Almanac

This is how it was birding this morning. This is a power wire in the cow barnyard.
Note: two Mourning Doves, one Indigo Bunting, and a very ticked off Robin
 that was trying to feed honeysuckle berries to nestlings somewhere

While the cat's away.....

The boss is off to Empire Farm Days today. I hope he is having a good time and not suffering too badly from the heat. Meanwhile, this mouse is having a fine time.

From the unusual phone call department comes one from his orthodontic surgeon, who is repairing the damage from the car accident. Early this morning the doctor's receptionist called. Visions of missed appointments flashed through my head, but no, the doctor's cows were out on the road and she was looking for someone with a horse trailer to haul them home. I truly wished I could help her, but there was not much I could do. Alas, I don't drive, and by the time he made it home from Seneca Falls the cows could have walked back to the farm...

And that's not all.....

Despite being the last full month of summer, August has plenty to show us.

Gold finches flutter all day in the rudbeckia like so many flying flowers. They are the exact same color. There are so many that it is a challenge to get a remotely accurate count when I want to do an eBird checklist. They are simply everywhere.

For every bird that has taken to the airwaves and headed south there is some other species still busily rearing young. Two sets of robin parents were still feeding nestlings this morning and a young Northern Flicker was following its parents around begging vociferously. Catbirds appear to have kids as well.

There are advantages to being a gimp for a while. It took me a very long time to walk over to the barn and up to the crossroad to the T-field this morning, but what a lot of birds I saw.... 28 species in all. (It takes me a long time to walk anywhere btw.)

Then, as I was standing dead still, listening and watching for movement right behind the barn, I heard a sharp cracking from the bushes. There is a deer trail there....maybe about four feet from where I was waiting....

Sure enough after a few seconds a doe thrust her head out of the bushes right in front of me. I stood frozen waiting to see what she would do. Had the wind been different I might have even gotten a photo, but it was almost exactly from me to her.

With a loud WOOF! and a lot more crackling, she was gone back down the hill. I think she was an old one, as her face was pretty grizzled. Deer, by the way, are not always the quiet, wily things their reputation would have you believe.

The highlight of the trip was a Black-and-White Warbler busily feeding right next to the barn gate. Although they are not terribly rare, the last one I saw was on our blacksmith's garage roof before Magnum was born. Anyone who knew him can figure about how long ago that was. (Hint...I was still thin and blonde, and he's been gone over a decade...oh, and he lived to be 32.)

It was an amazingly crisply-marked and tidy little bird, and obligingly gave both its song and chip call so I could have a good listen.

I have really missed walking out and although this was a short, and really, really slow walk, it was a lot of fun.

Flicker family