Peacock Books & Wildlife Art News
Day 15, January 15, 2019, Tuesday
Bear Lisa Loucks Christenson Minnesota documentary Sam & the GRYT Adventures Sam the Border Collie
From the time I arrived until I left, I heard intermittent barking. From the tone, it sounded like a female coyote, and by the end of my visit it had crossed my path and was on the same side of the bluff as me. Usually I see the male coyote hanging around me. I wonder if this one lost a mate?
Day 13, Sunday, January 13, 2019
Golden Retrievers Minnesota wildlife scat tracking tracks winter animal tracks Winter Bugs! Documentary by Lisa Loucks Christenson winter insects wolly bear caterpillars woods
Today was a great day for tracking ## in the valley. I brought my niece Gusty with, and her dogs, Beau and Asher. The path we took was ice coated--the entire hike which made for difficult walking, but we would have missed all the ice-trapped tracks, the hawk flying off from the hooting of a great horned owl, the wave of woodpeckers, blue jays, and chickadees, and of all the sounds of the open woods.
I don't think we went twenty feet without running into a new pile of scat, one was fresh and probably the animal that broke through the woods as we entered the deeper woods. From the looks of the various piles of scat there is no doubt that there are at least two different species, the tracks are there to prove that.
Makes me want to check into the woods farther, but wait until there is some snow on the ground for better tracks and to see how often the animals are coming through. I'd put field camera up but I have 100% chance of them getting tampered with, or stolen, as usual.
Day 12, Saturday, January 12, 2019
Lisa Loucks Christenson Lisa's Bald Eagle Documentary Minnesota eagles Nest 3 Nest 4 Sam the Border Collie
I took Sam the Border Collie along with me today. We went to go check the eagle activity on nests 3 & 4. Happy to report both nests sites have eagles working on building up their nests.
I saw the Nest 3 pair mating on the nest the other day. I think, without looking back in my notes, the Nest 6 pair still holds the record for the earliest mating in January. January 10th, it seems.
Nest 5 pair was working on their nest a couple days ago.
January 6, 2019, Sunday, Day 6, Year 15
Bow Wow Detectives® Homemade Fudge sold in a rotating selection of 162 flavors Lisa Loucks Christenson Local Rochester Minnesota artist Minnesota documentary Year 15 Lisa's Bald Eagle Documentary
Today I took Sam with me on a field day on my outdoor beat. Sam is a beautiful Border Collie who lives with three Greyhounds that are rescues. Sam is going to be the featured dog hero in a book series under my Bow Wow Detectives® imprint. I'll announce the title of that series at a later time.
We hiked to the river, and Sam helped me solve a couple little mysteries in our time outdoors today. Sam seemed to enjoy our time sitting by the river watching the river flowing by, listening to the sounds of the blue jays, a passing eagle, and the sounds of all the other birds.
Sam was with me to help discover eagle nest nine, one I wrote into my journal as a new nest today. Not much activity going on for such a warm January day in Minnesota!
Sam and I arrived at another of my stops and found 18 Trumpeter Swans feeding in the open slough, the count has more than doubled since the January 2. The young gray cygnet, seems to be a loner, doesn't hang out with the other swans at all and that makes me curious as to why he drifts away? Last night he remained behind with his duck companions, while the two adults flew off to another slough at sundown. He is surrounded by mallards that stay close, and feed off plants he drops in the water, but he doesn't seem to mind feeding them. He preens with them, he swims with them, he camps with them. I'm calling him Lonan.
JANUARY 1, 2019, TUESDAY, YEAR 15 Dancer & Daedee: Nod to God, Day 1
Cougar Day 1 Year 15 illegal poaching illegal trapping Lisa Loucks Christenson Documentaries Minnesota Conservation Officer Impostor Struggling for Existence Documentary
January 01, 2019
Today I went back to work on my Struggling for Existence Documentary. This is a story told from personal observations that shares wildlife facing their challenges to live, their interactions with each other, how they cope through the seasons, man vs. nature, ethical and illegal trapping, poachers, baiting, illegal hunting and fishing. It's a documentary that I've been working on since 2005, starting with my first gift of a powder blue bullet shell casing, and over time, at least another one hundred strategically placed spent shells and bullets, countless recordings of guns going off within feet of me, weird men lingering around my vehicles, and worse. The game seemed to be to get me to report the strange incidents, discredit me in every way possible. I guess it worked, but I stand, still, knowing God saw it all.
The shells were propped in front of my daily stops, interfering with, and changing the shots I took daily on my Walk the Burn documentary. Placed as a marker, usually before they cut the plant off, cut the tree off, hung something in the subjects place, removed or killed the subject.
An FBI Swat agent told me, "They are trying to tell you they're in your camp." He was right, but that only led to me wondering if I'd walked to close to theirs, and if so, what were they afraid of me finding?
No doubt they were trying to scare me out of the woods, make my experience so horrible that I'd stop investigating what was happening. I didn't shy away. More harassment followed, I've included those details are in my other documentaries. This story is my most important work of my life. It's the story I followed as a voice and eyes for our wildlife I documented, shooting past the bullet shell casings, thefts of my gear, and worse: a conservation officer who pulled in behind me as I came out of the woods, detaining me, questioning me, but it would take my talking to the real officer with that name (years later) to find out the first guy was an impostor wearing the name tag replica that real officer. One of my customers gave me the missing evidence piece, one that proved beyond any shadow of doubt the guy was a fake . . . but why?
Another customer asked, "How will you find the impostor?" I told them I didn't have to . . . "He'd find me, again."
In the last few months, it took opening my new bookstore and gallery (which turned into two stores and one online store); my own health emergency and unexpected surgeries; my families health battles; a host of worldwide customers looking for health answers and fighting to survive to make me realize the timeliness of this story. I plan to finish this project, this year, if it’s God's will.
Read more in Lisa's Struggling for Existence: What Nature Shared.