That's a Wrap! (I think)

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice."

 

— T.S. Eliot

This will probably be my final blog post of 2025, but we'll see. Last weekend, Sue and I did some exploring and hiking in the Sauk area, including the Sauk City Canoe Launch along the Wisconsin River. The place was quiet and empty, as it often is this time of year, but I know what's buried beneath the sand. We also stopped at the Prairie du Sac Dam, where roughly twenty-five to thirty Bald Eagles were gathered, riding the cold air above the river's slow persistence. There were also numerous American Robins and even a pair of Killdeer. 

Ice had begun to form along the shoreline, but the recent stretch of unseasonably warm weather has set it back into retreat. After the cold snap, the warmth is not unwelcome—but it carries with it a faint sense of imbalance, as though winter itself has momentarily lost its footing.

This time, there were only interesting ice bubbles to photograph ...

These vertical, dotted columns are gas bubble trains in the ice, often referred to as ice bubble columns or stacked gas bubbles. Beyond their visual interest, they interrupt the crystal lattice of the ice itself, reducing both its compressive and shear strength. I should have brought my macro lens—these images were photographed with my phone and don't quite capture their intricate structure.

With the main gate to the beach closed and locked for the winter, crampons were necessary. The path to the shoreline was slick with ice, and we had no interest in tempting fate.

As the calendar turns to 2026, many birders will reset their year lists and the chasing will begin again. Winter, for me, is quieter than that—more time spent hiking, with the occasional birding outing woven in. Naturally, what I'm really looking forward to, though, is the start of a new tiger beetle season, which can arrive as early as mid-March, when the ground begins to reassert itself. 

 

So, if this is where the year ends, it's a good place to stop. Over the past year, time spent outdoors has continued to serve as a kind of ballast—something fixed and readable, while certain voices became louder and less accountable to reality.

 

All images © 2025 Mike McDowell

Winter Solstice!

A Good Start ...

As Dear Leader speaks tonight, remember: the greatest enemy of reality-based thinking isn't ignorance or malice—it's self-deception. We instinctively defend our beliefs and identities, cherry-pick evidence, excuse contradictions, and confuse confidence with truth.

Yuck!

2025 Tiger Beetle Season!

"Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne 

With single-digit temperatures and a stiff windchill outside, I stayed indoors today and started working on 2025 year-in-review material. Big surprise, this one focuses on tiger beetles. It was a fairly average year: a few species I missed, a few I chose not to chase, and no real surprises. Still, it adds another year of context to the long-term patterns I've been paying attention to. 

 

The first emerged species was Oblique-lined (above), found at Sauk Prairie State Recreational Area in mid-March. They were followed up by Festive (below) in early April.  

Then Bronzed along the Wisconsin River ...

Big Sand were present there, too ...

After Spring Bird Migration, I found Northern Barrens at Spring Green ...

Though apparently dwindling at Pope Farm Conservancy and Indian Lake Park, I found a healthy population of Six-spotted at the UW Arboretum's Grady Tract ...

Hairy-necked along the Wisconsin River at Arena were plentiful ...

Right on time, though fewer in number, Sandy-stream were with them ... 

Punctured were out late June ...

And Ghost around the same time ...

I didn't find any other new species until Twelve-spotted at Seagull Bar in August ...

Along with the Rhodensis subspecies of Hairy-necked ...

I encountered just a single Splendid Tiger Beetle during the spring emergence, but numbers were noticeably higher later in the summer at Spring Green ...

I tried to find Common Claybank and Virginia Metallic this year but came up empty, despite considerable effort at Spring Green — sometimes that's just how it goes. I didn't make any trips north for Cow Path or Long-lipped, though Mark & Dottie Johnson did find the latter at our reliable Chequamegon location during their annual fishing vacation.

 

Tiger beetle photography remains the main drive getting me out on the trail. My birding didn't suffer, though — despite not being a chaser or lister, I finished the year with my highest species count in about five years, somewhere in the 220–230 range, though I'd have to double-check the exact number. And I did get a life bird! Plenty of Wisconsin birders continue to chase 300 species each year, often by chasing reports and traveling widely, and a few surpassed it in 2025 — an impressive logistical effort, even if it isn't how I choose to bird. I'd rather invest my hours in the field than squander them chasing the road.

  

 All images © 2025 Mike McDowell

Morals & Souls

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains."

― Rosa Luxemburg

Q: Which of the above were ensouled?

Recently, I left the following comment on a YouTube video about the origin of morals:

At its foundation, human morality comes from our evolutionary wiring for in-group loyalty and out-group threat response: helping and protecting "us" was good, and harming "them" was acceptable or even virtuous if it defended the group. Early moral rules were basically internal cooperation contracts — don't betray your own people — not universal principles. Over time, culture, reason, and empathy expanded the moral circle beyond the tribe, but the primitive template is still there underneath: what feels "moral" or "immoral" is heavily influenced by who we count as part of "us".

Pretty straightforward, right?

Naturally, I received almost immediate blow-back:

All of what you wrote is at its foundation just another theory. You have no idea where human morality comes from. So zip it.

No idea? Really! Do you think that's true?

I pushed back with:

Calling a body of evidence just a theory is the refuge of someone who hasn't bothered to learn what a theory is. If you have a superior explanation for the origins of morality, do present it. If not, the instruction to 'zip it' seems better directed at yourself.

He responded:

There is only one explanation for morality, as I have stated, but you simply don't seem to want it to be true. There's no point in me telling you again if you are blind to the answer.

Oh my! He still hadn't said what he thought the true origin of morality was, but his tone made it easy to guess he probably meant some kind of divine source. On a whim, I searched his username and found a Facebook page under the same name — its content made it obvious he meant exactly what I suspected, so I replied:

And here it was I was thinking Nature's grand truth had been revealed to me alone. You needn't reply, Timmy. I now have a thorough understanding of what you could bring to a discussion. It's my sincere hope that one day you can free yourself from intellectual intimidation, transcendental blackmail, and religious misology.

The conversation ended there. 

So, how about the soul's connection to morality?

From a theistic perspective, the origin of the soul and the origin of morality need to line up, because the soul is supposed to be the thing that connects humans to a god and makes moral responsibility possible. If those origins don't match, you get contradictions: beings with souls but no morality, beings with morality but no souls, or evolutionary ancestors whose moral status flips on and off from generation to generation. A consistent theistic worldview cannot separate the two without falling into holes it can't crawl out of.

Of course, one option is to simply reject biological evolution entirely.

But if you accept evolution in the materialist sense, then metaphysical naturalism requires that morality must have a natural origin — which is the position I take — and the idea of an immaterial soul raises more problems than it solves. When did a soul first appear in evolution? Was ensoulment sudden, meaning one generation had it and the previous didn't? Or gradual, which would imply partial souls? Do non-human animals have souls? Which ones — primates, mammals, everything with a nervous system? And what about extinct hominins like Neanderthals, Denisovans, or Homo erectus? What about hybrids (Homo sapiens × Neanderthal)? Would their children inherit full souls, partial souls, or none? How does the afterlife accommodate graded or fractional ensoulment?

 

It makes absolutely zero sense to me, but you can understand why some people feel compelled to reject evolution on account of their religious beliefs — it contradicts their entire framework for where souls come from, how morality comes into the picture, and what supposedly makes humans special.

Here's a theistic attempt to square the soul onto human evolution.

 

Not a complete list, but here are a few things I think are wrong with the paper: 

• Says the soul is beyond science, then uses scientific evidence to argue about when it appeared.
• Treats a supposedly transcendent, immaterial soul as something you can detect through archaeology.
• Uses circular logic: assumes souls exist → assumes burials mean souls → finds burials → concludes souls existed.
• Assumes burial equals belief in an afterlife, ignoring simpler, non-religious reasons for burying the dead.
• Reads too much into symbolic objects, treating them as proof of spiritual thinking.
• Holds science to a high standard of evidence but gives religious claims a free pass.
• Claims the mind is immaterial without backing it up, and against what neuroscience shows.
• Rejects emergentism just because the author "can't imagine" how it would work.
• Makes claims that can't be tested or disproven.
• Mixes science, theology, and philosophy as if they're the same kind of evidence.
• Interprets every piece of data in a way that supports the conclusion the author already believes.

Essentially, the author's arguments depend on presuppositions. Look, we at least know the universe exists. If the author can presuppose a supernatural soul (or creator) without evidence, then it's certainly fair for me to presuppose an infinite Universe or a Multiverse — ideas grounded in physics that does not necessitate a divine creator. You can read further about the fallacious nature of the First Cause or Prime Mover argument.

I've always considered it a very weak argument, because a First Cause doesn't have to be supernatural. Even if the argument worked (it doesn't), all it would show is that causes can't regress infinitely. But why posit a divine cause and stop there? If something has to be the stopping point, it could just as easily be the universe itself. The argument begs a lot of questions that I won't take up here.

People are free to believe in a soul that lives on after death, but there's no scientific evidence for it, and everything we know about the mind comes from the brain. If we stick to evidence, then morality had to evolve as early humans learned to live in groups. Many animals already show basic moral behaviors like cooperation, fairness, and empathy, and these traits helped our ancestors survive by keeping groups stable. Over time, human cultures built more complex rules on top of these instincts, but the basic source of morality is our biology, not a supernatural soul. Morality doesn't need a supernatural explanation — it only needs evolution, empathy, and the social world our ancestors built.

Happy Holidays!

Thievery Corporation!

"With so many ways to communicate at our disposal, we must not forget the transformative power of a live music experience and genuine human exchange."

 — Jon Batiste

I haven't had much Nature content to report on lately, but Sue and I did get out snowshoeing last weekend, taking advantage of another fresh snowfall and the return of real winter temps. We also caught a band Sue's really into — Thievery Corporation — a group I didn't even know existed before meeting her but have come to appreciate. Live music is always a win for me, in just about any genre… except country western! Despite my dislike of the genre, I have to admit that country bands often have some of the most skilled guitarists out there.

City of the Sun opened for them — an energetic surprise, since I hadn't heard them before. Their mostly instrumental sound blends acoustic post-rock, flamenco, folk, and a bit of jazz, built around fast, percussive guitar work and big dynamic swells — rhythmic, and immersive, like being pulled into a mood than listening for lyrics.

Thievery Corporation records and tours with several different singers, and each one gives the music a different feel. One singer might bring a reggae vibe, another might sound more like bossa nova, and another might add a hip-hop style. They switch singers throughout the show, so every song has its own mood, but the steady electronic and dub beat underneath keeps everything tight.

As 11 p.m. approached, their main set wrapped up, and even though it was a great show, we were already fading, so we headed out and skipped the encore. Sue said I was rather wobbly — could have been the hour, or it might have been Four Roses, so she drove!

All images © 2025 Mike McDowell

A Change in Color!

"The snow falls soft and unfathomable, drawing the world down to a whitened hush, forcing us (as few things do) to pause long enough to take stock of everything that we miss in our crazed pursuit to gain everything that we can."

― Craig D. Lounsbrough 

Southern Wisconsin was buried under more than a foot of weekend snow, and the forecast promises even more. This morning's single-digit temperatures locked it all into a deep, brittle cold.

Over at Pheasant Branch Prairie, Sandhill Cranes were sailing out of the marsh toward nearby fields, probing for whatever food they can still reach. They really should move south, but they have a habit of staying here well into December.

A very tundra-like landscape ...

The 10-day forecast points to a run of bitter cold, the kind that quiets everything and settles the prairie into its true winter rhythm. Birdlife was sparse—just a handful of American Tree Sparrows and a couple of Kestrels hunting along the north end. A small group of Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs passed overhead, adding brief flashes of movement to an otherwise still landscape.

All images © 2025 Mike McDowell

The RBNU!

"The brevity of life is to be yourself."

― Lailah Gifty Akita 

November is slipping away, and suddenly only a handful of days remain as 2025 edges toward its final stretch. My birding has been pretty low-key lately, but the season is shifting all the same—the light is shorter, the air a little sharper, and the landscapes settling into their muted late-autumn palette. It feels like the quiet before winter fully arrives, a pause that invites you to pay attention to the small, steady changes happening at the edges of things.

At Pheasant Branch Prairie, the birding was subdued—mostly Dark-eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, and only a few other song birds moving around. Pretty quiet, really. To be honest, I was more focused on getting my steps in than building a list. 

The drumlin at Pheasant Branch! I've spent so much time here since it opened up to the public back in the 90s. Technically, geologists would call it a drumlinloid rather than a true drumlin. A classic drumlin has a very consistent, streamlined shape—an oval hill of compacted glacial till with a steep upstream face and a long, tapering tail that shows exactly which way the ice flowed. The landform here shares that same general, glacier-molded look, but it isn't as uniform or cleanly sculpted as a textbook drumlin. Still, I refer to it as The Drumlin to my birding friends.

Back at my apartment courtyard, a Red-breasted Nuthatch ended up stealing the show. I was lining up a digiscoped shot of a young Cedar Waxwing when the RBNU's comedic yenk-yenk calls caught my attention. I gave a volley of pishes, and in he darted—curious, bold, and impossible to ignore. I probably pished more than I should have. He was not happy with me, so I stopped once I got a few photos.

Gorgeous weather, scenery and birds closes out November!

And what awaits in December? 

 

Find out ...

 

All images © 2025 Mike McDowell

Shrike!

"November at its best - with a sort of delightful menace in the air."

― Anne Bosworth Greene

It hit 70 degrees yesterday — in mid-November, no less. By this morning, the warmth had swung back to a more seasonal low-30s. Sue and I took advantage of the brief reprieve and drove up to Sauk County to wander a few of our favorite natural areas and see what was still out there.

Astonishingly, at least one Dainty Sulphur (Nathalis iole) was still fluttering around the beach at the Sauk City Canoe Launch. We've had some pretty cold nights, so seeing any butterflies this late was a surprise. A few small flies and grasshoppers were hanging on along the shoreline, but no tiger beetles.

Perhaps a little November insecting will help shorten the winter — if not on the calendar, then at least in the mind. 

 

Next stop, Sauk Prairie State Recreational Area ...

We were hoping to find a Northern Shrike, and we did.

The shrike was perched atop a tree a fair distance away, but I was still able to digiscope it. Not my best photograph of this species, but any shrike sighting is a good one. 

Our last stop was a short walk along the Roznos Meadow segment of the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, where the green has fully slipped away and November settles in with its palette of tan, brown, and russet.

Bird-wise, it was pretty quiet — just a few American Tree Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos, their muted plumage perfectly echoing the November palette around them.

With the sun sinking in the west, there were some stunning views of the prairie.

By the time we called it a day, the wind had swung around from the north and the daylight was sliding away, but it still felt like the right kind of ending — a late-autumn day distilled to its essentials: muted colors, sparse birds, and the simple pleasure of being out there before winter really takes hold. And best of all, cold beer and hot food was waiting for us at Vintage — the perfect reward after a November outing.

All images © 2025 Mike McDowell