Somber skies and solitude at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center

View of the lake from the bluff-top observation tower

Snow lingers on north-facing slopes and the shadowy parts of the forest. Out in the open the meadows and prairies are mostly bare and brown. It is that time of the year when the land is lusterless. If you pay close attention, there are small signs of spring here and there. Pussy willow catkins have fuzzed out and there are a few more bird calls than I've been hearing on my winter walks. But, especially on this overcast day, the mood is somber.

Pussy willow catkins

On this moody Saturday morning at the cusp of spring there are a half-dozen or so cars in the parking lot of the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center. But the great room of the main building is quieter than usual. As I walk the trails I see surprisingly few people. I am having a blast, however. I love the solitude. And the monochromatic landscape offers up enough photographic opportunities to satisfy my appetite. Here is what I found.

A log tepee within sight of the main building.

The tracks of a pair of geese leading into a large puddle of melting snow.

As if herding together, intermingled tracks of geese, humans and a couple of other creatures.

Birches in one of the ravines.

Ice shrinking to the edges of the ponds and wetlands.

Shriveled leaves still clinging to branches, looking so out of place that I was reminded of the Cornelia Parker sculpture of suspended chunks of chalk at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Many dead trunks and limbs that have provided a feast for the woodpeckers.

Flattened reeds, like a natural tapestry, between the bluff and the beach.

Sand embedded in curiously shaped ice formations at the base of beachfront shrubbery.

A single fellow traveler enjoying the solitude of the urban wilderness.

Free Day at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center

The Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, which is located on Lake Michigan in the northeast corner of Milwaukee County, is always a treat to visit. Yesterday was an especially good day, however, because admission was free to all thanks to the support of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

I spent a couple hours there and ended up wishing I could have stayed longer. It was a beautiful day and droves of people were taking advantage of the special event.

Activities included live animal displays, invasive species and poison ivy identification and guided tours of all parts of the diverse landscape. A master gardener was on hand to answer questions.

The day's special activities were scheduled to coincide with what's known as a "bio-blitz." This intensive inventory of all the species that can be identified in a 24-hour period had begun the day before. The BioBlitz was a joint effort between Schlitz Audubon Nature Center and the Milwaukee Public Museum.

The live trap (below) holds what I was told was a Blanding's turtle, which is endangered throughout much of its range. Score one for the nature center, the BioBlitz and the species! (Once officially counted the turtle will be released.)

Families who came for the day were invited to explore woodlands, fields and ponds - with the expert help of Audubon staff members - for their own informal inventories.

The best thing about the day, for this explorer of urban wilderness, was the beauty of nature itself.

Construction Season: Reframing the Menomonee Valley.

It snowed again overnight. Just east of the 35^th Street Viaduct in the Menomonee Valley there is a vacant lot below the curve in Canal Street. This morning the surface of the lot looked as if a sheet had been spread over it with military precision. Or perhaps not so much a sheet as another of those blank canvases that has made the Valley what it is today. Welcome to the new American landscape.

This canvas was primed and ready to paint.

By mid-day a team of caterpillar shovels and bulldozers had clanked their way back and forth across this canvas like so many gargantuan paintbrushes. The brilliant white snow now framed a dark rectangle of exposed earth, like a somberly hued Rothko abstraction. The plans for the site, however, like so much that is happening in the Valley, are far from abstract. They also exemplify the hopeful new attitude that, if it prevails against the winds of pessimism brought on by multiple contemporary crises, has the power to alter human destiny.

That’s a lot to ask of a small, local company that packages tea.

The rest of this story and additional photos are posted on my other blog: Arts Without Borders.