Camping at a crossroads

Tents at risk of becoming bantha fodder.

I was planning to take this week off, but the peculiarities of a recent camping trip were too much to ignore. Longtime readers of TWiB may recall two favorite topics: tent camping and leaf blowing. The two came together beautifully (and strangely) during a sojourn north of the 45th parallel.

Most of the time “camping” these days doesn’t involve much camping at all. Instead, people will drive a very large RV into a natural area and sit beside other very large RVs in the air conditioning while watching television. So tent camping is facing a crossroads—either set up between the RVs or find some other outdoor pursuit altogether. It’s hard to find tranquility amid the sounds of generators, air conditioners and the vehicles themselves—when RVs move they sort of sound like the moaning and groaning of banthas.

There’s little reason to leave the city when the result is views like this one.

Leaf blowing is a favorite topic of mine because it’s so resource intensive, noisy, and destructive to the insect life that birds depend on. Personally, I prefer rakes. I never really thought about it much in the context of camping until witnessing someone pull a leaf blower from their RV last weekend. They proceeded to blow away whatever miniscule amounts of organic matter had accumulated at the doorstep of their RV. I’ve camped for nearly three decades, and made many a questionable decision, but have never considered packing a leaf blower (or a rake).

One more observation (and this one actually has to do with birds) is that Chipping Sparrows and Pine Warblers are THE breeding birds of Upper Midwest campgrounds. I have now encountered them at campgrounds in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The ones seen on this trip were relatively habituated to humans, along with Ring-billed Gulls and Mallards.

On deck

📅 August 26 - Piping Plover Season Recap and the view from Waukegan

📅 September 2 - Welcome to birding, James Hetfield

📅 September 9 - The Niagara Escarpment really is underrated