Backyard Birding Flashcards and Mute Swans©

 

A box of Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards, photograph by the Author.  The cards can be found for sale HERE.

Have you ever seen a bird and not known what it was?  You know if you could just see a picture of it, you would recognize it and then you would know what it was called.

 

It happened to me the other day, my wife and I were out on a 15-mile hike along the Lake Erie shoreline, near Buffalo, New York, (we were helping my youngest son complete his Boy Scouts of America, Hiking merit badge) when I saw a swan in the waters of the inner harbor.   I knew it was a swan, but I also knew that there were several kinds of wild swans that migrate across Lake Erie during the spring, and I didn’t know whether it was a mute swan, a trumpeter swan or, maybe, a tundra swan¹.

 

Photograph by the Author.

 

Luckily, a short while afterwards, my daughter gave me a box of 100 Sibley Backyard Birding Flash Cards for my birthday, and when I opened it, right there on top was a picture of the swan I had seen!  Bingo!  It was a Mute Swan, cygnus olor, a species of swan that was originally from Europe, but was introduced into North America and is now native throughout much of the northeastern United States².

 

Photograph by the Author.

 

Mystery solved, thanks to the Sibley Backyard Birding Flash Cards!  If you don’t have a set already, get one and study then and then amaze everyone when you are out in the wilderness on how well you know your birds.  That is what I am planning to do!

 

To watch a video of the Mute Swan that I saw that day along the Buffalo, NY waterfront, go to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube, HERE.

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Could You Survive: Building a Fire When it is Wet ©”, where we will discuss Air Force survival expert’s thoughts about what to do to get that fire going when everything is wet.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ There are three species of swans currently in North America.  Two are native to North America; the Trumpeter Swan, cygnus buccinator, and the Tundra Swan, cygnus columbianus, which is also known as the Whistling Swan.  The Mute Swan, cygnus olor, is a Eurasian swan that was introduced into North America and now breeds in the wild in parts of the northeastern North America.  All three are large all-white birds, and the mute swan can easily be told apart from the trumpeter or tundra swan, because the mute swan is the only one of the three to have an orange beak.

 

The Trumpeter Swan Society, “Which Swan Species Did You See?”

 

² Mute Swans, cygnus olor, are non-migratory and mated pairs of mute swans will usually stay in the same area year-round, unless their habitat ices over or there are food shortages.  These swans were originally found in Europe and were brought to private estates and zoos in the United States during the early 1900’s, because of their striking appearance.  Some of these mute swans escaped from captivity in New Jersey in 1916 and in New York in 1919 and began to successfully breed and survive in the wild.  Today mute swans can be found from southern Ontario, Canada to North Carolina and there are an estimated 3,000 wild mute swans in New York state.

 

New York Invasive Species Information, “Mute Swan”

 

Sources

 

New York Invasive Species Information, “Mute Swan”, July 2, 2019, [© New York Invasive Species Information 2021], http://nyis.info/invasive_species/mute-swan/#:~:text=Mute%20swans%20(Cygnus%20olor)%20are,in%20New%20York%20(1919), accessed May 27, 2021

 

Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards, [Crown Publishing, © 2021 Sibley Guides]

 

The Trumpeter Swan Society, “Which Swan Species Did You See?”, [© The Trumpeter Swan Society 2021], https://www.trumpeterswansociety.org/swan-information/identification/overview.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjw16KFBhCgARIsALB0g8JwB51lG3F1Hq9osuH7RPw3CPkoCSW2q648YPY2xXj3EWWrqUibmq4aAm7XEALw_wcB, accessed May 22, 2021

 

 

A Mute Swan, cygnus olor, on the Lake Erie shore

The Curious Tale of “Skunk” Johnson ©

 

 

A Skunk (mephitis mephitis) in defensive posture with erect and puffed tail, indicating that it may be about to spray, from Wikimedia, by Wallace Keck on April 8, 2011, HERE.

I first read about “Skunk” Johnson when my Uncle George gave me a large box of old magazines about trapping.  One of them, Trapper’s World, from April 2001, had an article in it called “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”. 

 

It was such a good story that I thought I would do a little bit of digging and see what else I could find out about Ole’ Skunk and how he got his name.

 

The best source, other than Mr. Moderow’s article, from which it differed in some ways, was The Pratt Republican, a local newspaper, that in 1911 published two articles about “Skunk” Johnson. 

 

A map of Pratt County, in 1887, from the Kansas Historical Society, HERE, showing the general location of “Skunk” Johnson’s cave.

Little is known about “Skunk” Johnson before the summer of 1874, which is when our tale begins.  In fact, we don’t even know his full name¹, since after 1874 everyone just called him “Skunk”.  What we do know is that he was a trapper and a hunter, and in fact The Pratt Republican states that he came to the area as a buffalo hunter.  Also, we can assume that he would have had to arrive at the headwaters of the Ninnescah River well before the summer of 1874, to have had time to dig his two-room dugout out of the hard clay of the riverbank.  Johnson’s dugout, or cave as it was later called, was entered by a small hole in the riverbank, and was complete with a spring, a “kitchen”, a “bedroom”, and a fireplace with a mantel that connected to a seam in the bluff, which acted as a natural flue.  It was recorded by The Pratt Republican, that Johnson would make a trip to Wichita, Kansas, four times a year to sell the hides of the creatures that he shot or trapped and to buy coffee, beans, flour, bacon, and other supplies; it was in the summer of 1874 on his return trip from Wichita that our tale begins.

 

A race to the cave...

 

By the summer of 1874, the Native Americans of Kansas, were becoming frustrated with the buffalo hunters, trappers, mass destruction of the buffalo and other game and the ever-increasing number of settlers and they were on the warpath.  Just as Johnson was nearing what is today Kingsman, on his return from Wichita, he spotted 20 Native American warriors, well mounted and well-armed – and worse yet, they spotted him!  The race was on!  So, throwing away all his newly purchased supplies, Johnson rode for his life and the safety of his cave.  Reaching the dugout just ahead of the pursuing Native American warriors, he turned his pony loose, crawled through the entrance, blocked it up and waited for them to arrive. 

 

Johnson shot down several of the warriors with his rifle as they approached his front door, which only served to enrage them and make them more cautious at the same time.  So, they decided to smoke him out of his hole, just like they would have smoked a skunk out of its burrow.  First, they tried burning piles of dried prairie grass at the entrance of the dugout, but the smoke just poured out through the chimney hole in the top of the bluff.  Noticing this, they tried stopping up his chimney, but they still couldn’t get “Skunk” out of his hole.

 

So, they settled down to wait him out, figuring he couldn’t have much food or water in his cave and eventually he would have to come out and that then they would have him.  What they didn’t know was that “Skunk” had a spring in his dugout and had plenty of water.  So, after a siege of 15 days, they gave up and “Skunk” crawled out of his cave and into legend.

 

An excerpt from “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”, from Trapper’s World, April 2001, page 9, illustration, and article by William Moderow.

Why was he called “Skunk”?

 

So, just why was he called “Skunk” Johnson, anyways? 

 

Apparently at some point, maybe due to the rapidly decreasing number of buffalo², Skunk decide to specialize in the trapping of skunks.  Skunk fur is warm and durable, and the back fat is creamy and when rendered into “skunk oil”, was highly valued then, and could be sold for its medicinal value.  The problem with trapping and skinning skunks is the trapper is going to smell like a skunk³. 

 

But it wasn’t because of the summer breezes that would waft the smell of skunk from his clothes and into the nostrils of all those around him, that he was called “Skunk” though.  He got the name “Skunk” because, during the 15-day siege of his dugout, he in his own words, “was compelled to eat the meat of skunks to stay alive”⁴.  So, Ole’ “Skunk” was a skunk eatin’ man!

 

“Looking For His Father”, The Pratt Republican, March 30, 1911, from Newspapers by Ancestry.com, HERE.

But maybe he was a skunk?

 

And now for the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey always used to say.  It is possible that Johnson wasn’t just called “Skunk”, but that he might have been one.  Shortly after the first article about “Skunk” Johnson appeared in The Pratt Republican on February 16, 1911, another appeared on March 30^th asking for information on how to contact “Skunk” Johnson because as a Mr. J. C. Johnson of Franklin, Pennsylvania said, he thought that “Skunk” might be his long-lost father, whom he had lost contact with 40 or so years before.  Was “Skunk” a runaway, dead-beat Dad?  It is possible, many people had trouble readjusting to life after the American Civil War.  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.  We will never know, because unfortunately this, and so much else has been lost to history and the sands of time.

 

I hope that you have enjoyed this ramble in the past and learning about the curious tale of “Skunk” Johnson.

 

“Skunk Johnson’s Cave, The Pratt Republican, February 16, 1911, from Newspapers by Ancestry.com, HERE.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Backyard Birding Flashcards©”, where we will talk about mute, tundra, and trumpeter swans and why you want to have a set of Sibley Backyard Birding Flash Cards, so you will know which swan you saw on your walk.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ “Skunk” Johnson apparently is not the same as A. J. Johnson, who was the first settler in Pratt County, and “...who located in the southwestern corner of the county, in the vicinity of Springvale, in the fall of 1873.  Johnson was the first man in the county to break sod and raise a crop”.  This is because Skunk Johnson had his dugout in the banks of the Ninnescah River, in the northern part of Pratt County, about four miles west of the town of Pratt.

 

History of the State of Kansas, William G. Cutler, 1883, Transcribed by Marvin Woltje, Bonnie Bunce, and John Matthews

 

² According to Beccy Tanner, in “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, published on June 12, 2011 in the Wichita Eagle, the last buffalo (which is more correctly known as American Bison or in Latin, bison bison) to be killed in Kansas, was killed in April 1887 in Cheyenne County.  By the 1890’s bison in Kansas had been reduced from the tens of millions to less than a thousand.

 

Beccy Tanner, “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, June 12, 2011, Wichita Eagle

 

³ When you kill them, they spray and if they don’t spray then, then they will spray as you skin them.  According to Eric Space in “45 Years of Knowledge”, “A skunk shot in the head will spray every time.  A skunk that is shot in the body will spray some of the time...When skinning a skunk, cut off the tailbone and leave it in the tail.  Remove it after skinning the rest of the animal.  That way you are not putting undue pressure on the scent glands.”

 

Eric Space, “45 Years of Knowledge”, The Trapper & Predator Caller, January 2004, page 62

 

 

Sources

 

Blackmar, Frank W., Editor, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Volume 2, [Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, 1912], page 496, https://books.google.com/books?id=V6IUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA496&lpg=PA496&dq=%22skunk+johnson%22+pratt+kansas&source=bl&ots=Gq9aBFCGlO&sig=ACfU3U14bE1VWR-or1zeQ2jXQdWP_uGing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEsfHMn9_rAhVxZTUKHe4VD4k4ChDoATAHegQIAxAB#v=onepage&q=%22skunk%20johnson%22%20pratt%20kansas&f=false, accessed September 20, 2020

 

Cutler, William G.; History of the State of Kansas, [A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL., 1883], Transcribed by Marvin Woltje, Bonnie Bunce, and John Matthews, https://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/pratt/pratt-co-p1.html, accessed May 19, 2021

 

Kansas Historical Society, [© 2021 The Kansas Historical Society], https://www.kshs.org/p/pratt-county-schools-bibliography/13674, accessed May 19, 2021

 

Moderow, William; “Skunk Johnson & His Handcarved Home”, Trapper's World, April 2001, [Galloway, OH], page 9 to 12

 

O”Ceillaigh, Setana; “A Homesteaders Guide To Tanning”, The Backwoodsman, May/June 2021, Vol. 42, No. 3, page 75

 

Tanner, Beccy; “Buffalo shaped the culture of Kansas”, June 12, 2011, [Wichita Eagle], https://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1066397.html#:~:text=The%20last%20buffalo%20killed%20in,sell%20to%20parks%20and%20zoos, accessed May 22, 2021

 

Space, Eric; “45 Years of Knowledge”, The Trapper & Predator Caller, January 2004, page 62

 

The Pratt Republican (Pratt, Kansas), “Skunk Johnson’s Cave”, Thursday, February 16, 1911, page 6, [Newspapers by Ancestry.com], https://www.newspapers.com/image/379672329, accessed September 10, 2020

 

The Pratt Republican (Pratt, Kansas), “Looking For His Father”, Thursday, March 30, 1911, page 3, [Newspapers by Ancestry.com], https://www.newspapers.com/image/379672972, accessed September 10, 2020

 

Wikimedia, “Skunk about to spray”, by Wallace Keck, taken on April 18, 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skunk_about_to_spray.jpg, accessed May 19, 2021

 

Survival Uses of Chap Stick©

 

 

A tube of ChapStick® brand lip balm, photograph by the Author.

 

When I taught Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills Training (IOLST), for the local Boy Scout Council, this was the favorite lesson of my friend, the head trainer, Ron Krawczyk, who always liked to say that he carried a tube of lip balm in the woods because of this lesson – Authors Note.

 

So, what survival supplies do you carry in your pockets every day, a knife, a bandana, ... how about chap stick¹?

 

A tube of lip balm is small and light, a ChapStick® tube only weighs .15 ounce (4 grams), and there are lot things that it can help you with during a wilderness emergency. 

 

Three different types of lip balm, photograph by the Author.

And now, with a nod towards the 1966 Clint Eastwood film, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, let’s talk about the good, the not-so-good, and the not really useful-in-the-wilderness uses for chap stick.

 

The Good Uses...

 

The number one “good” use for chap stick in the wilderness is for first aid. 

 

Chap stick, obviously, can be used to prevent your lips from getting windburned, dry, chapped, or cracked!  It can do the same for any exposed part of your skin; your fingers, your nose, cheekbones, ears – any place the wind, the cold or the sun can dry or damage your skin.  Chap stick will create a barrier between your skin and the environment, which will decrease your chances of getting windburn or frostbite, besides soothing and moisturizing your skin.

 

A Wegmans Sport Sunscreen Stick, SPF 50, photograph by the Author.

Chap stick can also be used to protect you from being sunburned, just smear it on your cheekbones, nose, ears, lips or wherever your skin is exposed to the Sun². 

 

You can also use it to help prevent snow blindness, by mixing it with some ashes or powdered charcoal and putting under your eyes as “eye black”.

 

“Friction Blisters on Human foot due to running barefoot”, from Wikimedia, photograph by AndryFrench, November 19, 2009, HERE.

Have you ever been hiking and started to get a “hot spot” on your foot, where it was rubbing against the inside of your shoe; or maybe a pack strap was chafing your shoulder?  Did you know that you could rub chap stick on the spot to stop the chafing and to keep the “hot spot” from turning into a blister?  Blisters are bad news in the wilderness, at best they hurt and will slow you down; at worst they can keep you from moving at all and could even burst and become badly infected.  Stop them before they start, by using chap stick to reduce the friction and prevent a “hot spot” from growing.

 

Chap stick has a lot of other first aid uses, and you can even use it to treat small cuts and scrapes, by smearing it on the wound to seal out the dirt and germs and stop the bleeding.  If you intend to use it on cuts and scrapes, it is probably best to use a plain, unscented flavor of chap stick.  Chap stick can even help you remove a ring from a finger, which is important if you have injured it and it is beginning to swell, because if you don’t get that ring off, the swelling and the ring can cut the circulation off.  Other writers have also suggested that chap stick can be used to soothe bug bites, particularly the menthol flavor, personally I haven’t tried that, but I will this summer during mosquito season!

 

A fire in the wilderness, photograph by the Author.

Having a fire in a life-or-death survival situation or wilderness emergency is vital, for warmth, for disinfecting water, to cook your food, for comfort and so much more.  If you don’t have a fire extender in your survival kit or, horrors, you don’t have a survival kit, the chap stick in your pocket could mean the difference between having a fire or not having one at all.

 

And the number two “good” use for chap stick in the wilderness is as a fire extender.  Chap stick makes a great fire extender, smear it on a cotton ball or pad or scrape a chunk into any other tinder you have, to help the tinder burn longer.  The longer your tinder burns the more likely it is that you will get your fire going.

 

Chap stick and tools, photograph by the Author.

The number three “good” use for chap stick in the wilderness is to protect and lubricate your tools.  You can protect your carbon steel knife blades from rust, by smearing them with chap stick.  This is a good idea, particularly if the weather is going to be wet or you are going to be out on the water.  You can also work some chap stick into the joint of your pocketknife, where the blade pivots into the handle, to keep it opening smoothly and easily.  The chap stick will help to protect it from rust, grit, and dust, which can make it difficult to open. 

 

You can coat your other iron tools as well, to protect them from dust, rust and wet.  You can also use chap stick to waterproof leather or canvas equipment.

 

Ideally you would want to do this before you entered the wilderness, in which case I would recommend using something other than chap stick, something like Sno-Seal³, but for spot repairs in the woods, chap stick is ideal.

 

Coating the threads of your match safe or flashlight with chap stick to keep out water and dust, photograph by the Author.

You can lubricate the threads of your flashlight or of any other piece of equipment or tool, by rubbing some chap stick on them.  This will help to keep out water and dust.  One survival writer suggests putting some on the threads of your flashlight, every time you change the batteries.

 

Some other equipment related uses for chap stick would be to temporarily plug a pinhole in a tent or poncho, by smearing a dab of chap stick on it.   or by waxing threads, Also, before beginning a sewing repair in the field, you can wax your thread by pulling it through your chap stick.  Waxed threads slide through material better and make a waterproof seal. 

 

The Not-So-Good Uses...

 

There are only two not-so-good wilderness uses of chap stick in my opinion. 

 

The first not-so-good wilderness use of chap stick would be turning your tube of lip balm into a candle.  Sure, you can do it by pushing half of a Q-TIPS® cotton swab or a piece of cotton ball, smearing the fuzzed-up cotton with some lip balm before pushing it into the center of your tube of chap stick, but why would you?  Wouldn’t it be better to use your chap stick to help light a campfire, instead? 

 

Chap stick, in my experience, does not keep your glasses from fogging up, photograph by the Author.

The second not-so-good wilderness use of chap stick would be using it to keep your glasses from fogging up.  Several authors, who wrote about using chap stick in survival situations mentioned using chap stick for this.  I experimented with it, and my glasses still fogged up.  At best the treated side fogged up a little less than the untreated side, but they still fogged up! 

 

The Not Really Useful-In-The-Wilderness Uses...

 

There were a several not really useful-in-the wilderness uses for chap stick that the other writers mentioned, uses that in my mind just didn’t apply to a life-or-death survival situation or wilderness emergency, such as using chap stick to lubricate wooden drawers, quiet squeaky doors, remove sticker gunk, or to help drive nails or screws.  These are all useful things that chap stick can help you with, but they just don’t apply to wilderness emergencies.

 

A tube of chap stick is small, it doesn’t weigh very much, but it does so much more than simply soothe chapped lips.  Don’t leave home without it!

 

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “A. J “Skunk” Johnson ©”, where we will talk about Skunk Johnson and how he got his name.

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ There are many different brands of lip balm, some chap sticks, like Burt's Bees Beeswax Moisturizing Lip Balm are made of beeswax and natural oils, some like ChapStick® are made of a mix of petrolatum, paraffins and wax, and others, like Vaseline® Lip Therapy®, are 100% petrolatum.  

 

ChapStick® brand lip balm is probably the best known.  In fact, it is so well known that people often call any type of lip balm, “ChapStick”, so to prevent confusion, I will use the words “chap stick” to refer to other brands of lip balm, and ChapStick® to refer to the lip balm made by Pfizer.

 

The back of a package of a tube of ChapStick® brand lip balm, photograph by the Author.

² The ChapStick® Classic Original has an SPF of 4, ChapStick® Moisturizer Original has an SPF of 15 and ChapStick® Sun Defense has an SPF of 25.  When I am on the water, as a wilderness canoe guide, I always carry a tube of Banana Boat Performance Sunscreen Stick, which weighs .55 ounce (15.6 gram) and is rated as SPF 50 or a store brand, like Wegmans Sport Sunscreen Stick, SPF 50, other than that I always have a tube of ChapStick® Classic in my pocket.

 

³ Sno-Seal is 35% beeswax and 65% mineral oil, which is also called liquid paraffin, paraffin oil or white mineral oil.  I have used Sno-Seal for years to waterproof and condition all my leather items, from boots, to coats, to belts and a leather cowboy hat, with great success.  Besides leather, you can use it on waxed cotton.  Before you enter the wilderness, smear some Sno-Seal on axe or knife blade or other iron tools, because the beeswax and mineral oil will prevent rusting.

 

A can of Sno-Seal, photograph by the Author.

 

Sources

 

ASG Staff, “Pucker Up: 10 Survival Uses For Lip Balm”, August 30, 2018, [© 2020 - American Survival Guide], https://www.asgmag.com/survival-gear/pucker-up-10-survival-uses-for-lip-balm/#, accessed May 10, 2021

 

J.R.G., “40 Survival Uses for Chapstick © 2020 Copyright DIY Prepper”, https://www.diyprepper.com/survival-uses-for-chapstick/, accessed May 10, 2021

 

Survival Dispatch Staff, “ChapStick as EDC/Survival Gear?”, August 22, 2018, [@2021 Survival Dispatch Inc.], https://survivaldispatch.com/chapstick-as-survival-gear/, accessed May 10, 2021

 

Wikimedia, “Friction Blisters on Human foot due to running barefoot”, by AndryFrench, November 19, 2009, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friction_Blisters_On_Human_Foot.jpg, accessed May 13, 2021