Máistir Nádúraí: Baxter's ― a Great Idea!

"The vast majority of people in today's society seem totally oblivious to our existence. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives us a good reason to look down on them, while finding dark corners in which to live self-sufficient, invisible lives."

― Ge Fei

In my opinion (which everyone is entitled to) Baxter's Hollow in the Baraboo Hills is one of the prettiest places in Wisconsin. Located in Sauk County just west of Devil's Lake State Park, one drives slowly along Stone's Pocket Road and birds by ear for the feathered gems that call the hills home. There are a few established parking spots, but almost anywhere will do. The hollow's habitat is so reminiscent of northern Wisconsin that ~20 warbler species stop and nest here. Though a sizable portion of the land is owned by The Nature Conservancy, there are parcels of private land ― no trespassing, please. Baxter's Hollow is one of my favorite places to spend an entire day admiring and photographing its flora, fauna, and boreal-like scenery. Sitting along Otter Creek is meditative and cathartic.

So, I wasn't terribly far off, right? Connecticut Warblers are beginning to be found in Dane County. Rather than compete with Sunday creek corridor muggles, my birding posse and I thought it better to go hiking and exploring somewhere more a bit more secluded ― somewhere away from wherever the Reliables were looking for CONWs.

The weather was heavenly and we were surrounded by Nature's angels. That's pretty sappy, isn't it? If I'm being honest, I have more respect for creatures that have evolved for millions of years than relegate them to mythological beings. Are you familiar with the notion that no living thing on earth is more evolved than anything else? That's right. All this planet's organisms have been evolving for exactly the same amount of time ― what adaptations work for a Green Frog or a Veery has likely worked longer for them than what has "worked" for Homo sapiens (if you can call what we're doing working).

Catharus thrushes like the Veery descended from a common ancestor that lived 4 to 6 million years ago. Naturally, there are Hominins (members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus) that go back a few million years. Genetics-wise, Human and chimpanzee DNA is nearly identical when you compare the bands on chromosomes, the bundles of DNA inside nearly every cell. If true, then why do we look so different from chimps? Well, each human cell contains roughly three billion base pairs (bits of information), so that mere 1.2 percent equals about 35 million differences.

If we could travel back in time 4 to 6 million years ago to seek the common ancestor of today's catharus thrushes, my guess would be a bird that is more genetically similar to those living today than the marginal disparity we see in contemporary hominins. My point here is that they didn't have to change much because their strategies didn't necessitate it ― the "design" was good enough for an extraordinarily long period of time sans adaptive pressure. Still, evolution is always occurring. Consider that Bicknell's Thrush and the extremely similar Gray-cheeked Thrush diverged as recently as 120,000 years ago ― speciation can take a really long time.

On our time-travel trip nothing would look half-evolved, quarter-evolved, no missing links, etc. All life present would appear just as evolved as everything around us today ― the context is just flipped. We would compare them all to things we know about down the evolutionary road. But if you lacked this knowledge, you would be none the wiser about the life around you and where it's going. This same notion is true for where we stand today. I find that such mental exercises gives one an elevated level of respect for these shy little woodland birds.

And there we were, in their woodland domain, listening to calls and songs; the birds at work with things they've been doing for hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years ― it has not failed them, for the most part. To be present and appreciate their existence and ours as finite mortal creatures we share the planet with is a major juice ingredient for being a fulfilled naturalist. I actually feel quite sorry for those who reject the established scientific fact of common ancestry; differential reproductive success via natural selection. Speaking of the Gray-cheeked Thrush, there was at least one present.