The Corona Diaries Vol. 24: Look At the Animals (With Muskrat Video!)

Late June 2021

In the dog days of summer, when it's ungodly hot, I long for days when you can build an igloo in your yard like my neighbor did this past winter.

I find that simply looking at snow has a cooling effect on me and try to save TV shows and movies that take place in cold settings for viewing in the summer. The coldest a story has ever made me was when I read The Terror by Dan Simmons. It’s a fictional account of Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition of 1845 which was to investigate the Northwest Passage, but the ships got stuck in the ice pack and, um, things did not end well, let’s say. Reading about men battling -50 degree cold got me shivering something fierce. I thoroughly enjoyed the tale which slowly unfolded over the course of 750 pages and highly recommend it. But it may not be for you if accounts of men having frostbitten limbs amputated, eating one another, and dying of scurvy are not your thing. On the other hand, these bits are assured to distract you from the summer heat. The novel was adapted for a television series which was very good and rather faithful to the source material.

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I left off last time having found the Lost Creek neighborhood and the fabled Penny Lane. From there it was off to the suburb of McFarland where I would catch the Lower Yahara River Trail and its mile long boardwalk along the north shore of Lake Waubesa. It begins at a park where I got a nice photo of this bird:

Our copies of Birds of Wisconsin are still missing so I cannot ID this little guy but suspect it's a sparrow of some kind.

After attempting to fill one of my tires, I hit the trail.

Once I had made it to the far side of the lake, I was at the William G. Lunney Lake Farm County Park which is adjacent to the Capital Springs State Recreation Area and so you've got a rather sizeable natural area to wander around in.

Right off the bike path is a boardwalk leading out into the wetlands which I first encountered on a ride last summer.

It was calm and relaxing out on the viewing platform in the middle of the wetlands. Red winged black birds were everywhere – flying around and landing on cattails to take breather or look at whatever it is they look at before taking off once again.

On my way back I ran into this:

The toad wasn't afraid of me and was ready for its close-up as it happily sat there while I struggled to get a decent photograph.

The trail got more crowded as I neared the county park. It’s a very popular camping destination and folks were getting out and about so there were more walkers and rollerbladers to contend with. This path also seems to attract the biggest jagoff bike riders. These are usually men (whom I suspect to be members of upper management of various area companies) that ride expensive racing bikes and don those tight-fitting cycling jerseys so that their drag coefficient is just that little bit less than those of us who are content with t-shirts. Some of them like to zip between the slower trail users at a perilously close distance as they blather on about their underlings at the office.

In another section of the park, I ran across two pairs of Sandhill cranes wandering the same field but at opposite ends.

It’s really nice to pull over and just watch them. They walk so gracefully at a leisurely pace, never seeming to be in a hurry. For meals, they peck at the ground, take a few steps, and then peck some more. Again, all very unhurriedly. Like how the Spaniards eat their meals.

Farther down the trail I came across a wabbit. I believe this one is of the cottontail variety. One of these days I am going to do a little reading on the differences between rabbits and hares and figure out what we have here in Wisconsin.

Soon enough I was cruising back into Madison on the south side of town and recalled that it was Juneteenth. So, I decided to zip over to the Bram's Addition neighborhood which is home to a large number of black residents as well as Penn Park where the holiday festivities would be held.

I was heading down Bram Street and recalled that a house at the end of the block was marked for demolition when I biked by it last summer. I figured I’d go check out what had become of the lot. My memory of the demolition notice was a bit hazy but I think the structures there were torn down because of flooding issues that would cost too much to mitigate. I found the buildings gone and that the lot remained undeveloped, left to return to its natural state. In their places were some nice flowers in full bloom.

Unfortunately, I was early for the Juneteenth festivities. People were pitching tents and deploying chairs but things were generally quiet. I'd been out for about 4 hours at this point and was quite thirsty and peckish but all I could do was stare forlornly at the unmanned fried chicken truck and the flavored ice stand which was shuttered tight.

I headed north towards Wingra Creek where I would catch its bike path but got sidetracked when I spied a gaggle of ducks on the shoreline. I went to investigate and, after scaring the ducks away, encountered what looks to me to be a woodchuck. When I got too close, it ducked down into the burrow on the shore. I didn’t think that woodchucks made their homes near water. They’re more into forests and fields or so I had been led to believe. Perhaps it was a squatter who had decided to take over a muskrat burrow.

After watching the rodent, I hit the trail. Crossing a bridge, I ran into a guy looking down at the creek where he pointed out a turtle that was sunning itself. I believe it was a painted turtle.

Out in the middle of the creek was a muskrat enjoying itself. It would float on the surface for a little while letting the current take it downstream. Then it would dive to the bottom and poke around before surfacing whereupon the whole process would start again. I managed to get some of it on video.

I finally got home and realized I'd been out for about 5.5 hours. That first beer tasted mighty fine!

Bonus photo: Piper relaxing in the sun.