Blue Goose ~ Days 280 - 282

March 3 - 5, 2015 ~ Dyersburg, TN

WWW.TVA.GOV

Ever since Native Americans and fur traders first loaded canoes, the Tennessee River has been an important mode of transportation. The river provided a much quicker and easier way of transporting people and goods than the overland route. But it came with its own set of problems: low water and navigation hazards such as swift currents and rocky shoals. Later on, flatboats and steamboats had to deal with the same problems encountered by the early settlers. Periodic floods and droughts made travel up and down the river even more difficult. As the population of the Valley grew, so did the region’s commerce. The lure of reliable water transportation was finally strong enough to justify the challenge of improving the river for navigation. 

That task fell to TVA, created by an act of Congress in 1933. Along with flood control and hydropower generation, navigation was one of the main objectives for which the new agency was to manage the river—putting it to work for the people of the Valley. By 1945, the navigation channel was essentially completed: a system of dams and locks set the stage for decades of thriving river traffic. Today, over 38,000 barges carry more than 50 million tons of goods up and down the Tennessee River.

Is the Tennessee even a river now or just a "navigation channel"? What it is not is the river of "Native American and fur trader" days, just like the wetlands and rivers all over our country are no longer what they were before white Europeans moved over the land.

There is a Tennessee NWR and I drove there in the early morning gloom and mist, stopping first at a McDonalds where the drive-through line extended out onto the main highway, whereupon I just went in and got coffee to go.

Tennessee NWR - TN

Tennessee NWR has 51,000 acres in three units on Kentucky Lake (Reservoir) created by one of the many dams of the Tennessee River. I drove through the Big Sandy Unit for a couple of hours, seeing no one else, watching ducks and geese in the fields and in the wetlands and waterways. Much of water still had ice so the waterfowl numbers were modest. A chattering Pileated Woodpecker flew over the road, always impressive. An Eastern Towhee rummaged in the brush along with Fox, Song and Savannah Sparrows. Hundreds of robins and assorted "black birds" were foraging in the corn stubble. The lake / reservoir is the "largest artificial lake (by surface area) east of the Mississippi" (Wikipedia). I stopped along the shore and could barely make out the opposite side through the fog and mist.

The refuge manages croplands and enhances forest habitat for birds, both migratory and resident. It has a large Wood Duck program, providing nesting boxes and banding approximately 1000 each year.  The topography was lovely, even on this grey day, and without a refuge, it would undoubtedly be developed, farmed and lumbered.

The state of Kentucky has only one National Wildlife Refuge: Clarks River, not far north of the Tennessee State Line.

Clarks River NWR - KY

I was greeted with interest and obvious delight and pride as the front desk staffer told me all about this fairly new refuge. The VC showed evidence of active involvement with the community, especially kids, which heartened me. There is a resident American Crow, an injured bird that cannot be rehabilitated and which lives in a cage next to a large window. There is also an outdoor enclosure which the crow so far has not appreciated. The staff are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that this crow may well not be "tamed" as it gets edgy and disconcerted at many of the attempts to do so. It seems to find change worrying and disconcerting. (So far it is unsexed but they named it Winston, or maybe Wilson.) To me it looked somewhat haughty, although perhaps I just thought that after hearing how it is not going gentle into captivity. For whatever reason though, its injury apparently cannot be fixed and it will never fly again.

The Clarks River is a tributary of the Tennessee river, It's only 67 miles long and actually consists of two forks (the East Fork and the West Fork) running parallel before joining shortly before emptying into the Tennessee. The river is named for George Rogers Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. The refuge is in the process of acquiring land within its acquisition perimeter and has several noncontiguous units along the river. One can drive in and out of little roads down to the river on this linear refuge and listen to information on a smart phone. At the first stop, there was a pickup at the landing with its window duct-taped with plastic and a guy just hanging out. I felt uneasy and left. A couple other of the access points were closed due to high water, so I eventually went on but was glad I stopped and saw how much this refuge is doing to attract and educate the public.

I went back into northern Tennessee to Reelfoot NWR, close to the Mississippi River. (Actually a part of one unit of Reelfoot is in Kentucky.) I drove around the town of Hickman, Kentucky, on the way which reminded me of Vicksburg as the town is above the river, with levees and a ferry, houses on a bluff and industrial, river-transportation structures and activity below.

On the way to Reelfoot, I saw geese descending into a field to the north and drove on back roads to get closer...to check this out. There were 50,000 geese settling in for the night! or maybe 10,000, but a huge number. These displays are visually elegant as the Snow Geese (both white and blue morphs) come out of the sky into the fields, their wings outstretched, their feet dangling as they drift slowly down. The white morph is white with black wing tips; the blue morph is mostly dark grey although the adults have white heads. The white morph predominates and the overall impression is white. The fields are clean, open and spare, and on a late afternoon with the sun only a brighter spot in a grey sky, the whole scene is wondrous.

(There may be Ross's geese and/or Greater White-fronted Geese in these flocks also, but Snow Geese predominate.)

The Reelfoot refuge was otherworldly. I drove through an icy swamp on a paved but snow-slushy road to Reelfoot Lake and felt I was in northern Minnesota except the trees were cypress trees instead of evergreens. The air temperature was warm enough so the ice was sublimating, creating snow fog in the distance...more wild beauty.

Reelfoot NWR - TN

This area has great history, with outlaws, the New Madrid earthquakes, and the place where Raintree County, In the Heat of the Night and US Marshals were filmed.

Again, it had the feeling of the Upper Peninsula...of Up North.

The refuge is on the Mississippi flyway....eagles, bluebirds, wood ducks, hunting, crop lands, bottomlands, fishing, migratory birds, waterfowl....which is what these refuges are all about up and down the river.

WWW.FWS.GOV

During the winter of 1811-12, a series of some 1,874 recorded tremors within the New Madrid fault dramatically altered the landscape over some 30-50,000 square miles and left Reelfoot Lake in its wake. This shaky beginning was followed by a series of conflicting issues, with competing interests involving timber, market hunters, and local hunting interest which eventually resulted in bloodshed when local vigilantes known as the night riders hung a lawyer representing the logging interest near what is still the community of Walnut Log. This prompted the State of Tennessee in 1908 to condemn and designate those lands on and around Reelfoot Lake for use by all the residents of Tennessee. Yet still the controversy continued in the early 1930's with failed attempts to drain Reelfoot Lake to benefit farming interests. The controversy over the water levels and water management were eventually quieted with the leasing of some 8000 acres on the northern end of the Lake to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1941 to be managed as a National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to the management of those lands transferred, the USFWS also took all responsibility for the manipulation and management of water levels within Reelfoot Lake.

It was getting dark and the weather forecast was dire. I found a pleasant motel in Dyersburg and waited out the storm, staying 3 nights.

With no hard agenda, it was a forced respite but totally fine, except for rather meager food choices. Everything shut down, including parts of the Interstates...all schools, the nearby mall, restaurants. Snow plowing was haphazard; the parking lot full of snow-covered vehicles and drifts. Some staff stayed in the motel; those who tried to drive got stuck. The manager made cheesy taco dip and chili one night and hot dogs and chili another night. There was a comfortable couch and chairs in the lobby and a gas fireplace. I worked and read and watched the storm. Salt was not available (due in part to the first storm of a week ago) so were considering using the soil in the large potted plants...or trying to find kitty litter. On the second day, I shoveled out my car and scraped enough ice to be able to open the doors and free the windshield wipers. Even so, when I tried to close the back door, it got stuck on ice, wouldn't close and I had to dig out a screwdriver to chip more ice. Walking was treacherous.

But the skies were brilliant blue, although the temps were in single digits until afternoon. On the third day, people left but the roads (except the Interstate) were rough with packed frozen snow.

 

On Tennessee NWR - TN