Out on the Hill

 

Back in the day, when we filled all the mows in all the barns with sweet-scented bales, and loaded two silos with fermented corn and grass, and spent most of the summer out on the hills, there were owls there.

There was a cherry tree back in the Sixty-acre Lot with a cavernous hollow half way up. We thought the big ones...the Great Horned Owls... nested there. We saw them there at half-dark sometimes.

When a mother skunk was hit down on the road and her litter of little stinkers paraded up and down the driveway preventing us from going out or getting home, Great-Horned Owls took care of that situation and quite quickly too, hooty, hoo, hoo.

We would hear them calling in the dusk, song of the wild, don't you know. 

And we took them for granted. 

Until they vanished.

In later years the only messages they shared with us were occasional feathers tangled in the wild roses out on the heifer pasture hill, marking where they had hunted for something that tried to hide there.

We didn't see them any more. Oh, we always had Barred Owls. Alan would see them out in daylight when he hunted, and if I walked back on the hill before the sun came up I would hear them haunting the old pastures.

But no Tiger Owls were heard or seen.

They may have been there all along. We don't make hay or grow corn any more, and if I walk out on the hills it is usually in daylight. 

Then the other night I went forth at dusk to bring the dog on down to dinner. The mosquitoes were out, as was a waxing gibbous moon. I was glad only one of them wanted to bite me.

As the dog dragged me up the step I heard a thrush calling. I went back out to see if it was a Hermit Thrush (it was),

There in the dead tree up by the old spring was a thick spot in its shrouded silhouette...just a tiny anomaly in the outline of the branches.

I know that tree as well as I know the painting across from my chair in the living room.

That spot was something.

The camera with its extra zoom showed me what.

A Great Horned Owl, just beginning his night hunt. As I watched through the screen he lifted off on heavy wings and floated off to the east, seeking skunks maybe or perhaps just gleaning field mice from the tangled woodland there..

It made my night and maybe even my year.

One of those best birds you sometimes find but never often enough.

Big Atlas Weekend

 

Disheveled and downright soggy,
this poor Red-tailed Hawk was being mobbed
by Blue Jays as well as getting wet.
Did I mention it was raining?

Several state breeding bird atlases are having a late June event to get folks out and counting during a very busy time for baby birds.

One of the goals is to get birds discovered and coded in blocks that are not well birded. The block we live in, a priority block, is complete. Somebody who birds like it was their job just happens to be based there....I won't name names, but if you click the link....

Anyhow, the boss was kind enough to take me birding this morning in this block, quite local, also a priority block, and only having two species confirmed. 

It was fun. I used to keep my first-ever, long ago, horse, Magnum, at a farm within the block, so I know the roads by heart after riding them so many times. Things have changed since those Stone Age days though...new houses, new woodlands, no more Red-headed Woodpeckers, which used to be common there.

Savannah Sparrow,
a fairly common grassland bird. 

We found two more Common Raven nests on silo platforms, making five that we have observed in Montgomery County now. Also a good showing of grassland birds in the farm fields, a nice group of Veerys, all singing like mad, and assorted other summer visitors.

I am pretty sure we will not, however, even attempt to complete the block. Most places we bird we are a familiar sight and no one pays any attention to us. (Although someone did shoot at us last month!!!) In this new area, we will probably be viewed with suspicion, especially if we try night birding. I don't want to hear the sound of someone racking a round while I'm recording with Merlin.  Also there aren't many good places to pull off the road and there is a lot more traffic than in the Magnum days. 

I did discover that the area where we bird Lyker's Pond is also a priority block, but then again, that's where I heard a rifle nearby and saw the projectile kick up water about thirty feet from me....

Another Common Raven nest on a silo platform

October Big Day and Global Bird Weekend

Immature White-crowned Sparrow

Everyone had big plans for this weekend (that didn't involve birds). We were going to have another sale up at the house, trying to get the place empty. No go. They paved the road a while back and never striped it, so you can't tell where the shoulders are. Thus folks are afraid to pull off the side to become customers.

So no sale. Ugh.

However, that leaves me free to participate in Global Bird Weekend to my heart's content...even if I end up staying home to do so. 

It's foggy this morning so I am lazing here at my computer for a bit before I go out and do a little haunting in the yard.

Lincoln's Sparrow, basking on some firewood

 However, soon now...the Carolina Wrens have already been yelling from the mulberry trees so I know they will want to be counted first...wings in the air and all like eager school kids. I can't wait to call on them.

You can find the details about the main event, October Big Day, here. It's fun. Go out and count as many birds as you can find and submit a checklist...or ten...to eBird. Easy peasy.

I don't expect to find anything wildly exotic today. However for the past couple of weeks I have been able to count most of the expected area migrants right in the backyard. Right in three particular trees in fact, although they frequent other spots as well. However, I can park in my chair near the honey locust, Winesap apple, and blue spruce trees and catch the morning show almost every day. Many of the travelers eat insects. The sun hits those three trees early, warms the bugs up so they become active, and the breakfast bar is open.

The only birds I haven't seen in the yard from the list for our county during fall migration (here) are Killdeer, and those we get in summer. 

Anyhow, I hear Canada Geese rising up from the river, so time to go out to see what I can find. Happy birding!

Cute little Nashville Warbler

Far from Home

We made it to the Outer Banks today after a pretty rough trip. It is everything the kids told us and more. As I sit here in our hotel room, which is very pleasant, a Laughing Gull is calling over the parking lot. We went to a lighthouse today and to TWO beaches. 

Somebody found a lot of shells for Miss Peggy.

Saw tons of birds without even looking too hard. 

Great fun, and kudos to the boss for getting us here in one piece against great odds. There are some pretty crazy drivers around our nation's capital, dontcha know?

Fish Crow staking out some territory. They sound like
regular crows after helium

The Cradle

Lesser Scaup in front of McDonald's last winter

This is never the best time of year for me. The short days and gloom and all..... it has been somewhat better than usual this fall, what with chasing birds every day, but it is still a season I endure rather than enjoy.

And don't get me started on Christmas.

There is however, one phenomenon that only happens in the winter that I have been anticipating daily.

The powers that be empty our river about this time of year, turning it from a massive anaconda that eats at its banks as if they were a herd of feral pigs, to a thin ribbon of silver, slipping between gravel bars and shallow mud pools. (Wish it was like that year round.)

This brings the most amazing birds you could imagine to our tiny inland town. It concentrates them wherever that is a little open water. The area downtown by McDonald's, where Becky is a manager, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, where we go most every day, and Yankee Hill Lock, where we go except in summer, turn into legit hot spots. Loaded with birds....sometimes quite rare ones. Some days we count geese in the thousands, hundreds and hundreds of ducks, and more gulls than you would conceive.

Winter water levels transform the barren banks and pools in front of our farm into a nighttime safe space for Canada Geese and Mallards. I listen for their thin voices through the clamor of the Thruway and the rumble of the trains, both morning and night when I go out with doggies or just go out in the dark. It is usually dark, after all.....

This morning they were there...rocking in the river cradle and chattering quietly in the late of the night and the early of the morning. I was glad.

Common Merganser at Schoharie Crossing SHS

Snow on the Roof

Check out these odd leucistic, or piebald birds we found over the past week or two. Above is an unusual Canada Goose with a white head. Below, an American Robin, ditto. We found the Canada at Lock 12 the other day, and the Robin at Lyker's Pond. Amazingly there was another one that was almost entirely white with just a little red on the sides, but I missed a photo of that one.

We also found a White-winged Scoter and a Pied-billed Grebe for the county, but missed a Cattle Egret, despite driving around for quite a while looking for it.....

Good Bird

Despite a week busy with hay and such, we saw some decent birds. One was lifer for me, a Louisiana Waterthrush, not a rare bird, but a kind of dull, secretive ground-dwelling warbler.

We went down to the river the other day. It was low and as in fall and spring I could walk right up the edge to the aqueduct. There, shuttling around in the phragmites, bobbing like a sandpiper was the waterthrush.

Just call me Mr. Blue
Indigo Bunting

 I was quite thrilled. Yesterday rain once again shut down haying operations plus a spring broke on the baler. No parts on Sunday so we are going to give Montezuma a go today if everything works out all right. Fingers crossed.

One of August's most reliable singers....

Another Summer, Another Singer

You might remember how the little front porch opens onto the big front hall, with the tall stairway and two stories of space acting as sounding board and echo chamber for anything on that porch.

And how certain birds have figured that out and like to sing in front of the screen door when we have the big doors open....a small bird can sound like a screaming eagle...or a smoke detector out there. Prolly really impresses the ladies and scares passing intruders.

Over the years it has been utilized by all manner of birds, from the Great Crested Flycatcher with his strident "Wheep!" to Carolina and House Wrens and many others.

Yesterday and today the singer has been an American Redstart. Before I learned to recognize their song I thought it was a big deal to find one. Now I realize that we are surrounded. We hear them everywhere we go, count them on nearly every summer list, and see them much more often now that we can hear them if that makes sense to you.

Their call is pretty noticeable to begin with, but amplified by that hallway....well, it'll wake you up all right. I keep going to the door to see if I can see the singer.

Week of Birds

Baby Grackles. Their parents have utterly fouled...or should it be fowled...my garden pond,
dumping fecal sacs into it. Can't wait until they fledge.

LOTS of these around this year

Brown Thrasher. They nest in the wild roses near the lawn

Baby Starling, yippee skippy

Mi Vida NOCA

I know, I know, it's Mi Vida Loca. But since we sold the cows and our world contracted to a microcosm of its former self, I have kept myself entertained with birds...as you have no doubt noticed....

So for me it has become mi vida NOCA, the latter being the four digit code for Northern Cardinal. BTW I am learning this code for listing because it is a lot quicker to write RWBL than it is to scribble Red-winged Blackbird. I keep hoping the FBI will snoop on one of my lists and think I am a super spy.

It's fun and it gets me and the boss out of the house. He likes to tool around town to see who has a nice barn, who bought a new tractor, whose rows are straight and whose are curly.

I like to find ticks for my lists.

It's kinda loca, but it works for us.

Anyhow, yesterday in the midst of cold howling wind, he needed to go over to Fonda to get a gallon of milk. He asked if I wanted to go down to the boat launch. Since we had seen Green-winged Teal there the day before and listed them on eBird, I agreed despite the nasty weather. GWTE are among my favorite ducks right up there with Ruddy Ducks and Northern Pintails. When the sun hits those green heads there isn't a thing in Oz to compare.

As we arrived another gentleman did too. He was tall and well dressed and sported good binoculars. Ooohhh, a birder! I have only ever met one other birder in our travels, up at Montezuma a while back.

I so wanted to go over and chat, but just couldn't (see introvert, shy, etc.)

Next he took a huge spotting scope out of his car, put it on a tripod, and began scanning the hundreds of geese, scattering of assorted ducks, crows, RWBLs etc. I was consumed with curiosity.

Then he began to fold everything up to leave...and came over to talk to us!

He had come because someone had reported Green-winged Teal there. Maybe it was even my eBird report that sent him down to the confluence of the Schoharie and the Mohawk.

Anyhow, we chatted for a minute or two about the birds there and about Iceland Gulls, which are seen around here now and then, and which I think I may have seen, and then he was on his way. A couple of Bald Eagles sailed by as if in celebration.

It was a little on the loca side, but super cool as well. You simply never know when serendipity will send you a special moment in your wonderful, amazing, and frequently crazy life.

Kicking over the Traces

Tomorrow the family Christmas get together.

Sunday the holiday itself. With a two-year-old. She is so excited.

Monday Johnstown CBC. 

Monday night. If all goes well, and the good Lord willing, and the crick don't rise, and all of the ifs ands and buts fall into line.

Heading south. Where the birds and the sunshine live.

Good Birds

White-throated Sparrow

It froze hard last night, so although the walking wasn't great, it was possible so I went out on a little half-mile count. 

250 Canada Geese

11 Mallards

Mourning Dove

Assorted small birds 

One Red-tailed Hawk.

And the highlight of the day, a male Common Merganser winging it west along the river. I saw him from the driveway so he counts, right? He is getting added to the farm count, which has stalled badly the last few weeks.

Downy Woodpecker

Duck, Duck, Goose

First the duck. The white on this duck is actually white, not an artifact of the light in the photo. I have put it up on every bird group I belong to and no one has ventured a suggestion of what it might be. Leucistic something or other or some kind of duck we don't recognize? any ideas?

It was hanging with a bunch of Blue-wined Teal.

And then the goose....er......geese.....as you may guess we went up to Montezuma Sunday, before visiting Sundae on the Farm later in the day.

And finally....swan lake