Back to The River!

"Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them."

— Annie Dillard

Alas, no bird or wildlife photos (again) — my inspiration for that runs thin in the frigid cold — but it doesn't stop bundled-up shoreline hikes along the Wisconsin River. While doing so, I like to think about all the critters tucked beneath the snow and ice. Tiger beetle season isn't far off now, and I'm already wondering which will break the surface first: Bronzed, Oblique-lined, or Festive?

Tiger beetles turn a stretch of sand into a story of survival. They're small, fast, and easy to overlook, but once you start watching them, you begin reading the ground itself — microhabitats, season, moisture, plant edges, and the quiet signs of life eking out an existence at the margins. Photographing them isn't just about the beetles; it's about learning the landscape through the smallest, sharpest lives moving across it. Even in their absence, I find something to appreciate in how they endure our brutal winter months.

Maybe not headline material, but ice formations still make for quiet, compelling photographic subjects.

Endless forms ...

On birds ...

Common Mergansers (FOY) and Common Goldeneye worked the river current, while a lone Bald Eagle passed overhead. Along a gravel road near the parking area, I turned up a few Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs, with Dark-eyed Juncos, Northern Cardinals, and American Tree Sparrows as well. Complaining calls of Canada Geese felt aimed at the cold itself — though I know that's my own anthropomorphism creeping in.

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

Blech!

 

Aurora!

When the going gets tough, the tough buy new guitars — clearly the most practical coping strategy!

It's been a while since I last succumbed to GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome), but I couldn't pass up this limited edition Fender Stratocaster — an Ultra II HSS (humbucker, single coil, single coil) with an S-1 switch and an "Ultra Blaster" preamp toggle. The finish, called Aurora, doesn't quite translate in photos; in person, its iridescence really does shimmer the color of the northern lights, and even brings to mind blue-colored Festive tiger beetles I've seen at Spring Green. After playing it a few times at my local Guitar Center, the rep I work with there offered me a great deal — and I've been playing it almost every night since I brought it home.

Here are some close-ups ...

The pickguard controls ...

Gorgeous grain on the roasted maple neck and headstock ...

I'll likely never gig again (I did in the early 90s), but I mostly play and practice along with jam tracks on YouTube. I still do online lessons from TrueFire, which I can wholeheartedly recommend. It doesn't matter what your skill level is — they have something for everyone.

Just about every TrueFire instructor offers multi-lesson paths that walk you through concepts step by step, gradually increasing the difficulty and letting you progress at your own pace. Animated guitar tab and sheet music goes along with multiple angles of the instructor's lesson.

In other Fender stuff, here's Paul Davids giving a historical retelling of how the Stratocaster became the most iconic electric guitar of all-time. Paul is an incredible guitarist, educator, and YouTube personality known for his clean playing, thoughtful songwriting, and clear, well-structured guitar lessons. I've thought about buying his online lessons as well, but we'll see. 

That's some collection. Did you know there's a super-impressive Stratocaster collection right here in Wisconsin? Dave Rogers of Dave's Guitar Shop has an astounding array of Strats, Telecasters, Jazzmasters, and more — it's worth millions. 

Also, Fender recently got a new CEO.

 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

That won't work again.

Europe already learned, the hard way, what happens when you try to placate an authoritarian with concessions instead of standing on principle. The memory of Chamberlain and the disaster of appeasement isn't some dusty history lesson there — it's baked into their politics and institutions. So the idea that Europe would let itself be economically strong-armed into treating territory or self-determination as a bargaining chip underestimates both their history and their resolve. They may absorb pain, they may retaliate, they may negotiate — but they're unlikely to get suckered into repeating a mistake that once cost the continent everything.

But I guess we'll see!

Addendum:

"All we're asking for is to get Greenland, including right title and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it — you can't defend it on a lease."

Well, sure you can. We helped defend Europe through two world wars without owning it — security comes from alliances and treaties, not from claiming sovereignty over the land itself. It's a fallacious argument, bereft of intellectual credibility.

Addendum II:

Wow — what a bigly 'nothingburger' that was, but it certainly was another TACO.

Something to do ...

"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand ― and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late."

― Marie Beynon Lyons Ray 

I didn't leave home yesterday, and I may not today either—it's turned cold again. As the snow fell in big, slow flakes, I found myself thinking about setting up the macro gear to try and photograph them. There are ways to isolate them—by pre-chilling a dark surface like black foam, velvet, or glass so the flakes don't melt as they land, then using diffused macro lighting to reveal their structure—but these were simply photographed where they had fallen, on my patio table and the rims of my plant pots.

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

Stubborn Sensibilities

"The study of nature is the study of one's self."

 

— John Burroughs 

From a naturalist's sensibilities, the modern chaser has inverted what I like to think birding is about. Increasingly, the most important tools aren't field skills, patience, or deep familiarity with habitat — they're infrastructure. Bird alerts fire instantly to a smartphone, a car closes the distance, and flexible time makes the whole thing possible. None of that requires knowing how to read a landscape or anticipate bird behavior; it just requires being plugged in and able to go. 

Often, by the time you arrive, the hard work is already done. Other chasers are on site, scopes trained, fingers pointing. The bird is pre-identified, pre-located, and helpfully narrated. Even underdeveloped ID skills rarely matter in that moment, because the collective has already solved the problem for you. You're not finding the bird so much as confirming its continued existence by looking where you're told to look.

There's nothing inherently unethical or wrong about this kind of birding, but it's hard to argue it isn't diminished. When birding becomes a matter of electronic alerts, roads & automobiles, and someone else already having the bird in the scope, the act shifts from perception to participation. The satisfaction comes from being present rather than from understanding, from confirmation rather than discovery. Whether that's enough depends on what someone wants birding to be — but it's no longer the same thing.

For others, it explains why chasing can feel oddly hollow, like reading the last page of a mystery without having followed the story. Knowing where to stand is not the same thing as knowing why the bird is there — and that difference still matters, at least to some of us.

 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

Shrike!

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday was mostly cloudy, but the skies opened up after lunchtime. Sue and I headed to the prairie parcel at Pheasant Branch to look for sparrows, hoping especially for White-crowned. Bird activity overall was astonishingly low, but the east edge — sheltered from the wind behind the drumlin — seemed the most promising. Songbirds don't care much for a stiff breeze. Wind increases heat loss and energy expenditure, makes perching and foraging less efficient, interferes with hearing and communication, and leaves birds more exposed to predators while in motion. On windy days they don't vanish so much as retreat — tucking into leeward edges, shrubs, and terrain breaks, growing quiet and easy to miss.

And that's where they all were ...

I estimated around thirty White-crowned Sparrows, mostly juveniles, mixed in with Dark-eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, Black-capped Chickadees, and, of course, dozens of House Sparrows. Other birds during the hike included Merlin, American Kestrel, Red-tailed Hawk, and Mourning Doves. 

On Sunday we returned to the Sauk Prairie Recreation Area to check in on the Northern Shrike we found there back in November. At 3,400 acres, it's an absurdly large landscape to search with any confidence, but optimism has a way of refusing to die for the experienced birder — at least until sundown.

This is very shrike-y habitat. We've had snow, but it keeps getting erased by cyclical warming trends where everything melts back to bare ground again. It's one of the strangest Januaries I can remember — winter present, then absent, then pretending it never showed up at all. It might hit 50 degrees this Tuesday, only to have single digit temperatures return for the weekend. 

Ah ha! Shrike!

Some close-up portraits ...

For much of ornithological history, the Northern Shrike of North America was considered the same species as the Old World Great Grey Shrike, a conclusion based largely on visual similarity alone. Lanius excubitor was named by Linnaeus in 1758, and when Vieillot described the North American bird as Lanius borealis in 1808, that name later languished as a junior synonym once the two forms were lumped together. Working without genetics, bioacoustics, or broad comparative specimen series, early taxonomists saw a large gray shrike with a bold black mask and familiar predatory habits on both continents and assumed they were one and the same. Only in 2017, with the accumulation of careful morphological study and genetic evidence, was the North American bird formally split again, reviving Lanius borealis — the "northern butcher"— as a species distinct from Lanius excubitor, the European "watchful butcher."

About a half hour before sunset, high clouds moved in, rendering a solar halo — a pale, nearly perfect ring etched into the sky. It's an ice-crystal phenomenon, simple geometry at altitude, and easy to miss if you're not already looking up. Nothing dramatic, just the atmosphere quietly showing its hand before the sun dipped below the horizon.

 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

A Winter Hermit!

"Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin."

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Though not rare during southern Wisconsin's winters, I was a little surprised to turn up a Hermit Thrush on my first outing of the year to the Pheasant Branch Creek Corridor. It was a gloomy, overcast day, but bird activity was solid. American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, and Northern Cardinals were present in high numbers. Cardinal males will soon begin singing, which is one of the earliest avian phenological changes of the new year. I also found more than a dozen White-throated Sparrows, a species that's always fun to encounter.

 

Canada Goose  
Mallard  
Wild Turkey  
Mourning Dove  
Cooper's Hawk  
Red-tailed Hawk  
Belted Kingfisher  
Red-bellied Woodpecker  
Downy Woodpecker  
Hairy Woodpecker  
Northern Flicker  
American Kestrel  
Blue Jay  
American Crow  
Black-capped Chickadee  
Tufted Titmouse  
White-breasted Nuthatch  
Brown Creeper  
European Starling  
Hermit Thrush  
American Robin  
Cedar Waxwing  
House Sparrow  
House Finch  
American Goldfinch  
American Tree Sparrow  
Dark-eyed Junco  
White-throated Sparrow  
Northern Cardinal  

As you can see, gloomy, but still a decent outing. 

On the way home, I took the northern route around Middleton, adding Northern Harrier and Rough-legged Hawk, though not a single Horned Lark showed itself. Just like that, I've logged roughly a quarter of the species I'll see this year. Even in winter, roughly a hundred bird species can be found here, a fact that often surprises non-birders from Wisconsin. There have been a few commute and courtyard birds as well, but nothing I would have submitted to eBird—that is, if I were an eBird birder. Birding without a scoreboard, that’s the way.

 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

[X] Red-tailed Hawk

I'm off to a great start! :) 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell