Ruffed Grouse Drumming Encore
Back by popular demand, northeastern Minnesota’s favorite musical grouse.
Back by popular demand, northeastern Minnesota’s favorite musical grouse.
Grand Portage-based photographer Travis Notvitsky captured this ruffed grouse performing a drum solo atop a log. Drumming is the male grouse’s way of saying: “Yo, this is my territory and I’m ready to mate if anyone is interested.”
My friend Erin Tope (now Sola) and I collaborated on these pictures in the French River a few years ago. From the first they suggested characters and supernatural narratives, which I initially put to a series of four wordless short videos set to music. That sparked years of subsequent imagining about who these ghosts are. Words have now been joined to pictures to form the final iteration of the project. In the absence of an actual physical publisher, I have posted them at their own site where I consider it a free 16-page e-book. I post them here as well for your enjoyment — although you may want to leave the light on.
In my years of recording every moment in the lake (and the rivers and streams), I have encountered many fish. Here are some highlights.
Top 20 list of my Lake Superior Aquaman videos, with commentary, from a billion years of posting at Perfect Duluth Day:
#1.) Official video for the Low song “Gentle.” 2015. My one paying video gig and crowning achievement. Low saw Lake Superior Aquaman footage I posted here and requested I fit it to this song. The imagery is of the collapsed column of Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum/The Icehouse in Duluth’s outer harbor off the Lakewalk.
Woohoo! The city has opened most of its natural surface trails. Now we all get to figure out the dance required to stay six feet apart when meeting someone on those narrow trails.
Shot in Chester Park with a GoPro Max 360 using the Reframe effect.
The city of Duluth is hosting a Virtual Cleanup Day on Saturday, April 25. The city’s website has an info page set up for the event, and participants can win a chair from Loll Designs. The website also has important information for keeping safe while participating.
My favorite captures from a billion years of posting at Perfect Duluth Day. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram.
The St. Louis River Alliance is posting photos, poems, illustrations or other art inspired by the St. Louis River and Lake Superior to its Facebook page. The organization will have a virtual art show on its website on April 21.
Artists and writers can submit creations until Wednesday, April 15. Send submissions to [email protected]. Include the image, along with your name, title of the piece, location of the piece and any further details you want shared.
Links:
Facebook page with more info
St. Louis River Alliance website
With other venues closed and the weather getting nicer (for the most part), public parks offer an opportunity to get out of the house while still maintaining social distance. Test your knowledge of the parks of Superior (and the surrounding area) in this week’s quiz!
The next PDD quiz, reviewing the month’s headlines, will be published on April 26. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by April 23.
“April is a great time to sit and watch the incredible courtship displays of ducks,” writes Sparky Stensaas on the YouTube description for this recently posted video with footage shot in 2011. The segments show the wooing antics of common mergansers, common goldeneyes, bufflehead and hooded mergansers.
“Here in northern Minnesota, the ice is just going out on the lakes and early returning male ducks are trying to impress the ladies,” notes Stensaas.
#visitduluth #thx2transistor
Excerpts from my journals, which tell of my 100% true adventures and discoveries.
Contents
Part 1: The Nightmare Fish
Part 2: The Insane Reptiles
Part 3: It Came from Lake Inferior
