Marvelous skies reflected on glassy water on the reservoir in the last month!

Dear Friends,

April showers bring … powerful flow to the waterfalls!

Spring is perhaps the most beautiful time of year here, as the additional water in the system makes the waterfalls particularly gorgeous. The reservoir is also full for the first time in two years, which also makes it especially lovely, though also much less accessible as there is no longer any “beach” and so you mostly cannot walk along its edge anymore. 

This spring has continued to be very dramatic with its mood swings, with summer-like hot humid days followed by winter-like days with a random burst of sleet or snow. Even so, it marches forward, with snowdrops giving way to crocuses and daffodils, giving way to cherry blossoms. Now, I see the budding of the early May flowers about to pop.

Here at Sirona, we are mired in the slow and complex progression of the ADA-related projects, making sure our entry and bathroom and parking area are all going to be compliant with the codes. We are also doing all kinds of odds-and-ends -- minor projects that have been neglected, like hanging some interior doors. Each project checks something off the list that needs to be done and gets something out of our way. This is what the work will be like for the next month or two, without a lot of interesting narrative updates. So I will continue to showcase past projects that I have not shared yet, but I also want to start sharing some more general information about the area. This month, I want to talk more about the networks of trails around the property that we have been enjoying so much on foot, and cross-country skis, and even on mountain bikes (mostly in Tim’s case, my old bike needs a tune-up!).

I will let this overview of the trails be the feature of this newsletter rather than sharing a new project. This of course is also more of a nature topic as well, but I will also spotlight a rare bird species I got to experience last week: a whole flock of American Avocets that made a brief stopover on the reservoir, apparently blown a little off-course on their migratory route! 

Lastly, I sent a message last month about my various shows this year and that I will soon be sending out a survey to some of you to collect some preferences regarding future art workshops at Sirona Falls, if you would be interested in giving your input please let me know! Also, I am collecting a list of people who might want to stay at Sirona Falls this summer in my “trial run” stage where not everything is just perfect and I am still detailing out the furnishings and such, so also please let me know if you would like to be one of my “guinea pigs”! 

I hope you all are staying sane and getting respite from the news cycle by spending time in nature and creativity.

All of my love,

Elody

P.S. VIDEOS: For those of you who couldn’t make my show at the Bellefonte Art Museum, here are some videos of the opening on FB and Insta. I also made another long video of springtime views around Sirona Falls in the last month (somehow still involving some ice and snow) here on FB and Insta.

Above: Photos of me from my Bellefonte Art Museum opening! On left with Jennifer Tucker, whose artwork was in the next gallery over, and my portrait of her (photo by Loanne Snavely) and with my work on the right (photo by Karen Swavely Clark.)

Above: My map compilation of the region of trails discussed below. You can tell from the blue lines that look like they are actually in the water than many of these hikes were done when the reservior was low and you could walk along the shoreline.

The Reservoir Trails

There are many, many trails all around my place in the Lock Haven city water authority property. Their grounds are available to the public for hiking, but these trails are not like official paths at state parks that have names, maps, or are marked in any way. They are maintained organically by the people who use them. Once last fall, a mystery someone did a huge amount of trimming, and we have cleared away many fallen trees. Though there are many other trails in other directions (I will share about those in the future) today I want to talk about one area of trails. I am calling this group of trails the “Reservoir Trails”, because they are all contained within an area between my place, the reservoir, the fields along Brungard Road, and Spruce Run road. Within this region there is a veritable labyrinth of unmarked, interconnected trails.

Some of the paths are wide and obvious, some are very narrow and extremely easy to lose track of. One minute you are on a subtle footpath, then a few steps later you are suddenly just wandering and bushwhacking with no paths in sight. Even when you manage to stay entirely on paths, they split, merge, turn and loop so much that I still get somewhat disoriented and unsure of which path I am on and where it will come out despite diligently exploring them multiple times a week, on foot and on skis, since I moved into my place last October. However, because they all loop around to each other and stay within the aforementioned boundaries, it is incredibly fun to feel both the adventure of exploring and the safety of knowing that you can’t really become lost. Just keep going and you will hit a major and obvious path that you can follow, the power line cut, or one of the boundaries like the lake, one of the two creeks, a field or a road, and know where you are and how to get home. (For these reasons, I have always imagined that this would be a marvelous place to do a big scavenger hunt for teens and older kids. Give them a quick lecture about what the boundaries are and some safety rules like a buddy system and such, and then let them all run around all the trails and try to find a whole bunch of really cool spots that could be set up ahead of time with things to find. Let me know if anyone is interested in participating or helping me to organize some kind of kids day like this at my place someday!?)

Since I use the eBird ap regularly to document the birds I see and while it is running it creates a map of the track you have been on, I have begun taking screenshots of my routes with the idea to use them to create a map of sorts. For this newsletter, I have finally done so, using photoshop to overlap all of my routes to help me visualize the trails. I know that this is not all of them, as I do not always have eBird running. Below I will include some of the maps to give you an idea of what it is like. There is also the variable of the Reservoir depth. When they were doing construction on the spillway for well over a year, they used the valves to lower the level of the lake, and kept the lake low to have access to do the work. They also lower the reservoir during dry spells when the city of Lock Haven needs more water. When the lake is low, there is a broad and rocky beach that fills in with grasses the longer it is low. In some areas it remains marshy and muddy, but it is nearly always walkable. When the lake is full, the water comes right up to dense brush, forest, or marshy areas that are not walkable at all. To see the edge of the water you must access it via a few trails that come right up to the water’s edge for a view. And of course, when the lake is frozen with thick, stable ice, you can walk or ski right across the water itself. So these factors open up or close off multiple walking options.

Regardless, these paths I have mentioned allow you to go to a lake and streams and fields and marsh areas and several different types of forest. They are great for hiking or birding or running or skiing or mountain biking. You could go on a slightly different loop every day for months. Just in this one area! Again, I have not even mentioned a ton of other hikes you can do in other directions! It is just marvelous. When you come visit, come with time for an exploratory walk and I will point you to the starting trail and send you off. Not all who wander are lost, but it is a wonderful feeling to be just a teeny tiny bit lost once in awhile. 

VIDEO: I also made a little screen recording of the layers of the map so you can see the separate trails here on FB and Insta.

Above: Left, a typical walk now that the lake is high, with only a few access points to see the water (marked with stars) and a gap in my trail (marked with the arrow) showing a portion of flooded trail, pictured on the right along with my reward for making the longer walk to get to the far point: a close look at two breeding plumage horned grebes!

Above: Left, walks on the beach only possible when the lake is low, and right, the map with some additional journeys added that are only possible on skis when the lake is frozen! Below: When the water is low for a long time, all kinds of wildflowers and grasses begin to fill in the beaches, and rock piles and the ruins of old brick silos are revealed. This whole area was farmland prior to the 1960’s when the dam and reservoir were built.

Above: One of Deb Rittleman’s incredible photos of another time American Avocets made an appearance in Pennsylvania, at Nittany Farm Pond along 322 on April 18, 2020. Below: “Normal” looking walking vs floating avocets and range map (with Pennsylvania showing as conspicuously blank) from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Nature Spotlight: American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana)

My Nature spotlight this month is the American Avocet. This is not because this is something that you will ever see when you come visit Sirona Falls! Instead, I am featuring it to emphasize how cool it is to be near an inland lake for the opportunity to get coastal birds during migration season, including rarities. Last week, I was lucky enough to see this super rare bird for Pennsylvania, and found out that it was only the second time it was ever recorded in my county. They are gorgeous and strange birds, long legged and necked and with a long, upturned bill (useful for its side-to-side swishing around with its bill to feed on aquatic invertebrates in shallow water and mud) . Usually they are wading birds, but apparently they also float on deeper water like ducks, which is how I first saw them last week on the reservoir. Between the fact that they are not supposed to be around here and that I did not know that they could float like a duck, it was at first very confusing to identify them. Shortly after spotting them, I encountered some local Amish birders who came with a scope (word had already gotten out!) and together we confirmed the identification of these 29 adult American Avocets in full breeding plumage. I watched them for an hour or so, taking off, circling around in a tight flock in the air, and landing again in various parts of the lake before finally taking off and disappearing out of sight. Through the birder grape-vine I was able to find out that one of the birders I could see across the lake was David Rothrock, who generously shared his photos with me. Below I will show his photos, my crappy cell phone photos, and some wonderful photos from my often-featured birder friend Deb Rittleman, who got some great photos of American Avocets in Pennsylvania back in 2020. 

Cheers to exciting birdwatching! It is always fun to get something special. I have also been enjoying the spring return of our regulars, like the blue-headed vireo and the black-throated-green warbler, and other more normal migrators, like the Common Loon, Horned Grebe, Lesser Scaup, and many others.  

Above: My incredibly bad cell phone photos, some taken through a scope or binoculars. Below: David Rothrock’s photos, taken at the same time from across the lake!

Below: A few more of Deb Rittleman’s photos of her 2020 American Avocet PA sighting.

P.S. Next month I will go back to featuring a building-related project! For now, here are some photos of my additional progress on the guest basement. Since this will be an art classroom much of the time, I decided to just do a simple painted floor, which you can see that I am in the process of priming here. You can also see the window sill bar top is coming along nicely, looking sexy with several layers of varnish on it now.

Sirona Falls