Northview Diary: We Miss You Alan

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Cough

The things you see

The boss went to a ballgame last night so I rewarded myself for putting up vegetables all day with a walk up behind the barn. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, as Sunday Stills is landscapes this week and you have to get up high here to get good ones.

I was right behind the barn, not fifty feet from where the boss had been unloading the hay he made all day, when a sharp cough about startled me out of my skin. It was like a big dog barking right at me really close.

Aliens have landed

She was startled too I guess, as she bounded off through the tall weeds with her tail flagging in alarm. I don't know that I have ever been quite that close to a wild deer before, nor do I want to be again. Three feet is not enough distance between us!

With the cows gone there is far too much wilding going on. I spent some time waiting to see the source of some sharp chip notes right in the barnyard to find that they were indeed produced by a pair of Indigo Buntings... The grasses have grown tall with no cows to nibble them down and they were eating the seeds. One of the does, maybe the one I almost stepped on, had her fawns right there this spring.

Later I stalked two birds all the way down the hill, only to find that they were just Song Sparrows.....of which we have dozens and dozens. Oh, well, someday I will see another Lincoln's. It was a good walk and just the right way for a nature loving introvert to spend an evening off.

You may want to turn your volume up a little while you watch our tiny dancer and hear her new favorite song.