Flock Life

Another Middle-aged Visitor from Canada

I have a lot of photos of Redheads, but somehow I can't resist....

We found another neck band tagged Canada Goose yesterday, this time down on the Mohawk . It was pouring rain and not easy to get a readable photo but we did.

Lesser Scaup as well
I have been struggling to decide whether the birds we see are Greater
or Lesser Scaup. Worrying about bill nails and head notches and feather patterns
Then I read this article that says that male Greater have only green iridescence on their heads
Never purple. Made this guy a lot easier.....Lesser

Turned in a band report and was not surprised to discover that this goose came from the same place in Canada and was banded by the same man as last week's bird. The tag was the same color...white on orange...as the 12-year-old male we found last week...and very close to the same number series.

This bird was a female thirteen years of age, also banded when too young to fly.

How cool is it to see a single bird....or maybe two or even three, although we still haven't heard on the bird with the red or pink tag....among tens of thousands and to know where they were hatched?

There are indeed thousands of geese in the valley this week. Guesstimating counts for eBird reports is an interesting challenge. I imagine many of them are on their way to Canada along with the banded ones. I  don't think I will ever grow tired of hearing their wild cries as they fly overhead or launch into the air when an eagle passes over on the river.

Interesting tourists indeed.

The Things you See

Rough-legged Hawk, probably one of the last of the season
Flew just as I clicked the shutter...lucky me

Sunset

Moonrise

Roadside heifer hazzard

Happy Birthday

To our youngest, but not leastest. Over the past year he has married a wonderful young lady, adding a delightful family to our extended one, purchased a house, albeit four hours away, and also acquired a couple of good doggos.

We miss him and Amber as well, but we are darned proud of them.

So, happy birthday, Alan, hope you have a wonderful day. 

Sometimes a Great Mother

Sheep that is. And sometimes not. Some ewes take wonderful care of their babies, guard them, clean and feed them, and love on them like nobody's business.

Some are just plain horrible.

Yesterday a sheep, which unfortunately belongs to Peggy, lambed with a tiny ewe. She instantly realized that it was the devil incarnate and not only would not feed it, but beat it severely.

Liz brought it into the kitchen where many another infant animal has resided before it. Alas, it was in terrible shape to the point of "pedaling". If you have livestock you know what that means.

Liz managed to get colostrum substitute into her several times, but by mid-afternoon her mouth was cold and she could not raise her head.

Thus we faced the virtually inevitable. However, Liz just kept trying and stayed up until midnight feeding her. Peggy, being her mother's daughter, wanted her to sleep in her bed, but a cardboard box seemed a better choice.

I hated to even ask this morning, but as you can see she is standing up, taking nourishment, and chasing sun spots around the kitchen floor. At one point she and Ren were snuggled up together, but I missed that. 

This does not mean that she will survive for sure. Sheep are not so very hardy alas, and lambs that have been cold don't often thrive. However, she sure looks a lot better than she did yesterday.

Creatures of the Night..or Features, as the Case May Be

FORTY-EIGHT of these in about two miles of road. Driving was
not boring

Not a Youth by any Means

Turns out that goose number Y5Y1 was middle aged for his species, Canada Goose, and hatched in Varennes, Quebec, which is near Montreal. 

He was banded in 2007 on July 6th while still too young to fly, and was discovered at that time to be male. The ubiquitous high-flying honkers average 10-24 years in the wild.

No Cigar
I tried many times to get a photo of geese against the moon
This is as good as it got, even though there were thousands passing through

I love finding neck banded birds and discovering their history from subsequent band reports. Most of the ones we have found so far were banded near Cobleskill, or near Lykers, where we bird extensively, but this guy is a bit more well traveled. 

Can't wait to read the report on the other banded goose we found the same day. We often find two banded birds together.....

Timberdoodle

Sharp-shinned Hawk

I guess I'm kind of a competitive birder. It's fun to treasure hunt. Birds are treasures that are right there for anyone who is interested in seeing...and counting.... them.

Back when we had cows the heifer pasture was home to American Woodcocks. The grass was kept short by grazing and the little pond where the horses were pastured was just what the doctor ordered for timberdoodles..... a bucolic nickname for the American Woodcock, fat little shorebirds that love earthworms. They are famous for their spectacular mating displays. I had never heard of them until I read A Sand County Almanac in college, nor seen one until years later. It sure was fun to have them on the farm.

Nowadays the horses no long use that pasture and only the two old cows, Bama and Moon, graze the heifer pasture. The grass has become too long for tiny woodcock legs so we haven't heard their buzzy peenting or their magical sky dance in years. Hadn't counted one for eBird either, but I sure wanted to.

A little under a week ago someone reported one in a spot where we bird all the time, so last night right after supper and just about nightfall we drove there and parked the car.

And listened.

And listened. Not a peep. Not a twitter. Darn it. The boss moved the car several times hoping to hear the bird.

Then to my utter amazement one flew right past where we were parked, fluttering by about a foot from the windshield. Even at night I got a great look.

Awesome. County bird number 77 for the year.

This morning #78 (see above) landed on the ground by the feeder and let me take several photos before he flew off.

I'd been noticing that no birds were coming in....guess now we know the rest of the story.

Redheads

The Leader of the Band

Obviously orange, right?

Over the past few years we have been fortunate enough to find several Canada Geese wearing neck bands. The bands are used to keep track of the birds' travels and it is a lot of fun to report them to the government and find out where they were banded.

Usually the birds were find are banded locally and wear yellow and black bands.

However, yesterday the birds were really on the move. I'll bet we saw 5000 geese. We found that mass of them in yesterday's post hunkered down in a swamp right down the road from us, hiding out from the nasty wind. By mid-afternoon there were at least 1500 and probably many more...you can't see much of the swamp from the road.

Among them were two banded geese. I got photos. One band was orange but I am not sure what color to call the other.

However, as seems to be the case very often the government band reporting site wasn't working. Guess I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, one band is clearly orange and white, but what would you call the other? Thanks

Really, red, or punky pink?

The Things you See

The Cinnamon Toast Bird

Carolina Wren AKA Cinnamon Toast Bird

The wind blew from the south the past couple of days, and oh, the birds it blew in. Migration has been a solid two to three weeks late, but the birds are making up for lost time. Although the Cinnamon Toast Bird....so named by me because of its warm just-right-toast and cinnamon colors....is a year round resident...the travelers are coming by.

The Red-winged Blackbirds are back in good sized flocks, Common Grackles just that...common...Killdeer seen at the boat launch and heard here at the farm.

A Barred Owl that my dad carved.
Mom dug for days to find the photo

Plus Wood Ducks, first Great Blue Heron of the year and Song Sparrows at the feeders, although we have seen a couple while out on the road.

Northern Shrike

Today the wind is strong from the east with rain coming in. 

I dunno if you saw that Facebook video of the result of the horrendous storm that hit the Plains, but it is staggering. Unimaginable. And any other adjectives you might come up with in your nightmares.

Haven't seen many news stories about it. Guess the media is too busy being shocked by something that surprised no one to notice a disaster in the part of the country they love to ignore. Without Facebook would we even know that it happened?

Killdeer

Plague It

Our path to recovery from flu has been a lot like these buggy tracks. Slow, and winding. Tortuous even.

Some day I will not need a steady diet of cough drops to get through the day and heavy drugs serious cold medicines to get through the night.

Some day.

But that day is not now. The nights are worse. Someone, usually more than one someone, has been sick each and every day since the last week in January. Most of those days one of the someones has been me. Flu shots, schmoo shots. Some people who had them didn't get it and some did. Ditto those who didn't....get shots that is. There have been days when I felt that maybe I should be shot...

Peggy's Pre-school Petri Dish provides us with new viruses as required. I still haven't missed a single day of listing birds but it's been close and getting closer.

I am ready for spring, but it seems as if spring is not ready for me. Take care....

The Things you See