Blog Archives

Short-eared Owls of Limberlost

2/28/2015

By Terri Gorney

While living at Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter wrote, “The owl can afford to be silent
of the wing, it so dominates the night with its voice. It would give me great satisfaction if
I had some way of knowing surely whether other birds sleep serenely...or whether they
are awake and shutter in fear.” Gene was in awe of owls. Adorning her carved bed that is
still in the cabin, the owl is one of the main motifs.

Short-eared owls have been one of Limberlost’s winter birds for the past four years. In
2011, Jim Haw, a Fort Wayne birder, noted the restored Limberlost Swamp Wetlands
Preserve (Adams/Jay Co line) were ideal habitat for short-eared owls. On November 23
of that year, he discovered that the short-eared owls were indeed at Limberlost. The owls
were seen a number of times around dusk and into the evening hours over the next few of
months. Several people came from a distance to see these beautiful birds.

The owls returned the next year on November 22 2012. On November 22 2013, Randy
Lehman and I had at least two at dusk in the same location where they were previously
observed. Five short-eared owls were observed by Dave Reichlinger and I on December
13. The owls were still in the area and were counted on the Christmas Bird Count on
January 1 2014. On November 15 2014, Randy and I had one perched on the 900N sign
and then in flight at dusk.

It is a special sight to view these masters of the night. They are so silent and seem to
glide. It is fascinating to watch them on the wing together almost in a playful fashion.
The owls like to perch about three to four feet off the ground. When in flight and hunting
they are usually low to the ground.

Amos W. Butler, known as the father of Indiana Ornithology and was a friend of Gene
Stratton-Porter. In 1907, while on the board of the Indiana Audubon Society, he tried to
convince “every open-minded person” as to the great benefit of owls because they eat
small animals and insects that are “destructive enemies of the farmers’ crops.”

We wish these magnificent birds safe travels on the wing back to their summer breeding
grounds further north in the United States and Canada. We now anxiously anticipate their
return every November to their winter home at Limberlost.

Gene Stratton-Porter and Charles Deam

2/23/2015

By Terri Gorney

Gene Stratton-Porter’s husband Charles enjoyed collecting Native American handiwork
and relics as he called them. In 1895, the Geneva Herald wrote “C.D. Porter has probably
the finest collection of Indian relics in this section of Indiana.” In October 1906, he wrote
to Charles “Charlie” Deam asking if it would be all right if he and his wife could “drive
over and call on you sometime” as he understood that Deam was also a collector.

Charlie Deam was two years younger than Gene and like Gene was born close to the
Wabash River on a farm; he in Wells County, to the northwest of Geneva. Deam, like
Gene, loved to roam the countryside studying nature. By the 1890s, he was a druggist
with his own pharmacy in Bluffton. A profession he shared with Charles Porter.

Slowly, Deam evolved into a self-taught botanist who in his lifetime collected 73,000
specimens in the state. This collection is housed at Indiana University. His books on
Indiana’s flora, grasses, shrubs, and trees are four classic books that are still consulted by
those studying the field.

Both the Deam and Stratton families came to northern Indiana in the late 1830s.
According to his biographer, Robert Kriebel, Deam’s grandfather, John Aughey Deam,
brought his family and followed the Wabash River “to a scenic promising valley.”

In August 1921, Gene wrote Charlie “after eighteen years and fourteen books in my
swamp region of Indiana, I have done two years of botanizing in California and written
a book from the new location. It you can find time to read it, I shall enjoy having your
official opinion as to the change.” She sent him a copy, as well as his daughter, Roberta,
of her new book “Her Father’s Daughter.” They had planned to meet for a visit at her
home Wildflower Woods on Sylvan Lake but it was not to be. That August was busy
time for the Porters and the Deams and Gene left for California on September 10 with
plans to spend the winter there.

It was remarkable all that Charlie Deam accomplished in 1921. He collected 1741
specimens in the state, spending 104 days in the field, driving 4880 miles. He spent
several weeks revising his “Trees of Indiana.” This is the year that he began planting
hickory and walnut trees at his Bluffton home which became known as the Deam
Arboretum.

These two famous Hoosiers both produced an enormous body of work in their lifetimes
and taught us much about the natural history of Indiana. We were fortunate that they
called northeastern Indiana home. They had very similar backgrounds and lived one
county a part for much of their lives. It is not surprising that they met and developed a
friendship. Unlike Gene, Deam lived a long life and died in 1953. He enjoyed a long and
productive career as a successful botanist and pharmacist.

Wherein we examine the history of beaver in the Limberlost--- from Ice Age giants to the disappearance and return of our modern dam-builders

2/17/2015

By Curt Burnette

Beaver are the largest rodents in Indiana, the largest rodents in the United States, and the
second largest rodent in the world (South American capybara are the largest). But as large as
they are now, they were even bigger in the past—or at least their relatives were. Around the
end of the Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, what is now Indiana and Illinois was home to the
greatest concentration of giant beaver in North America. These cousins of the modern beaver
were as big as black bears, up to 8 feet long and over 200 pounds! Unlike current beaver, their
teeth were not chisel-shaped, so they would not have cut down trees and probably didn’t make
dams or lodges. They would have lived in the water, though, and eaten various types of aquatic vegetation much like muskrats do today.

The two species of modern beaver, our local North American beaver and the Eurasian
beaver, are not descended from their giant cousins. Modern beaver were already around when
the giants were alive, sometimes living in the same area, according to fossil evidence. But as
the glaciers of the Ice Age retreated and the climate warmed up, the giant beaver went extinct
and their smaller tree-chewing cousins flourished.

Beaver were common throughout Indiana and much of the United States and Canada when
the two countries were being settled. Many historians believe beaver were more responsible
for the exploration and development of our country than any other animal, because of the
great value of and desire for beaver fur. The first white men to explore many portions of North
America were trappers searching for beaver. The demand was so great that the population of
beaver in many areas was greatly reduced, or even wiped out. Such was the case in Indiana.
Beaver were completely trapped out of our state by the late 1880s or early 1890s. When all
of a certain type of animal is gone from a defined area (like a state), it is said to have been
extirpated. It is likely Gene Stratton-Porter never saw any beaver in the Limberlost during the
time she lived in Geneva, from 1888 to 1913.

Beaver were re-introduced into Indiana in 1935 and have been successfully re-established
throughout much of the state. They have returned to the Limberlost area. Beaver don’t always
build dams and lodges. They also commonly dig burrows into the banks of rivers and streams.
These “bank beavers” are not nearly as noticeable as the dam building ones. Often people
don’t realize they are around. If you hike along the Wabash River at the Rainbow Bend Park or
Limberlost County Park you probably won’t see a beaver, but if you look along the river’s edge
you might find beaver-gnawed branches. Or better yet, you might hear the slap of a beaver’s
tail as it dives underwater when it realizes you are nearby—a sound Mrs. Porter may never
have experienced in her wanderings through the Limberlost.

Black-necked Stilts Make An Appearance At Limberlost

2/9/2015

By Terri Gorney

Three black-necked stilts were unexpected visitors on 3 May 2013 at Limberlost on the
north side Co Rd 1200S. This was a first record of these shorebirds in Adams County. In
2011, two black-necked stilts were seen at Eagle Marsh in Allen County.

They are typically found on Florida and California coast lines and western interior
wetlands. But, since the early 1980s, the species has been expanding its breeding range
northward. Tennessee saw its first nesting pair in 1983 and Indiana saw its first in 2001.
The first nesting record in Indiana was confirmed by Don Gorney, Lee Casebere, and Lee
Sterrenburg. It was in Sullivan County. The species now regularly nests at two places
in southwest Indiana and occasionally elsewhere, much like the cardinal’s northward
movement documented over one-hundred years ago, it may be just a matter of time
before they begin nesting locally.

The bird is striking in appearance with contrasting black upperparts and white
underparts. It has a long, thin bill, red eyes with white eye-rings and long red pink legs.
They were close to the road and very cooperative allowing Barb Gorney and myself to
view them. Several other people got to see these special visitors in the late afternoon and
evening, including Bill and Sherry Hubbard, Randy Lehman, Curt Burnette, and Willy
DeSmet. Willy, Bill and Curt took some nice photographs of the stilts. Even though this
was a short visit we hope that this is just the first visit and they will chose to become
summer residents of the area.

One can imagine how delighted Gene Stratton-Porter would be to know that Limberlost
habitat restoration encouraged these beautiful and regal birds to visit Limberlost. This is
an example of “build it and they will come” or in this case “rebuild it” and they will find
it. The black-necked stilts were not the only shorebirds seen the first week in May, others
included greater and lesser yellowlegs, and solitary, pectoral, and spotted sandpipers.

Wherein we examine the attraction that villains and outlaws have to wild and wooly wetlands like the Limberlost Swamp

2/2/2015

By Curt Burnette

In her book, "Freckles", Gene Stratton-Porter creates a character called Blackjack, whom she
describes as a villain, whose “face is coarse and hardened with sin and careless living.” He is a
tree poacher in the Limberlost, cutting and stealing trees from property owned by the Grand
Rapids Lumber Company. He is a dangerous man, who even goes so far as to kidnap Freckles.

In "A Girl of the Limberlost", Gene creates another character called Pete Corson, who is a
member of a gang of troublemakers who frequent the Limberlost. Although he helps Mrs.
Comstock catch moths one night in the swamp, he cautions her that her lights will summon
others who will ride like fury to get there and “they won’t be nice Sunday school men.”

These men are works of fiction, but the Limberlost Swamp and other wetland areas which
were remote and difficult to access actually did harbor criminals and outlaws. At the end of
August and the beginning of September of 1900, police from Muncie and Portland searched the Jay County portion of the Limberlost---the Loblolly---for several days in an attempt to capture the Keating brothers. The brothers were wanted for the murder of a Muncie man, who had been stabbed in the neck with a knife. The search was unsuccessful. But a bloody pair of
trousers and a blood-stained knife were recovered from the residence of a brother-in-law who
lived near the swamp.

In the vast Grand Kankakee Marsh of northwest Indiana, there were two islands located
deep within which were notorious hideouts for counterfeiters, horse-thieves, and murderers.
Big Bogus Island and Little Bogus Island got their names from the bogus coins the counterfeiters made there. The islands were surrounded by water and marshy terrain, which made it very difficult for law enforcement to sneak up on the lawless inhabitants. The outlaws, however, knew of a hidden sand ridge located just beneath the surface of the water that zigged and zagged its way to their hideaway. At the one spot where the ridge ended before it reached the islands, the resourceful outlaws constructed a 300-foot long submerged log corduroy road on the muck of the marsh bottom. This “hog-back highway” allowed them to come and go easily while officers of the law were floundering through deeper water on their horses.

Many other types of rugged, inaccessible terrain have been used as hideouts. One of the
most famous is the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in the mountains of Wyoming, where for more
than 50 years famous outlaws, such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, were able to
successfully elude the posses sent after them. Wetlands, however, have always been one of
the best spots for the lawless to hide, from the pirate Jean Lafitte in the vast swamps south of
New Orleans, to Blackjack of Gene Stratton-Porter’s fictional version of the Limberlost Swamp.

Short-eared Owls of Limberlost

Gene Stratton-Porter and Charles Deam

Wherein we examine the history of beaver in the Limberlost--- from Ice Age giants to the disappearance and return of our modern dam-builders

Black-necked Stilts Make An Appearance At Limberlost

Wherein we examine the attraction that villains and outlaws have to wild and wooly wetlands like the Limberlost Swamp

Author

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Short-eared Owls of Limberlost

Gene Stratton-Porter and Charles Deam

Wherein we examine the history of beaver in the Limberlost--- from Ice Age giants to the disappearance and return of our modern dam-builders﻿

Black-necked Stilts Make An Appearance At Limberlost

Wherein we examine the attraction that villains and outlaws have to wild and wooly wetlands like the Limberlost Swamp

Author

Archives

Categories

Wherein we examine the history of beaver in the Limberlost--- from Ice Age giants to the disappearance and return of our modern dam-builders