Angry Bird

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Earth Day

For some it might be this huge array of solar panels, covering what was once a farm field with a third of a mile's worth of man made non-beauty.

For me it's more like this....

Culture Shock

We are redneck hicks and the first to admit it. We stick close to home most of the time, well within our rural comfort zone, and like it that way. Sophisticated world travelers we are not.

However, yesterday the boss wanted to go to Bass Pro Shop up in Utica. Although I didn't know it, he had hopes of getting me an inexpensive spotting scope. I didn't let him, by the way. There are much more important places to put his money, and I am well served by the tools I already have.

However, all the way around the store, we were kinda, sorta, followed, or maybe it was  coincidence, by a strapping tall fellow in a man bun. Now I am sure you have seen the memes on Facebook, where such a hairstyle is equated with the cancellation of the occupant's man card and all, but this guy wasn't bad looking really. I wouldn't have looked at him twice, even with my admittedly sheltered point of view except....

All through the whole store he busily punched his rude card like it was his job. Sneering in a NYC accent at everything and everyone he encountered in the store. He made fun of binoculars, for Pete's sake. He was big enough to pull it off, but I felt sorry for his girlfriend, who was clearly embarrassed.

Then I thought...maybe a city guy, thrown into a huntin', campin', lots-of-guns-and-gear experience like Bass Pro, was experiencing a little culture shock of his own. Had to indulge in a little self-puffery so as not to feel intimidated by all those danger sticks and camouflage tents.

I dunno. It was sure good to get home to the roar of the nearby racetrack and the rustle of the wind in the bare branches though. Guess I'm too old to change.

Beach Combing

The kitchen windowsill is littered with treasure. I have yet to grow up enough to stop bringing rocks into the house.

Peggy hasn't either and has a fine eye for a nice stone for her grandma.

Added to these fine specimens are now two delightfully smooth pebbles from the beach at Haystack Rock, a solid chunk of obsidian found by a certain fine young man, who was thoughtful enough to lug it around all day in his pocket while he was working, and a stone from California.

Who needs diamonds and pearls? Not me; I have wealth aplenty with some to spare. Love you guys...

Nuts

Red-necked Grebe

We were busy with real life stuff yesterday....getting ready for the kids to visit, as Alan is home from Vancouver WA, running errands, and a plethora of other things, including housework.

I did not expect much in the way of birds or birding. However, all work and no play etc.....so we combined errands with birds.

Bonaparte's Gulls

American Kestrel

And wow, just wow.

First we found a Red-necked Grebe down by McDonald's, which by the way is a great place to bird. They say if you keep buying coffee you can sit in the big front windows and watch the river in warmth and comfort. Anyhow, life bird for me.

Dedication

Then we saw a few more nice seasonal birds in a quick visit to Schoharie Xing, and got a Northern Mockingbird, right where we first saw one last year. Nice bird, as they no longer seem to nest here on the farm. Cold winters I guess. We had ONE last year and winter storm Stella finished him I guess.

Belted Kingfisher

Then on the way over to check out the growing lineup for the spring junk machinery auction, we stopped at a spot we call Bear Swamp, as it is in fact part of that swamp. 

Good weather for ducks...Hooded Mergansers

Almost the whole pond was still frozen, but we were peering at a single Canada Goose out on the ice when the boss said, "You have two more incoming."

I had actually seen them crossing from west to east and dismissed them as just more geese...we see lots of geese. However, since he had mentioned them I trained the binoculars on them and about went nuts.

Sandhill Cranes!!! They are my sort of my grail bird here in NY, especially outside the Montezuma NWR complex. I have NEVER seen them anywhere but there, or in the South or West where they are common. They even obliged me with a couple of photos before wandering off across the sky.

This may be the coldest, wettest, and most miserable spring since the 1800s, but it sure has been spectacular for birds. Downright nuts.

A Might Shiverish

As many loons as i could fit in one shot

It isn't just cold for April, it is ridiculously cold for almost any month. The temps are hanging in the low 30s with endless hard, wet, snow and rain-filled wind.

I was standing right under this beaver tree
until I happened to think about those high winds that were blowing.

I went quickly elsewhere

You have got to be nuts to bird the river and even more nuts to go out to East Canada Lake and stand where the icy air races down the lake, rakes its claws over you, and hustles off to the east.

But, yes, I AM nuts.

Cute little Buffleheads

How else would I get to see a dozen Common Loons fishing together on one lake?

However, I have to say, brrrrrrrrrr.....I think I got a little hypothermic out there today.

Every day is April Fools Day this year

On Being Blind

Bonaparte's Gull

I got my first pair of glasses at age 11....hideous blue rhinestone things that I hated with strong passion. Of course I thought they made me look stupid, but they were also an awful handicap in playing football, baseball, war games, western ranch workers and Native Americans, and other neighborhood pastimes. They were usually taped together in several places until replaced with even uglier black ones.

Great Egret, just up the road from home

Those were followed by many others until I could no longer wear safety glass (protection from flailing cow tails) and had to accept plastic, because, you know, weighty coke bottles and all.

This is not terribly helpful for birding, although I get around it with good binoculars (thanks Alan) and a good idea of what a bird looks like so I can spot them fairly well.

Eastern Phoebe

However, with other things it is a downright difficulty not to be able to see well.

Take the bugs in the kitchen sink for example. (Preferably far, far away). I started out to do the dishes first thing today. Granted it was pretty dark and all. The sink was full of nasty little black things....so many little black things.

Ugh.

Local parking lot

I admit that this has been a bad year for Box Elder bugs and you can pretty much expect them everywhere, but these things were different. I sluiced and swashed, and generally used a lot of very hot water making them go away down the drain.

And then I realized that someone had not quite finished a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream last night....yeah, that's right, not bugs after all. 

Sometimes it's fun being blind.

Can you Stand it?

Female Common Merganser on left, female, or maybe immature male,
depending on you listen to, Red-breasted Merganser, on right

They've been hanging around together for a couple of weeks,
but usually way out in the main current of the river.

More birds.....We found some interesting ones yesterday. Early in the day I hustled up the exposed riverbed for some gulls that were resting on the sandbar.

As I peered through the binoculars I discovered that, not only was the Red-breasted Merganser we have been seeing IN the cove at the end of the Schoharie instead of out in the river as usual, but there was a tiny gull among the Ring-billed and Herring Gulls as well.

The little guy is the Bonaparte's, next to a much larger Ring-billed Gull

It was a Bonaparte's Gull, something we have only see once or twice before here in our inland community. Later in the day it was joined by another....so lots of fun for me. I swear I could spend a day walking the bed of the river and not get bored. So much to see, and always the knowledge that very soon many feet of water will cover the sand and stones where I am leaving hurried footprints.

I wish the pair of Killdeers, which are trying nest out on the sand bar, knew what is soon to come. Guaranteed nesting failure there, poor birds.

More Birds from Recent Days

Male Northern Harrier, you can see why they call him the grey ghost

This guy needs no identification....

Song Sparrow

The Week in Bird Sightings

Killdeer along the Mohawk

Green-winged Teal in a tiny spring pond. We have never seen so many before!

Cedar Waxwing

Canada Geese. They're everywhere, but still fun to photograph

Female Hooded Merganser in another roadside pool

Best bird of the week, a Palm Warbler

On the Land

I used to rejoice in spring when the first furrows rolled out behind the plow in our fields....back in the day....but that doesn't happen much any more.

However, I find much the same joy in watching a beautiful field of river flats down where we go birding every day. I have written about its seasons in the Farm Side, the shaggy coat of rye springing up among last year's corn stubble in the fall and greening up in the spring.

I also love walking the exposed bed of the river

The fine dark brown of the rows as the plow turns the rye down to feed the next spring's crop, and the corn swaying tall and green and fine as summer progresses into fall.

The harvest laying the land bare for the next crop of rye to hold the soil strong for the winter.

Yesterday there were tractors on it, plowing, and spreading valuable organic fertilizer from somebody's cows upon the rye as it was incorporated. We watched for a bit and stole a few photos, reveling in the richness of good soil and good stewardship.

We have seen a few Amish farmers plowing, as horses are lighter and can go on the wet, cold land earlier than English farmers' heavier machinery.

This, though, this was delight. The cycle of preparing the land, planting, feeding, growing, harvest ,and planting the rye to overwinter,warms my farmer's heart every single year. What joy to be able to say, "The farmer is on the land."

National Siblings Day

Once again this year I salute my brothers. They are great guys, who both take care of others just because it is part of their personal makeup. Alas, both are thousands of miles away, much missed by local family.

I love you guys!

Lost

Where, oh, where have they gone?

Over the past week odd things have gone missing....

The bathroom scissors, with which I lop off my hair, for the most part at random...

They are essential. For me a hair cut is not an event, but a process. A sticky-up clump here..whack, it's gone. Another one there...ditto....almost every day. 

The result is a sort of Rod Stewart look only (slightly) younger, plumper, and a lot less jaded. With the scissors gone I will soon be sporting that wild collie look....or maybe Golden Retriever....and that is so not me.

Not here....

Next to vanish was one of the Irish rings I wear.

Mappy and Alan each bought themselves one in Durham a couple of years ago. Alan bought me one too and I have worn it all the time ever since.

Alan's I rescued from his pants pockets, pretty much weekly, back when I was doing his laundry, and wore on my other hand until I saw him next and returned it. Eventually he refused to take it back, so I had one on each ring finger. You can tell them apart by the grout in his and they click together nicely when I get impatient.

However, the left hand one vanished without warning the other day. We cannot find it anywhere.

Thus I walk about unbalanced and shaggy, missing these icons of daily life...Woe is me...

Where, oh, where have they gone????

Guess we'll have to keep looking