Triple Skunked

You could say we got triple skunked on the owl survey route last night.  Our favorite restaurant, The Bank, was closed.  The meat market, Thielen Meats, was closed due to a fire.  And we didn't hear any owls singing on our route.  But that would be looking at the glass half empty.  We did have a good time.  For the first time I felt like I had a really good handle on our route map.  We never got turned around or confused once.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner at a different restaurant in Pierz called The Pioneer.  The roads were good despite a heavy dumping of snow the night before. One section of gravel road had water flowing across it and our very last road had a pudding-like feel to it but we didn't get stuck. The sky was clear of clouds and as the night went on a million stars shined in the sky.  Between the stars and the sliver of a moon we could see quite well.  Last year it was so dark we couldn't see, only hear, trumpeter swans fly over our heads.  Last night we could have seen those trumpeter swans if they came.  No trumpeter swans this year but we did see eagles, sand hill cranes, red tailed hawks and crows.  I caught a glimpse of my first great blue heron walking in the St. Francis river on the drive up.  At our first stop an extremely loud pair of sand hill cranes flew over us and landed in a shallow pond across the street.  The cranes stood there with their feet in icy water talking, talking, talking.  Just like a tornado siren gets louder as it faces your way as it turns on the pole, the cranes got louder as they faced us.  The sound they produce makes me think their throats must hurt.  Our third stop should have been quieter because there were no cranes there but the wind whistled loudly through a big stand of red pines.  I don't know why the owls were quiet tonight.  Owls hoot when it's cold.  Maybe the winter storm upset them.  Our seventh stop was quiet but we were right outside two pig barns and it was a very smelly stop.  Our eighth stop is supposed to be right on the main street of Pierz outside the Bootlegger Bar.  We just don't feel comfortable standing, clipboard in hand, outside the back door of the Bootlegger bar in the dark on a Friday night.  Somehow that just doesn't feel right.  So we took the liberty of moving our stop a couple blocks down to a Christmas Park.  It's a park full of Christmas decorations like a big gingerbread house, a reindeer workshop, and a big candy cane.  We stood there, in the dark, for a full 3 minutes before we noticed we were parked directly in front of a fire hydrant.  Somehow that was funny as heck last night.  So we never heard any owls.  We heard cranes, geese, the wind whistling through the trees, machinery, cars, trucks, and dogs.  We saw Orion.  We saw the big dipper balancing with the handle toward the ground.  And we saw the moon.  With ten stops of five minutes each we were outside nearly an hour.  As we left town the bank said the temperature was 31 which surprised me because my cold toes were telling me it was in the 20's.  Our conversations had a strange flow to them.  We'd stop and listen in silence for 5 minutes, get in the car, blab constantly while we drove a mile to the next stop, experience five minutes of silence, and then pick right up on the same conversation again as if there was no 5 minute break.  So I learned something tonight.  It's fun to hear owls on the owl survey but not essential.  Spending time with family is what makes the experience worthwhile.