A New Haunt

Hunted this morning at Gregory State Game Area near Pinckney. No luck, but it was a great morning to be out. Nice mix of habitat in that small area--mixed hardwoods, oak openings, meadows, good crops of wild grapes, apples, and serviceberries. Saw fiddlhead ferns, too--the first time I've ever sighted them much south of Mt. Pleasant. It will be interesting to spend some time exploring this place.

The drive out was very pleasant. The Pinckney area, though attracting many new homes, still has many larger woodlots and overgrown fields, giving a taste of Southern Michigan's wild side. A description of the area made more than a century and a half ago came to mind:
 
The country through which we were passing was so
really lovely... At least two small lakes lay near our way; and these,
of winding outline, and most dazzling brightness,
seemed, as we espied them now and then through the
arched vistas of the deep woods, multiplied to a dozen
or more. We saw grape-vines which had so embraced
large trees that the long waving pennons flared over
their very tops; while the lower branches of the sturdy
oaks were one undistinguishable mass of light green
foliage, without an inch of bark to be seen. The road-
side was piled like an exaggerated velvet with exqui-
sitely beautiful ferns of almost every variety; and
some open spots gleamed scarlet with those wild straw-
berries so abundant with us, and which might challenge
the world for flavour. Birds of every variety of song and hue, were not
wanting, nor the lively squirrel, that most joyous of
nature's pensioners...

From A New Home--Who'll Follow?, by Caroline Kirkland, 1839.

Kirkland lived in the Pinckney area in the years just prior to Michigan's statehood, and her book chronicles the struggles--both material and emotional--her family and neighbors faced trying to settle in this boggy, rough place. Hard to imagine it now, but the landscape of Livingston County once seemed daunting and formidable.

This morning, it was only formidable to me as I tried to cross through tangles of briars and and soggy marsh edges. As I said, I didn't get a shot at anything, but at one point I did scare up a flock of wild turkeys. They were not a target--I don't have a turkey permit--but it was still neat to watch those big birds flushing off in every direction. Quite the racket they made in those quiet woods. On the theory that grouse might also favor the terrain occupied by turkeys (what is a turkey, after all, but an oversized grouse?), I walked toward where I had seen the flock. Occasionally, I reflushed a turkey, though that was evident only by the stirring of leaves and a thumping noise coming from the top of some tree in the distance. A short time later, I did kick up what sounded like a grouse, but it was behind thick foliage and I never got a good look at it. When the leaves have dropped and visibility improves, I know where I'll want to look.

Now to grade some online work for my tech writing classes. A far less invigorating challenge, but it does pay the bills.