Attempted Murder

 If you visit the boat launch at Schoharie Crossing, beware of the lane near the aqueduct. It is a pretty rough neighborhood.

I bravely stupidly walked there today and was nearly assaulted. As I strolled under a black walnut tree, tennis ball-sized nuts began to rain down and I do mean rain. Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud, one after another a lot faster than I can type. The farther I walked the faster they came.

I held my binoculars on top of my head (better them than me) and hustled to get out from under that tree, only to realize (see stupid above) that the entire lane is lined with walnut trees. When I finally reached the relative safety of a giant black locust I looked back to see a red squirrel literally racing up a branch, nipping nut stems and dropping them as fast as he could run!

Dang! What did I ever do to him?

He kept dropping nuts until I was good distance away and then went back to gathering in for winter.

Speaking of red squirrels, check out this pile of spruce cones. Red squirrels gather and pile them for winter storage. They eat the seeds contained under the scales. They do a lot of dropping of these too, and they sound like cannon fire as they ricochet off the dry lower branches of the trees, but they don't seem quite as threatening as the walnuts.

Maybe I should get a helmet. 

Staycation

Gray Catbird

We had intended to visit Maine again this fall and Becky took several days off to accommodate same. However, she and I both had a hinky feeling about it and we pretty much stayed home...just took trips within NY. 

White-crowned Sparrow

Guess that was a good thing, as the car coughed up a stabilizer bar Saturday and was clunking mightily at every corner. It wasn't a big or expensive fix but it nixed our planned trip up north to Tupper Lake to see Canada Jays and look for other boreal birds, plus tourist around a little.

Since it got fixed so quickly we chased around a little yesterday afternoon, but the best birding of the day was from my chair in the backyard with the pleasant companionship of my good buddy Earl.

Earl is a wonderful birding companion,
never makes a sound and sits perfectly still

I have been pretty much stalled on adding species to my 2025 Montgomery County list, but two nice ones showed up yesterday, a Mourning Warbler that was noodling around in the honey locust tree and then flew almost into my face, and a group of Lincoln's Sparrows that seemed to be everywhere at once.

Song Sparrow

Why is it that the cool birds are so hard to photograph? I can get decent shots of Magnolia Warblers and Common Yellowthroats almost every year, but something uncommon like that MOWA is impossible to catch. I spent at least an hour creeping around the yard trying to get a photo of one of those LISPs, but only captured about a dozen Song Sparrows, another cooperative species of bird when it comes to photos.

Ha, ha, I win....

Guess I will go out now, and put the old sleeping bag in my chair, haul out my coffee, bins, and camera and see what I can find.

Looking for peanuts

The Blue Jays are hollering for their peanuts...

The chipmunks stole all the peanuts.....

Update: I was a bit luckier this afternoon....

Lincoln's Sparrow

Tripping with the Birds

 It appears to have been a while since I posted here. Busy, busy, busy, getting the houseplants situated back in the house, picking tomatoes and turning them into frozen red sauce, and chasing after birds all over the place.

First was the Barrens Birding Blitz, my first venture into competitive team birding. As you might imagine I loved it. I saw a number of advertisements for it., but knew I couldn't go, as we only have one car. Then my friend and birding mentor, George Steele, asked if I would like to team up with him for the day.

Been experimenting with editing....

Well, heck yes! It was a lot of fun. I hadn't been to the Pine Bush since the early seventies, and although it has changed...A LOT...it is still a magical place. I could walk all day on the sandy trails through field and forest. We found forty-two species in the five-hour time window and I came home with my first ever bird event tee shirt.

Then we took what turned out to be a staycation. We had intended to head for Maine for four or five days but real life intruded on that plan, so we did local-ish trips. A shopping trip for Becky Thursday, Montezuma for me on Friday, McFadden's machinery auction for Ralph yesterday, and hopefully a trip north tomorrow.

Montezuma was weird. They drained the main pool to control unwanted vegetation I guess, and although it is said to be refilling now, there was very little water and almost no birds there. However, we visited Van Dyne Spoor Road for the Sandhill Crane unit and that was packed with egrets, herons, coots, gallinules and ducks. The Audubon Center had a nice  number of shorebirds, but it was pretty hot by the time we got there and I was about walked out, so we didn't see all of it.

Black-throated Green Warbler

Home birding was nice too. I am working on taming the locals by feeding cracked corn and peanuts right in the driveway by my backyard birding office chair. The jays and chipmunks are hilarious as they war over the peanuts.

Northern House Wren

Anyhow, please excuse my long pauses in writing here. Real life is just so interesting this time of year. Hugs

Happy Birthday Amber

 

Creepy

He's out there again. It was around four-thirty when I took the dog out this morning. I happened to glance up and there he was, strutting around like he owned the sky and glaring down his nose at me. He is worse than a Kilroy peering over a fence!

Oh, he's pretty enough and during his season the sky is often so clear as to spotlight his stardom out there in the sky. However, he has nothing to say that I want to hear. It is already cold enough to remind both me and the boss of Labor Days when we were kids and first frost came at fair time and corn chopping was going strong already. 

I have the best crop of tomatoes I have managed in years out there in the garden and I really, really, really want to get to eat them.

I hope that old devil, Orion, can keep his sights on the sky and save his wintery mischief for later.

Meanwhile, what a weekend... Got to visit the best of all aunties, not once, but twice. Got to go the fair with all of both our kids, all the grandkids, assorted ponies, and other livestock and a good time was had by all. Got to watch the ponies in their halter class and meet the kids' goats and Liz's goat, which is spoiled beyond all imagining, and walked 15000 steps, which is half again my normal count. I think there was a sheep involved as well.

A Baldy Jay

Had the unrivaled experience of following Alan through the poultry barn. He can imitate turkey calls with no aids, no scratch box, or mouth call, nothing but his voice...and he can fool anyone...including the turkeys. A few little hen clucks as he walked along and all the toms were strutting and calling and shuffling. It was pretty funny. I do believe he used to do the same thing in the crowded stairwell at college when he was studying fisheries and wildlife. I don't think anyone every figured out where the turkey was....

Anyhow, welcome to Fall...

Diamond, photo by Becky

Birding Mongolia

 

Well not really, but rather the top of a mountain my brother was kind enough to take me to visit. While atop that mighty peak my Merlin app decided that I should identify birds in MOHRON which is evidently the language of Mongolia.

This was somewhat interesting, but because I spend so much of my time birding and know the app well, I could actually make it work, a good thing, as I didn't get it fixed until after I was home.

See, I had mentioned to my brother that I really wanted to go up Whiteface Mountain high in the top of the Adirondacks. This was partly because I hoped to experience a Bicknell's Thrush, but mostly because I had never been and I have a gleeful heart for the 'Dacks.

The ride up was worth the trip. Routes 8 and 9N abound with breath-catching vistas that come so fast you can barely keep up.

The mountain defies description. It is high, wild, and mighty. I even delighted in the elevator to the tippy top. I had hoped to climb the trail to the summit from the parking area, but about twelve steps up I decided discretion was the better part of valor...or in other words, I am too old for that stuff. 

The "easy" part of the trail to the summit, a resounding NOPE for me

Mike boldly went where sisters fear to go, while I was grateful to take the somewhat tamer route. But then again, just how tame is a tunnel that goes deep into a mountain with a 50.149 smoot high elevator at the end? (Since I visually estimate small distances in units of Ralph, I was tickled to discover smoots. 

The tunnel

I was thrilled by the top of the mountain, the sides of the mountain, the inside, outside and all sides of the mountain, but Mike had even more excitement in store for me.

The gondola ride at Little Whiteface was just down the road. As a kid I was terrified of fast, high, spinny, bouncy, scary carnival rides. I would go on the merry-go-round and that was about it. However, there must be some compensation for becoming ancient. I enjoyed that gondola ride insanely. I am sorry to say my video of same failed for some reason, but the sensation of soaring up sheer cliff faces on the way up, then gliding down into the valleys and ravines on the way down made me feel like an eagle slip-sliding through the sky. I hope I dream about it.

Boreal Chickadee

Then at the top, as I merrily explained to a lady who was asking about the birds we were hearing...Black-capped Chickadees and what I thought were Tufted Titmice...I pulled out my Mongolian Merlin to check out something else I was hearing, (probably a Golden-crowned Kinglet). However in my wild excitement I forgot to further pursue it. The "titmice" were Boreal Chickadees. We have spent the past several years chasing after them and there they were, a gift from the sky and my next younger brother. Life bird number 276.

So thanks Michael, thank-you mountain, and thank-you Maker of the Mountains.

It was a great day that I won't forget any time soon. I love Mongolia. Who knew?

Taking Pishing to a New Level

Blue-winged Warbler

 I have recently graduated to the level of pishing...making funny noises so birds come out to see what new mischief is afoot...where birds sometimes actually emerge to investigate, although not always. (Not even the majority of the time.)

However the weird sounds I can make have been known to get Barred Owls hooting way off the in the woods, and even to sometimes come floating up to the roadside to check me out. And I can almost always "get" a Song Sparrow or two. Plus Common Yellowthroats, the nosiest warblers in the bushes.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird in our garden

Today, I topped my ultimate best ever pishing effort and I am here to tell you I will never forget about it.

Ralph suggested that since the warblers are beginning to disperse and even to migrate  we go out to Lost Valley State Forest. He would wait in the car and I would walk the wild walk.

It was fun. I was able to tease out a couple of Blue-winged Warblers and almost got a woodpecker six-pack (no Pileated this time). 

The pond at Burbine Forest

About ninety minutes in I topped the big hill almost at the end and after catching my breath noticed a little rustle in the brush about four or five Ralph-lengths away from me. (I have long used the mental image of the length of multiples of Ralph stretched end-to-end to measure short distances in my head. Thus it was about four or maybe five times just under six feet....don't laugh...it works.)

Since I had been having White-tailed Deer stomping and barking at me since I got out of the car I tested my deer barking skills. Cough. Cough. Bark. I bark back at deer all the time. The thing began to move off...I thought it might be a bird as a few small branches were moving.

Thus I tried out my finest level of pishing. A bird did fly out and crossed the road maybe five or six Ralph lengths down the hill.

Another catbird. Dagnabbit. There must be a million of them.

 Right behind it was a Black Bear.

Yep, I was just a few husband lengths away from a bear I couldn't see.

Thankfully my incredible squeaking and hissing and barking-like-a-deer skills must have terrified it. It loped off down the hill as fast as if it were hot on the trail of a pic-a-nic basket.

I did not lope back to the car, but let me tell you, it did NOT take me an hour and a half to retrace my steps.

Oddly enough I grew up playing in the woods and have hiked many mountain trails and birded hard over our home county, plus the two adjacent ones and have only ever seen one other bear in the woods.

To my thinking that is enough.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Camp Week

 

Common Yellowthroat at Benham Marsh

Was a mixed bag. Birding was phenomenal with 84 eventual species, a couple of great outings, one  with my BBB, Kris Harshman, and one with my favorite middle offspring, Becky.

Immature Green Heron at Cline Road Marsh

There were also the stairs from HELL.

Driveway of the same origin. It gave anything without topnotch four-wheel-drive that awful sinking feeling.

Neighbors about whom I will make no further comment.

Nearly perfect weather.

Sunrises to inspire poets to great flights of fancy.

Common Loons. One night they purred and chortled and chuckled and hooted all night long. It was a great delight to half-awaken to hear their secret conversations, then to drift off to dream of wild places remote from the real.

Car trouble, which put an end to the fun birding excursions.

Awful photo of a Canada Warbler

Canada Warblers.

Red crossbills.

Bonaparte's Gulls.

Broad-winged Hawk

We decided not to renew our reservation for next year unless they can get us into a north shore cabin with no HELL stairs. Becky and I both fell off them more than once. I am getting too old for that kind of sport. It made me sad though. We have been enjoying the lake since I was five or six...or possibly even younger, so it is a significant part of our family culture. I hope we can get into a safer, quieter cabin. Otherwise we will have to find something else to do.

Been debating whether this is a pure American
Black Duck or if there is some Mallard there. Lots of mutts on the
lake

Anyhow, back home now with the laundry all caught up and the garden beginning to give up its goodies for our suppers...fresh green beans last night with homegrown garlic and herbs and store-bought carrots and celery.

Sure good.

Many thanks to Becky for making camp possible and being the best of companions, to Ralph for taking care of our doggo and keeping the porch plants thriving...those hanging baskets can be a PIA...and to Kris for the crossbills and a really fun afternoon in the mountains. Also for super helpful camera tips, which upped my game immensely.