A unique Ashland WI experience. July 4th "Fire Run"

Each 4th of July just at dusk and as a prelude to the fireworks Ashland WI has it's "Fire Run". A run down main street of all available emergency equipment. Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, wreckers. If it has lights and a siren it will probably be on main street on the 4th of July, for a little over three minutes, for the fire run.

Camp Clark 1954-1962. And one weekend in 1997.

I have moved this post and others related to Camp Clark to a new site.
Camp Clark

Loggerhead Shrike. "Very rare" in this area.

Loggerhead Shrike. Thanks again to Ryan Brady.








Loggerhead Shrike preening.


Loggerhead Shrike preening.





In this series of shots the two birds are "exchanging" either food or nesting (?) material. Look close and you can see it being past back and forth (?). These photos are enlarged to 200% and are blurry. Sorry! Look close at their beaks they are passing something. For more information on Loggerhead Shrikes look here.

Great Horned Owl with Fledgling (chick)

Great Horned Owl adult and fledgling. These owls were photographed in the Drummond WI downtown area.


Great Horned Owl adult and fledgling.


Fledgling.


Fledgling.


Fledgling.


Adult.

Family gathering this weekend.

Sunday morning before the slow members of the crew arrived. West side (front) view.



North and west side with some of the ants.....relatives at work.



North side just before quitting on Sunday.



South side striped and prepped for siding.




Finished west (front) and north side at quitting on Sunday.

We all gathered around this house and sided it (at least 95% of it). It was two long and somewhat cold days but it was a true family gathering. A barn raising 2007 style. At anyone time there were a dozen family members working on this "weekend project". It looked like ants on an ant hill..but less organized.

This house belongs to my nephew and his soon to be wife. They have been working hard to remodel it. This weekend was siding weekend.

When I arrived on Saturday morning at 8:30 or so (10:30) the house was still in prep. The green insulation board was on 1/2 of the house. The south side had most of the old siding still on. So with some major "wrecking" on the south side underway the construction started on the other three sides. Two days later give or take lunch breaks and coffee breaks (hey! wait! there were no coffee breaks) you have this nice sided home.

The top photo is how it looked on Saturday just before dark. The bottom four photos are how it looked today at quitting time.

Not bad for a bunch of amature's and two pros.

UPDATE (01/15/07): Here is three more daylight photos. So what do you think 95% done?



East side (back).



South side.



West side (front).

Our favorite canine pet.

In addition we have a "favorite" feline pet. The feline pet doesn't much care for our canine pet so your not likely to see them both in the same picture without a little Photoshop magic.

Raptors on the move.

This Bald Eagle was maintaining a vigilance over a dead deer carcus. The close approach of 4 crows moved it from it's perch to the distant hay bale.




This Rough-Legged Hawk is the Bibon Swamp bird I have photographed several times over the last two weeks.

Both of these raptors were photographed on the road to work. Yesterday I drove 140 miles without a single sighting of any wildlife. Today all it took was the usual trip to work to get some great opportunities.

Ruffed Grouse. The seven year cycle.

Conventional wisdom around here has it that the Ruffed Grouse (Partridge) are on a seven year population cycle. Every seven years the populations peak and then gradually decline until it then recycles in about seven years hence.

This cyclic high does seem to occur. I'm not sure if the scientific data supports my personal observations but I know that I haven't seen many birds over the last few years until this year. In the last two days I've seen and photographed five different birds.

Now it has occurred to me that when the populations are high more hunters are encouraged to kick the brush and harvest birds (or at least try). This in itself might explain the decline side of the cycle. More birds harvested.

In the down years a typical conversation on a city street in the fall might go like this. Seeing birds? Nope! Been out? Nope! Going? Nope! Me neither! This might in fact explain the upside of the cycle. More birds surviving to propagate.

In any case. It seems like an up year and my "shooting" will not contribute to the decline.

The only problem is Partridge are great eating. Oh well as Skip would say I never hit anything I was shooting at anyway.