away. There were "strings" of them flying nearly overhead. Strings are my term to describe what a line of them looks like from a distance, not quite the same as the "vee's" that geese form. There were about a dozen strings and a large mass of them that had no apparent organization. The larger flock began to circle south of our site, maybe a half mile. They reminded me of a large, shallow, poorly formed tornado.

Cranes fly at very high altitudes, but some of the strings dropped down a bit to see what was going on. In the end, none landed. Instead they eventually formed into larger strings and continued flying to the northwest. We could hear them for a total of maybe ten minutes. What a sight!

But there's more. Today, as I was driving to the site, on a long straight stretch, I looked left to see a few smaller groups flying rather low. Since I had the road to myself I slowed to about 40 miles per hour to watch them flying alongside the car about 50 yards to the south. It was like the documentary about training the cranes to follow an ultra-lite.

Looking out a bit farther I saw about a hundred of them landing in a field, but I couldn't stop on the road to enjoy the sight.

Finally, later today, on the way home, a few dozen more flew overhead about 10 miles southwest of Indianapolis. Kind of makes me want to drive down there again tomorrow.

I found a few pictures of them on the web. Here's one: http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/sandhill_crane_1.htm.

The three amigos (pic) 

Unexpected Sunday visitor

Lest anyone think Raccoon Creek Community's site is just a lot of pretty flowers and trees, take a look at this fellow. When we returned from a group hike on Sunday morning, we found what I believe to be a black rat snake.

See the entry for the black rat snake on the Center for Reptile and Amphibian Conservation and Management's web site. It is also called cow snake, chicken snake, timber snake, black snake, and black climber. This last name makes a lot of sense since we found the snake lazily lying on a warm card table we had been using for our meetings.

By the time I got his picture he had been spooked from the table and was moving away from us. I couldn't believe he had gotten up to the table. He had to climb either a smooth metal table leg or, more likely, the shorter leg of a camp chair and from there up to the table. A good picture of the black rat snake's climbing ability was found on another web site.

It's not all flowers! (pic) 

This fellow left home without it! (pic)