...Dawn in Ewing Bottoms
Two of my favorite places that I try to visit at least a couple times a year are Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge & Ewing Bottoms in south central Indiana. At Muscatatuck nine miles of gravel roads are open sunrise to sunset seven days/week plus eight hiking trails ranging from a fifth of a mile to four miles. These wind thru 7,802 acres of river, creeks, and wetland. In 1966, Muscatatuck Refuge was established using money obtained from the sale of Federal Miratory Waterfowl Stamps, commonly known as Duck Stamps. Muscatatuck is the place to see a river otter BTW. River otters were officially considered extinct in Indiana in 1942. In 1995, state wildlife officials began releasing otters captured in Louisiana into several locations in Indiana. The 25 otters released here have reproduced with such success that several hundred of the critters now call the area home. If you spend any time at all here you will see a river otter. Plus over 280 species of birds have been seen at Muscatatuck!
Waterfowl abounds here
A big piliated woodpecker trashing a dead tree
A familly of otters on the ice
And then every winter there is the spectacle of the sandhill cranes at nearby Ewing Bottoms.
Low wet fields stretch for miles and miles and thousands of sandhill cranes overwinter here. This trip a freight train came thundering by and as I watched several thousand of these huge birds took to the air at once filling the air with their odd cries in a spectacle right out of National Geographic. If you live anywhere within driving distance and like birds this is a cant miss show. Just fill up before leaving town this is literally the middle of nowhere with one lane gravel roads being the main way to get around. In winter when the cranes are there many of these roads flood so its best just to have a full tank and wander around rather than have a set route. And listen every now and then the sound of four or five thousand cranes in a field carries for miles.
If your like me and love old barns you will be in heaven here.
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