October 1993
the monthly newsletter for people who live, work or play on the Upper Mississippi River Vol. 1, No. 10
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The Transformation of the Upper Mississippi
Scientists and Birders Join Forces to Track Birds
By Reggie McLeod
By Pamela Eyden
Shipping on the Upper Mississippi River all but ended after the Civil War. Railroad tracks built in the 1850s followed the river bank, and linked river towns with Milwaukee and Chicago. After the war, railroad bridges began spanning the upper river as tracks reached westward, linking the populous East with the growing frontier. A River of Grain - The Evolution of Commercial Navigation on the Upper Mississippi River, by Richard Hoops, chronicles the rise and fall and rise of commercial navigation on the upper river. The events leading up to the massive engineering project that turned the upper river into series of slack-water lakes impounded by 30 dams, as Hoops tells it, is principally a story of railroads, flour milling and Washington deal making.
Birders and scientists tend to look at birds from
Railroads and Mills Railroads bypassed the rapids upriver from St. Louis, upriver from Keokuk and upriver from Rock Island to carry cargo and passengers 12 months a year, whether the river was frozen thick or nearly dried out from drought. During the last part of the last century the only significant cargo on the river was huge rafts of logs floated from the northern woods to riverside saw mills in Winona, La Crosse and other river towns. The Mississippi gave birth to the Minneapolis milling industry when the Minneapolis Mill Company built a dam and canal at St. Anthony Falls in the 1850s. Cargill, Peavey, Pillsbury and the Washburn brothers built mills and grain elevators in the neighborhood until, in the mid-1880s, Minneapolis became the nation's largest flour producer and grain market.
. . . Receipts grew from 10 million bushels in 1880 to more (Grain continued on page 2)
two different points of view, and sometimes disdain each other's perspective. Scientists say, "Birders may be savvy in the field, but they haven't a clue when it comes to population dynamics or sampling techniques." Birders retort, "Scientists are tied to their desks and computers. If you want to know where birds are and what they're doing, call a birder!" Decreasing funds and greater urgency to learn the habits of migratory birds may be bringing the two together at last. Last spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched a long-term research project to find out when birds migrate through the Upper Mississippi River Valley, and where they stop to rest. The first year's field work depended on the skills of expert birder Carol Schumaker of Winona. Schumaker has been birding for five years. She goes birding before work in the morning (she works as a counselor in a Winona clinic) and she goes out all year round. If these credentials aren't enough, let it be said that she knows her warblers, and can identify sparrows from a glance at their "giz." (That's birder-speak for posture and general gestalt.) Schumaker was paid to go out and watch birds, but she had to do it the way a scientist, not a birder, would. She returned six times to each of 45 sites, located on public land along seven routes stretching from Stoddard, Wis., and Reno, Minn., in the south, to Wabasha and Nelson in the north. She did this seven out of every ten mornings during April What's inside. .. and May, and recorded all Friends of Miss 4 the birds she heard and saw Current Events 5 within a ten-minute period Letter 6 at each site . Population Map 7 River Calendar 8 (Birders contnued on page 3)