Friday, July 08, 2005

Swan song


A pair of trumpeter swans surveys samples of humanity along the Pin Oak Marsh shoreline before swimming off. The view here is to the northeast. Beyond the dike in the distance that encloses the marsh, the Chariton River turns south toward the Missouri River after following an unnaturally straight path due east under Highway 14. 

I went down to Pin Oak Marsh just south of Chariton last week intending to take a look at the wooded rise on the east bank of the Chariton River, orienting myself to the relationship between the river and the old Mormon settlement of Chariton Point some distance beyond to the east. The bonus was a fairly good look at the new pair of trumpeter swans recently installed at the marsh by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Iowa lost its natural population of trumpeters more than a century ago after habitat changed and settlers couldn't seem to stop themselves from blowing what remained of the big birds out of the sky. So the DNR pursues its goal of restoring a free-ranging population by settling pairs of swans --- more than 600 swans to date I believe --- at suitable places across the state, then hoping they survive and remain Iowans.

It's seems to be working, but slowly. One of an earlier pair installed at Pin Oak was, I believe, killed by coyotes or dogs. And just this year, empty-headed vandals stoned the trumpeters' nest over at East Lake near Osceola, killing three of the young ones.

This pair seemed content, parked on a small mound of vegetation out in the marsh and honking at odd-looking specimens of humanity on the shore, then lost patience and sailed off toward the farther shore.

Pin Oak is a pretty piece of "restored" wetland flanking Highway 14 as it heads south from the base of cemetery hill. Once upon a time, the Chariton River meandered widely across this bottom, but at some point was ditched to make it easier to control. Even though the river no longer is allowed to follow its natural course here, the marsh at least gives some idea of what this broad piece of bottom land might once have looked like.

At the other end of the state, up here in North Iowa, we've been preoccuped since last Friday with the disappearance of 5-year-old Evelyn Miller, who vanished early that morning from her rural apartment complex south of small town of Floyd, about a half an hour east of Mason City via the Avenue of the Saints. Hundreds of volunteers spent countless hours under difficult conditions searching the countryside for some trace of the little girl. Her body finally was found Thursday evening in the Cedar River, north of Charles City and about two miles east of her home. Floyd County authorities are treating the death as a criminal case, although autopsy results haven't come back yet from the state medical examiner's office in Ankeny. It's been a sad time in a part of the country where it seems as if such things couldn't happen --- if indeed it turns out that Evelyn was abducted and killed as most suspect.

And I've been continuing my trek down the virtual Mormon Trail as well as finally getting around to a few genealogical tasks involving my own family. As a result, it's been a sparse week online.


Here's another view of Pin Oak Marsh, looking northwest toward Highway 14 just before it crosses the Chariton River and then climbs the hill alongside the cemetery to cross Highway 34 and enter Chariton. 

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