First off, if you ever get the chance to visit Copper Falls State Park in Wisconsin - DO IT and hike EVERYWHERE! I absolutely loved the place and you will see why.
To start off my adventure, arriving at the place, I had to pay a $35 fee for an annual parking pass to all state parks. It's required by law and I figured why not go ahead and buy since I could potentially be visiting a lot of parks. It helps out the state parks anyway.
I visited Loon Lake at first and of course I saw one Common Loon diving around. I did not manage to get a good picture of said Loon because it was far away and kept moving further out each time it dived for more fish. I DID have some pictures of this beautiful lake but somehow they were deleted which is heavily upsetting. It was GORGEOUS and I took at least 10 photos so how they all got deleted, including my photo of the park entrance, is beyond me once again.
After this I hiked back to my vehicle to check out the map then began hiking the Red Granite Falls trail. At first I was not all that enthused, thinking it was your average plain jane trail, and birding was not going well for me because I was not able to identify anything beyond Black-capped Chickadee but the more I hiked the better things started to get.
First, I came across the Red Granite Falls and was completely amazed by them that I sat for hours watching the water and feeling the cool mist. I listened to the roar and sat in awe. Never before had I seen something like these falls. It makes me truly wonder what Niagra falls is like.
After Red Granite falls I continued my hike. I could hear the falls for a good ten minutes or so but eventually I turned around a bend and the sound slowly died out as Spring Peepers, Chorus Frog, and Green Frog suddenly became more apparent. What truly caused me to freeze in my tracks though was a very low humming sound that sounded almost like drumming.... because it was! To my right there was a Ruffed Grouse drumming in the woods. Not sure how far away but the distinctive tempo started out slow then gradually sped up like a slow clap. I heard one to my right, turned towards it, and then heard another on my left and another behind me! They were all three drumming one after the other. I threw my ipod into the mix by playing drumming sounds as well and they went right along with it. Below is the spot where I heard their drumming.
I stood in this spot for a good thirty minutes if not longer trying to both record the sounds and to do more bird watching. An orange and black bird, that I believe was a Baltimore Oriole, flew forward and actually almost flew right into me but since it startled me I jumped and startled it back into the trees nearby. I used my binoculars to spot it before it flew off. Once more all I could ID was Black-capped Chickadee but I knew the sound I was hearing sounded very warbler like. Which one is questionable.
I soon walked on, due to the sun starting to go down, and heard a roar of Spring Peeper, Chorus Frog, Green Frog, and maybe Fowlers Toad and Wood Frog coming from Loon Lake. Lucky me, I also heard a Common Loon tremoloing which, to me, is the second best bird sound out there!
I say this because this is my first when it comes to bird sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
I was shocked again and froze in my tracks when I heard a coughing/choking like sound from the woods nearby. I searched around in some bafflement until I saw two white-tailed deer running away. I continued forward, heard the sound again, and then the deer were gone. Eventually I arrived back at the car, drank a whole water bottle, and packed up before driving off.
At first I was going to leave but I wanted to see the famous Copper Falls; the whole purpose of everyone coming to this state park. So I drove left, through the park to the last parking lot, and parked Jimmy before walking towards a cabin. I could hear water running in the back ground and saw a distant bridge so I knew I was in the right place.
So, I got curious, and decided to go towards the Observation tower. Climbed plenty of stairs, up a hill, and eventually to the tower where I then climbed more stairs (as seen below).
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| Far drop down side of hill. |
It was worth it though.
So after that, I went back down the hill/stairs. I wanted to take the other trail on top by the tower but it was already getting dark and I was trying to make things quick since I had no source of light on me. As soon as I hit the bottom of the stairs and such I turned left and made way towards Copper Falls and Brownstone. Copper Falls was my first stop of course and I was growing highly impressed with the park second by second. It is definitely an awesome place to go during the summer - lots of pines make good shade from the sun - but I would love to see it all in the three other seasons as well.
After Copper Falls I continued on towards Brownstone Falls, which I believe was said to be the best falls at the park. I honestly thought Red Granite was the best but then again I loved all the falls - they were just all so unique!
Brownstone Falls
After Brownstone falls it was on to the next item within the park, the Devil's Gate.
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| This bridge moved with every step! |
Devil's Gate
Then it was back to the parking lot but I did see a lot of cool stuff along the way. Like better angles of previous falls or just different angles all together. It was getting dark by the minute so I was in a HUGE hurry and honestly very freaked out. I don't handle forests at night very well when I am by myself; it's a huge fear of mine.
When I finally hit the parking lot I thought "oh its over" but it turns out I saw/heard two more things. One, white tailed deer that I slowly approached until they ran off around 30 yards and I heard two peenting Woodcock that eventually disappeared when the deer ran off. That is when I got back into my car and headed back to Minocqua.
A very enjoyable adventure this was :)!
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