Maine Birds

Great Black-backed Gull

 I don't think one post is going to be enough. 

Sanderling with clam on the half shell

Here in Montgomery County I have never seen a Sanderling, although they have been encountered here historically. On the beaches of Maine I saw hundreds upon hundreds, scuttling through the wrack hunting for tiny morsels of food, assorted invertebrates of which there must have been millions. These little cuties nest in the high arctic tundra, but during migration they disperse to sandy beaches all over the world. They are the birds you often see at the edge of the waves, racing in and out with the water, grabbing tasty treats. They are one of my favorite sandpipers.

Semi-palmated Sandpipers

There were equal numbers of Semi-palmated Sandpipers, interspersed with the Sanderlings. (I found one of those at the Schoharie Crossing boat launch this year.)  Shorebirds are challenging to identify to say the least, and I use What's This Bird pretty often. However, semi-palmated means that they have partial webbing between their toes and Sanderlings lack a hind toe altogether, so if they roll over and wave their feet at you, you can easily separate them. Alas not one of them did that, although I did get some pics of Sanderlings with the toe...or lack of one...visible.

Semi-palmated Plover, just for confusion's sake

His little semi-palmated feet

Beach covered with wrack, invasive Asian seaweed
Birds loved it
But ugh!

Cute little Ring-billed Gull

Then there were the gulls, OMG the gulls. There wasn't a single species that isn't common right here in Fultonville in Winter, but hereabouts they don't let you walk up three feet away to take pictures. The larus group in general has a terrible and well-deserved reputation for being pretty awful, but boy, did I have fun with them. Photos of their squabbles and cosmopolitan dietary inclinations beg to be captioned, ferocious clowns that they are. If birds were once dinosaurs gulls aren't far from their ancestors.

Herring Gulls having a kerfuffle 

Best bird of the week, or birds if you prefer, was a pair of American Golden Plovers. After a lifetime of birding "lifers" are scarce and exciting. These were what I consider to be "good" lifers, because they are birds that are very unlikely to show up here...as far as I can tell no one has ever seen one in Montgomery County.  I never saw one on my travels before eBird either, thus more special, than even a Cattle Egret would be, which I have seen right here on the farm, but before eBird. I was astonished to see them fly over and even get a recording of their calls.

A portion of the Parsons Beach area

More of Parson's Beach

Best place we found was Parson's Beach in the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. It was a pretty busy place, so the birds were much disturbed, but there plenty of them there. That was where we saw the plovers. We didn't find the spot until Sunday and were heading out Monday, but Ralph and Becky were kind enough to indulge me with a second visit first thing Monday morning before we left for home.

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret with Great Egret

Just as we were leaving I found another birder counting there...the only birder I met all weekend. It was nice to talk to her about the area. Just before that encounter two little white waders popped into some mud flats with a huge Great Egret. They were Snowy Egrets, birds I hadn't seen since Florida several years ago, and Maine lifers for me. I had been looking for them the whole trip, so they were a nice finish for me.

JSYK, of those 374 photos I took the vast majority were of birds, mostly of sandpipers and gulls. And acres of pinkish seaweed, which had washed ashore with the waves. Research says it is invasive Asian algae. There sure was a lot of it.

Common Eider Duck...and they were too, we saw 
hundreds

I miss Maine already and hope we can hold it together enough to go back next year. 

Huge thanks to Ralph and Becky for walking beaches with me until they got sick of it, then waiting in the car noodling on their phones while I walked some more.

*Travel tip for the parsimonious. I fill empty freezer space with gallon jugs of water to save electricity. We put two in our big cooler and the food and beverages we took along on Friday morning were still cold on Monday, although if we had stayed another day we would have had to buy ice. We just put them back in the freezer when we got home. No watery mess in the bottom of the cooler when they melted either.

Man feeding gulls at Nubble Light
Not me
No way
No how
Not ever.

Dark

 Keeping farmer's hours, a lifelong habit that started when I was walking hots at Saratoga Race Track when I was 20, means we spend a lot of time in the dark. This morning the boss and I walked dogs at around 4:30 AM. The moon had set a long time before and it was dark!!!

Except, that is, for a sky full of stars so bright that they glittered like the creepy eyes of creatures out there in the night when you wish you were inside where it is light and warm. You could find as many constellations as you cared to, shining neon-bright, except for your freezing feet and hands.

And ice frost on all the grass, that glinted in the glow from our flashlights like a dragon's hoard of sparkly diamonds.

Sure was cold though.

Sure was cold.

Cooperstown Coots

 

American Coots

A couple of years ago a nice birder friend let us in on the secret of the American Coots that winter on the end of Otsego Lake where the marina runs bubblers to keep the ice away from the docks. Since then we have made at least one trip each year to add them to my state year list, since the nearest other spot that we have found them to be reliable is Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and that is a long haul for us.

The past couple of weeks I have been watching for an auspicious day to head that way and yesterday sure looked good.....

Lil' bit windy here and colder than is enjoyable for outdoor fun and games but it sure looked doable...

Until we got up on the hills! We are so spoiled by living here near the river where the weather is just a bit moderated by it, especially when it isn't frozen. I forget that the whole state isn't warmed by the rivers. Up on those hills the tiny bit of snow we had experienced overnight was being tossed around in thin, icy streams, by that same cold, miserable wind.

The farther south we went the worse it got. Some counties and towns do a better job than others at plowing, salting and sanding their roads. We quickly figured out which was which.

We discovered that our path took us past the
Ames firehouse pancake breakfast

Also Cooperstown is in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. The higher we went the worse it got. I offered that maybe we should turn back and apologized profusely for even thinking of such a journey.

Whiteout!

The boss is intrepid and he soldiered on, even when at one point we hit a total whiteout where the windshield was awash with nothing but driving snow and the car seemed almost stalled in place by the maddened wind.

There was a certain amount of traffic
despite the ugly conditions

It was so cold when we got there that the boss hustled back to the car after about five minutes near the water. I had to keep putting one of my hand warmers on my ear to ward off frostbite.

But there were coots! Lotsa coots! Over 30 of them. Plus Buffleheads, Common Mergansers and a few geese. 

The ride home was almost, but not quite, as horrific as the trip over. I was pretty darned happy to hit the gravel driveway.

Before I went to bed, I thanked the boss for the coots, as I try to always remember to thank him for our frequent birding trips. He took the opportunity to tease me a bit about cooties....been a while since I had to worry about those. 

Some interesting links

Otsego Lake...117,000,000,000 gallons of gorgeous turquoise water is contained in this beauty.

Cooperstown NY

I don't think I want to chase any coots today, even though the wind has gone down.

Cooties!

A Couple of Months Ago

 

At the early onset of cabin fever, I was lured into the pages of a seed catalog....oh, those tempting, seductive, cover photos...oh, my, oh, my, oh, my downfall.

Now, on the dining room table, because I have so many plants I can't find room for the seed starter tray near the big windows, tiny, almost microscopic, herb plants are poking up out of the soil...

Mexican Mint, which appears to be some kind of marigold. I dunno what it actually is, but the photo caught my eye so onto the order it went. Seedlings are pretty scraggly, but I can hope.

Tiny threads of Orange Thyme appeared yesterday....yes, I peer into the box every day eager for greenery and all that it portends.

So far none of the assorted basils are up yet, but I am excited. I still have a fair amount of BOOM left, but I like to have enough to share and it is  awful good stuff. For years I have dried herbs from the garden to make seasoning blends that suit our taste buds. Two years ago, entirely by accident I happened upon BOOM.

BOOM consists of Sweet Basil, Oregano, and Orange Mint. B-O-OM. We have a kind of feral Oregano/Marjoram stuff that grows free down along the driveway. When Grandma Peggy was still with us, she and I went out one day planting daffodils to naturalize and this herby stuff to see if it would grow. 

The daffs are mostly Ice Follies. They bloom and spread each year, especially on the edges of the spring-soggy ditches, reminding me of her and that day in such a sweet spring way. The Oregano thrives in big patches that smell like pizza when you pick it to dry, which I do most years. I have transplanted it up here by the house several times, but it always freezes out after a winter or two.

The difference in plant life and vitality as you get farther away from the river never fails to astonish me. Down in town I could winter mums for years and years, coaxing them into giant clumps that when properly pinched looked just like the little potted jobs in the store, only waist-high and covering whole beds with huge, round clumps of bloom. Up here...hah...a mile away, but up on the hill...the only ones that will winter are the Sheffields. Good thing I love them. I tried again this year, setting some purchased pots in the ground and covering them a bit, bit but I think the miserable March weather finished them off.

I grew Orange Mint for well over 30 years at several different houses, but a few years ago it faded and died, no matter what I did. It took us several years to get new plants, as it isn't easy to find, but at least last fall we had a big hearty patch. No telling if it is still surviving out there under the snow (which I pile on whenever i shovel, hoping to protect it from the iffy late winter weather).

Anyhow, last year I bought some Sweet Basil plants...lazy, lazy, lazy...and they didn't grow much, nor did they taste very good. So, no BOOM.

This year I bought the Pinetree basil seed assortment, some licorice Basil, and I don't remember what other kinds. Good thing I labeled everything when I planted. Hopefully all come along and I can pot them up and make some BOOM this summer. I don't try to actually grow basil in the ground up here because the weeds outcompete it no matter what I do. Big pots and buckets take care of that.

One thing that will enhance my summer project...Becky just bought a dehydrator. I hate to tell you how many times I warmed the oven to 200, put in some trays of greenery, then shut it off and left them drying, only to have someone else decide to bake biscuits and preheat it for their project. This will end that fun and games.

So, over the next few days some houseplant or project will have to move away from the windows to make room for the seed tray. My compulsion to  grow things has caused pineapple tops in pots, Elephant Ears as tall as I am, Norfolk Island Pines even taller, etc. etc. and they all love the windows.

 I also started some bright red geraniums in kitty litter bottles (cut a third off the long way, leaving a hinge at one end, which makes a handy little roofed tray). They are just getting true leaves now. If I can get them through without damping off and get them potted, hopefully they will bloom this summer. I have a few geraniums that I started down from seed when we lived in the village twenty-some years ago, but they are on their way out, getting weaker each year. It is hard to find the bright, cardinal red ones that I like and I only have one left. My last orange one, which has always stayed tiny, but prolific in blooms, nearly died of root rot this winter. It is repotted but struggling. We shall see. Geranium seed is expensive, hard to find, and not very easy to propagate, but once mature the plants seem stronger and much more beautifully colored than purchased plants.

And there you have it, some of what keeps me occupied while winter pounds us with storm after storm. Happy gardening everyone!

I also planted some of this

Storm Birds

 

Voices tinkling like ice cubes, American Tree Sparrows jingle and flare over a suet block with cracked corn. You'd think they were tough guys the way they argue and fight.

Silver-eyed Common Grackles spread Darth Vader wings, threatening maiming and mayhem. The bad guys of the bird feeders. Everybody gets out of their way.

Red-winged Blackbirds, which normally at this time of year show only butter-won't-melt-in-my-beak pale yellow on their shoulders, squabble at the round feeder.

"Move it, move, it, move it, give over, get outta my way. I'll slay you with my epaulettes!"

Flash, flash, like a dozen stoplights blinking all at once they wear their prowess on their wings.

"No, you move! I'm brighter and redder. I keel you!"

The battle screams against a backdrop of snow-clad twigs and branches.

Jill takes it all in, gives me a sheepish look, and rolls and rolls and rolls in the soft fresh snow. What is up with an Oklahoma dog that is crazy for snow anyhow?

Public Service Announcement

Peregrine Falcon at nest box

 Please do not pick up dead birds.

We've been visiting the Mohawk Valley Gateway Overlook Bridge in Amsterdam pretty regularly lately, hoping to see the nesting Peregrine Falcons there. After being gated for weeks the bridge walkway was finally open today so I could hike over to Riverlink Park. Earlier in the winter I went around the gates and struggled up on the bridge over the ice, but I was waiting every second for someone to arrest me and take me away. Thus I only did it once. Today there was no ice and no gates.

There was indeed a Peregrine Falcon perched on the nest box though. Hopefully they will have a successful nesting season this summer.

There was also the most incredible number of crow droppings and feathers I have ever seen. Had to be experienced to be imagined...no possibility of taking a single step without crunching on a dozen.

Icky.

I soon encountered five of the cutest, sweetest kids you could imagine. They thought I was a photographer and asked me to take pics of them. When they discovered that my camera could not provide them with a copy, they had me use one of their phones to take one for them.

Off they went.

Before I could realize what they were doing they came upon a dead crow that I had not noticed. One girl picked it up in her arms and carried it off to try to toss it in the river.

Missed. 

I caught up with them and gently suggested that prompt and thorough hand-washing would be in order due to the possibility of Avian Influenza.

They looked at me like I had three heads and went on about their business (which looked to be a morning of fun on the bridge.)

Hopefully the crow met its fate in some other way and the kids and nesting Peregrines will be fine.

Also hopefully the roost disperses soon. What a mess! Geese spend some time on the grass there too, so I am sure you can imagine. My shoes got a good dose of disinfectant when we got home.

Anyhow, picking up dead critters without gloves etc. is not a good idea, especially with such a deadly disease making the rounds among the wild things. It would be great if it ran its course soon.

Owling

Old Photo

 Alan spotted a Barred Owl up near the old pasture gate a couple times this week. I tried for it yesterday morning but was tied up with the holiday and I guess I didn't get out there early enough to encounter it.

Today rain was predicted so I didn't have much hope of a good chase. However when I got up there was just a tiny bit of frozen stuff coming down....little ice pellets that you could  barely see in the light from the headlamp.

The air was still. My breath curled around my head like smoke from a gentle campfire. It was about as quiet as it gets, what with all the trains and the Thruway so near, so I knew if there was something to hear I would hear it.

It is different out there in the dark, even with a good flashlight and a handy-dandy headlamp. Derelict milkweed pods look like something left behind by an alien spaceship. Dried goldenrod gleams ghostly, rimed by a thin coating of frost that will melt soon in the coming rain. Even the White-throated Sparrows that hit the feeder every day before dawn are still sleeping.

I climbed up about as far as where the old 892 chopper went to die. All was quiet. I played a little bit of hooting and hollering on my phone....and instantly there it was, off in the heifer pasture woods, a female solicitation call, clear as the lights of the town across the river. It went on calling as long as I stood there and most of the time it took me to walk back down the hill to the barn...but never when I was trying to record it.

And there you have it, one more thing for which to be thankful (and there are many).

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, as did we, what with kids and grandkids in and out all day, and a terrific meal, which everyone tall enough to reach the counters helped prepare. Happy Owlidays from all of us at Northview to all of you everywhere. And hugs...lots of hugs. 

It was as if

 

The moon was sweeping the stars away on this dark and frosty morning.

Stars that bright are only seen here, so close to the lights of the towns, when wintery air descends upon us. 

Today at pre-dawn dog walking time there was a center line in the sky, bright, gleaming, glowing stars sparkling on the west, foggy blue-grey nothingmuch to the east with the moon holding court just east of center.

But no, it was the sun, wielding the broom from his hiding place just below the horizon. No stars now, just clear, icy blue skies with a narrow touch of lacy ice fog around the edges.

First Frost

 

Someone's horse all ready for the coming season

The latest I can remember, one full week after the usual on the 12th. Hard ice on the car windows....brrr.

Now we will have to dig the cannas, a job I heartily dread. I have bad knees and hard shoveling is terribly unkind to them. However, their high-flung red flowers, feet above my head, are like magnets to hummingbirds, and beautiful to boot. Also I need to plant some garlic in one of the rows.

It won't be long now

Been putting up plastic and the like over leaking windows and doors and in the course of so doing found out why my bedside sheepskin became so moth-eaten as to need to be tossed out.

See, last spring we found flying squirrels, mama and babies, living in the closed off space between the windows and the plastic in our bedroom. They were cute and tame, and Liz caught them all and released them in a more appropriate environment...that is to say, outdoors.

Anyhow, down behind the chest next to the window, I found a sweet little nest, round and fluffy and golden....not to mention woolen...made up of curls from my bedside rug.

Dagnabbit. I've had that rug for nearly forty years. And I never heard them pillaging it as I slept. Unless maybe they did it in the daytime. Wretched creatures.

Redhead

Best birds of recent weeks were Surf Scoters in two counties, plus a Redhead duck with one set of scoters. Redheads are usually late winter/early spring ducks for us, but this lovely male has been hanging around Lock 12 for at least a week.

Also the flotillas of sparrows of various sorts eating weed seeds in the yards have been quite entertaining. I marvel at the variations in color in the Song Sparrows. From pale tan through rich honeyed golden tones, to cinnamon and chocolate. No wonder people have trouble identifying them...myself included sometimes, although I am getting better. And there are a LOT of White-throated Sparrows around, at least twenty each morning. They often come in to the feeder when it still dark and then disperse out into the fields for the day.

Anyhow, the growing season is done for us, hopefully the yellow jackets as well. They seem to love me and want to get all too friendly. Happy Fall to all.

This ewe is ready for the season,
Sporting a fashionable jacket of fun fall grasses

Well, actually, the sheep ate the center of the round bale first
and it appears that some of the outside fell on her.

Iris was unconcerned and enjoyed her newfound popularity

Out for the Singing

 

Chestnut-sided Warbler

The sky is a glass of orange juice at the horizon, cold weak tea at the zenith.

There is a singing to the Lord that cannot be ignored.

Hustle the dog back inside with double biscuits for the inconvenience and head back out for the songs.

An Eastern Towhee uncoils a string of notes far more intricate and joyful than the traditional mnemonic "Drink your Tea". It's more like a "drink your cool sweet honey wine at dawn while the sky paints beauty all around" kind of sound.

Warbling Vireo

Two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks chirp round, rich notes at each other, as mellow as Georgia peaches, and sweet as pecan pie.

It's cold out here. The weather guru says 38 degrees, but I think there is ice on the cars. Supposed to hit 70 today but it's gonna take a few hours to get there.

I cannot sleep in. I started getting up stupid early the year Riva Ridge won the Derby. I was not long out of high school and "walking hots" at Saratoga Race Track for the summer.

Green Heron

I had to be there at five, so I had to get up at four to drive to the track. I loved it. There is magic on the backstretch as the sun comes up. Horses galloping or jogging through the mist. Grooms sharing a quick coffee between sets. Grooms buying me coffee because they were nice guys and there were very few girls working there then. I can never forget it. I can also never get over waking up too early.

Milking cows for forty or fifty odd years (some of them very odd) reinforced the tendency. It got into my blood, and in summer I awaken just before four whether I want to or not. 

American Redstart

In some ways it is a pain. There are no cows to milk and no Thoroughbred dragons to guide in circles on the walking ring....just a Jack Russell Terrier making his impatience known, and the cold, dark sky.

I have to be quiet so as not to wake the more normal denizens of our abode. Sometimes a more normal hour would be a pleasant change. At least in winter I can occasionally sleep until five or so.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

However, in May it all pays off. Even when it's cold, I can go outside for the singing. Here is a recording of the just the American Robin portion of today's singing....You may need headphones to hear it well. The speakers on my computer won't play it...

Pretty soon everybody else will get up and the birds will get quiet, but for now it's a pretty special time of day.

Yellow-throated Vireo