Critters

Adjacent to the Lost Lake campground is the Lauterman trail system, about 12 miles of hiking trails.  In my day, I've hiked every mile.  This year, with a sore right knee, I've stayed away from the more difficult treks, like the Ridge Trail.  That one is nice because the eagles nest over there, and there's often the chance of bears.  A little fear is good for the soul.

Instead, I have twice hiked around Lost Lake, a 1.5 mile walk.  Yesterday, I decided to do the one mile Assessor's Tree Interpretive Trail. 

The trail is named for an assessor who was asked to look over a stand of timber for a lumber company. He judged which acreage the company should purchase, but when he came to the section that included an old growth hemlock grove, he couldn't stand the idea of it being clear cut.  Instead, he marked off a section that should not be touched, with a tall pine in the center.  In time, the woods became part of the Nicolet National Forest. The pine still stands, though the top was taken off in a storm.

A few years ago, a windstorm came through,shearing off some of the old hemlocks.  The forest service cut some chunks out of the logs to clear the trail.  We counted the rings on one section and came to the conclusion that the tree first took root during the French-Indian War, some years before the American  Revolution.

Soon after I entered the trail, a great horned owl flew across.  We knew he was out there, he and the barred owls were having an argument two nights before.  However, owls make no noise when they fly, so I was lucky to catch sight of him.

A few minutes later I found two black backed woodpeckers working on removing insects from a dying tree.  Again, we knew they were in the area, because we had heard their gentle tapping, plus we had sighted them in years past.  These are rare birds, hardly seen in other parts of the state.  I was particularly happy to see them because they became sighting no. 100, on my yearly list.  

Later, I walked the campground loop after dropping the garbage off at the bins.  At site no. 10, a party was going on with beer, a noisy radio, and loud voices.  The other filled campsites were on the other end, so I didn't give it much thought.  They were no bother for us.  Then at the next campsite I saw a young doe nibbling on grass with no thought to the noise.  Scrambling around under her feet was a chipmunk.  She moved, he bounce around after her.  It was charming.  For a moment, I thought about letting the people at site 10 know about their new neighbors, then thought, nope.  Leave her in peace.  I was so sorry I didn't have a camera with me.

Then, back at site no. 24, we were about to turn in for the night, when we, too, had a visitor, a young buck this time.  He came right up to us and nothing we did, including taking this slightly out of focus photo, could scare him away.

No bears, but nature continues to amuse us.