Last night a sibling and I went to a movie showing at a St. Paul Audubon Society meeting. I have never been to an Audubon meeting before. It's weird to be one of the younger people at a meeting. Why are birdwatchers usually my age or older? In any case, we viewed a movie from 1960 by Walter Breckenridge, a professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota, and our state's noted naturalist of the last century. He did a lot of work at the Bell Museum. The movie focuses on life in the Anoka sand plain and includes footage from Bunker Hills Park, Cedar Creek Ecosystem, Helen Allison savanna and the army site in Arden Hills. He must have been a creative and inventive guy because this was one entertaining movie. In one segment he is talking about wolf spiders. Wolf spiders are large spiders who build burrows in the sand. Breckenridge takes a stick, a piece of string, and a dead insect and created a little fishing pole. He dangles the dead insect outside the wolf spider burrow and the spider comes out of that hole so fast and grabs that insect. It was pretty funny to see. In another segment he is talking about a native grass known as porcupine grass. The seeds have a long awl on them. Breckenridge wants to demonstrate how the seeds twirl around as they get moistened and dry out. He glues a tiny triangle flag to the seed as it is suspended from a leaf. As the seed dries out, it twists and turns many times and gets tangled with the other grasses. He finds another porcupine seed where the heavier seed end is on the ground and the long awl is sticking up. Again we watch the seed twist and turn as it dries but this time the other end is twisting and the seed is drilled right into the ground. He has some good footage of scarlet tanagers, lark sparrows, hog nosed snakes, skinks, cottontail rabbits, and wasps. The movie, although 50 years old, was fascinating. I would like to watch it again.
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1 comment:
Do you know where I can view or get my hands on a copy of this Anoka Sand Plain film by Breckenridge? Thank you.
Jason Husveth
jhusveth@ccesinc.com
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