Throughout the northern top of the planet, spring brings a shuddering and renovation of life, a quiver from the unfolding wings of the dragonfly that stretch and harden in the sun, and then carry its long needle body into the sky. The earth oozes with new spawning life---the rivers and ponds shimmer gelatinous with the egg masses of frogs and salamanders, the wetlands with the eggs of turtles and snakes, of red-winged blackbirds and mallard ducks. Along the ground hurry the smaller mammals---wood mice, field mice, moles and voles. From within the earth, the earthworms turn and twist their glistening bodies through the softening damp soil, eating their length of soil every day, breaking up the heavy clods of clay, letting in the air and life. Groundhogs shoulder up from their burrows within the earth; badgers grumble at the light, ground squirrels scurry, otters slip their sleek bodies into newly running streams---all rising and shaking off their long slumber of winter, their body juices flowing rapidly again with hunger and with the renewed rush of life to mate, to procreate in the warming soil, bedded down in the still brown leaves of autumn, fusing sperm with egg in an instant of ecstatic miracle that passes along ages of ancestral genes. In the newly brightening spring sky, the small trickle of feathers starts slowly, as singly or in small groups the birds leap into the air and head north. Hardly before the first snowdrop has melted in the north lands, the plover is already on his way from South America to the north tundra. Other long-distance flyers follow—the nimble-footed sandpipers and pipits moving up the sandy coasts, the herons and cranes wading in the wetlands, and the weather migrants, the finches, warblers, buntings, red-winged blackbirds, cowbirds are joining the resident chickadees and tit-mice inland in foraging for food, snacking on last year's rosehips hanging from the bushes, or on pill bugs and drowsy flies and spiders that slowly are rousing themselves from winter slumber.

Then the air-borne flood swells, pouring out from the south like golden notes from a trumpet, filling our gardens, our fields with their lyrical songs in an exulting tumbling madness that casts one's heart skyward with the sound and motion of these winged songsters, darting, singing, spilling through the still bare branches, one in pursuit of another, bickering, cooing, squawking, peeping, in a passion of life and motion that seems quite mad. As more insects start to fill the air, waves of insectivores pursue
them---fly catchers, wrens, phoebes, and pewees, with narrow bills picking insects, larvae, and spiders from small cracks in trees. Then come the swallows---barn
swallows, purple martins, scooping up mouthfuls of dancing gnats over the
ponds and fields.

On rush the tides of birds, warblers, orioles, sweeping up from the south in a swelling chattering swarm, filling the meadows and hedges with light, color, sound, and motion that enhance the riot of spring. . Farther into the wilderness, out from the caves come the fox kits and coyote pups, the s puma kittens and grizzly bear cubs; out from the underbrush come the cautious deer and elk fawns. Along the West Coast, the grey whales slip their tonnage through the salty seas toward their icy breeding grounds of the Bering Sea.

This cornucopia of creatures, incredibly diverse in shape and size, beauty and threat, texture and temperament, sounds and signals attest to the continuous exuberant outpouring of life.

Spring 2005 FCR President's Letter
Ron Wilson, President

Dear Friends of the Cacapon River,
The Spring Peepers are already making noises along the river and I’ve even heard a few Eastern Chorus frogs. The FCR Board is starting to get active also and make our own river noises . We are still trying to finish the stream restoration project near Morgan Woods that we started a number of years ago, The river and the deer have not been too helpful. We will be planting more trees and bushes and putting down more matting and grass seed to stabilize the bank. We would appreciate any volunteers who can help with this project on Sunday April 24 at 10 am. (Directions: End of Cann's Neck Lane off Rt.9 about 1 1/2 + miles south of Fisher's Bridge, just north of the crest of the hill. If from the south and you come to Morgan Woods sign on the left, you have gone too far or phone 304-947-7407) We are planning to develop a experimental raparian/wetland restoration area near this site in collaboration with the Cacapon Institute, which already has two such sites, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA, which has been assisting us in the earlier project.

We are now putting together a list of river front property owners in Hampshire County as far upstream as Rt. 127 so that we can mail our award winning homeowners Packet to them. When the list is finished we will definitely need help from volunteers to stuff and stamp envelopes.

Many people have commented that they miss our fine hard copy newsletter that used to be published by out past president Abby Chapple (who now does
the newsletter for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition). If anyone out there is interested to working on a hard copy version of our newsletter, please let me know.

Last month Barbara Tufty and I met with Neil Gillies, the director of the Cacapon Institute, to discuss river related issues that we could work on together. In addition to the experimental reparian site mentioned above, we plan to assist them in updating the comprehensive river survey they did about 15 years ago. The problem of sedimentation in the river is one that concerns everybody, but is one that is very complex and not easy to address, but we are going to work with Neil on this. The sedimentation comes from many sources, collapsing (slumping) streambanks, logging activities, road run-off, construction, agricultural run-off, human activities near streambanks, and many other sources. While we may not be able to have an immediate major impact on a single source we can learn to better understand this complex problem and help educate people about possible solutions.

On April 19 Don Robinson and I attended the 1st Potomac River Summit that included about 50 people from many watershed organizations and federal and state agencies. It was mainly an opportunity to learn about what other groups are doing to address the many problems in the Potomac River Basin. One of the things we learned is the WV Dept of Agriculture, a major player in water quality issues in the state, will be conducting monthly chemical monitoring of Cacapon River near its mouth. This is an effort to collect monitoring data as a part of the major multi-state program to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. This will be much more comprehensive than anything we thought we might be able to do in the future.

We are looking into the construction of new dams on some of the tributaries of the Cacapon and Lost River to determine IF it is an issue that we should be concerned about. We are also aware of the condition of the old Power House dam on the Cacapon near Great Cacapon, but we have not taken a position on the future of that structure.

We will continue to monitor the spread of hydrilla in the river. Anyone who sees this plant, please let us know. Last year it was not that wide spread, we think in part because the higher levels of sediment in the water prevented rapid growth. Check elsewhere in our website for pictures or drawings of this plant.

We are pleased to give an award to Don Robinson, FCR Board member, as our volunteer of the year. Don is our webmaster of our website and editor of our quarterly online CACAPON CURRENTS newsletter. The Award will be presented April 23 at the organ CountyVolunteeer brunch at the South Morgan County Fire Hall.

In closing, we hope that more of you will become active this year. We have created an E-mail list of those who have indicated such, but would like to see many more people on the list. If you can only be reached by phone, we can do that too. Just contact us. And if you haven't paid your membership dues for 2005, this is just a reminder.

Let’s hope for a clear and relatively stable river this summer!

FCR Urges Funding of Resource Conservation Program FCR
By Barbara Tufty