Trekkin' and Birdin' aren't always out caching...sometimes they like to go fishing, too. A favorite fishing spot is Bohemian Creek. Springtime in this valley, with trilliums abloom on the hillsides heading to the fishing hole, well, there's just nothing like it.
One day, they decided to check out some new fishing holes on another part of the creek...this part. Problem was, Birdin' was only halfway paying attention while Trekkin' was working the stream. You see, the opening of fishing season is about the same time as spring migration, when all the birds are heading back to their nesting grounds in all their finery, having rested up in the tropics. So, instead of fishing, she started following a singing bird. She wasn't sure, but it could have been a Northern Parula.
She was right at a spot where the fishing should have been great, a nice deep hole straight out from the parking area and sign. That bird, it kept moving downstream on the other side, so Birdin' followed along on her side, binoculars at the ready and her little box with fishing notes in her jacket.
She walked downstream a bit, passing a big, rocky island in the middle of the creek. She paused, because she was sure she heard the bird stop and sing from that clump of shrubby stuff. Waiting....waiting...waiting. Drat! Binoculars should have stayed up, always keep your glass to the eyes, but no! Something else got her attention a little further downstream and she looked away and lost that bird!
But what's this over there? On her side of the stream, there was a flash of movement and a loud hammering. It had to be a Pileated! Moving a little away from the streambank toward the road, staying on higher ground, she could see a cluster of three large cottonwoods, with heaps and heaps of flotsam from rising waters past piled up around them. For a moment, she thought she saw movement near a drainpipe across the stream from where she stood, hoping maybe to spot a Northern Waterthrush down low, but nope. Nothing.
There was also nothing in that big mess of deadfalls and cottonwoods, but then she spotted it again. Sailing like a little Pterodactyl, the Pileated followed the bend in the stream as it made a turn to the southeast. About 70 feet from the deadfall pile was a huge old cottonwood, long dead and perfect for that woodpecker to search for ants. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, Birdin' approached that old tree. Darn! Not slow enough! Just as she got there, off from the backside of the tree soared the bird, heading up over the ridge of the nearby hill.
That's how it is with those darn birds, she muttered under her breath. Walking around that tree to the side facing the road, it was clear to see from all the long holes that this was a favorite spot for dining...if you're a Pileated Woodpecker. Most of this side of the tree had plum rotted right away. Birdin' perched her little box containing her field notes at the base of that tree on the side facing the road, took some punk wood to hide it from view, then she continued walking downstream.
She didn't have her Garmin with her and so she didn't mark this spot. Her little box is probably still in that very spot, because she never did find it....or that bird, either. Trekkin' however, caught one mighty nice sized native Brown!
Maybe you'll have better luck retracing her steps. If you do, she says go ahead and make your own notes in her fishing notebook. If you have a stamp, add your image, too. She even has a nice handcarved stamp in that box if you'd like to make your own impression in your own little notebook. Make sure you leave that stamp there for whoever comes along after you to look for that box. Oh, and make sure you hide it really well, so no fishing person finds it and takes all her secret notes!
The Geocache Notification form has been submitted to Wisconsin DNR. Geocaches placed on Wisconsin Department of Natural Resouce managed lands require permission by means of a notification form.