Wisconsin’s Willow River State Park

After the adventure in Wyoming I had returned to Minneapolis, saved a Common Yellowthroat at the airport and joined the company conference. The program for the week consisted of meetings, meetings and meetings, but also an activity: hiking Willow River State Park. American conference rooms resemble coffins: cold, stale air and windowless, so even if there had been no birds the excursion could’ve counted on a warm reception indeed. About a dozen of my esteemed colleagues felt the same and this cheerful group left for the park. The park is about 30 to 40 minutes by car from the Minneapolis city centre. The area features woods, lakes, a river, and a waterfall as can be seen in the Google Earth® screenshot below.

We paid the 16-dollar entrance fee and drove to a parking lot which was teeming with Eastern Bluebird and Chipping Sparrow. A promising start of the day.

Moving along the forest trail we soon became aware of what can best be described as the “odour of death” . Do the local gangsters dump their bodies in this innocent-looking park? Have we finally found Joe Ardizzone, Dave Carroll, Tommy DeSimone or Freddy Tenuto? Could this be the place to locate Jimmy Hoffa’s remains? The stench remained quite constant, indicating a continuous presence rather than a point source. As we didn’t believe the Wisconsin mob is that murderous, our dozen nerds applied Occam’s Razor and came to a more benign conclusion: the wood is the growing place of Stinkhorns. I would love to show you a picture but, in these days, people are so easily offended. Stinkhorns were first scientifically described by the Dutchman Hadrianus Junius, who was also rather coy in his description, albeit for different reasons: “I am not sure that our Phallus falls within the class of the fungi. I will not definitely decide to place it there because I do not want to make a judgment before others who know more about the matter “. There was laughter in the forest, not because of my juvenile humour but from Pileated Woodpecker. Supporting act: Red-bellied Woodpecker and Hairy Woodpecker. The male and female couple of Red-bellied Woodpeckers gave us excellent views, the sun was shining and life was good.

Birds without a sense of humour were also present. Blue Jays were everywhere and both White-breasted Nuthatch and Red-breasted Nuthatch made an appearance. Some phishing brought in close Black-capped Chickadee, Palm Warbler and Yellow-rumped Warbler. Dark-eyed Junco disapproved of all my jokes and my ridiculous pshh pshh, didn’t make a sound himself but just looked at me haughtily. Did Hoffa reincarnate as a Junco…?

Photography credits: Eastern Bluebird, Dark-eyed Junco, Pileated Woodpecker.

Disclaimer: The story about missing mobsters was entirely made up, except for the role of the mushroom. As everyone knows or should know, Hoffa was buried under the end zone of the Giants Stadium.