Fungally Yours

Stumbled on a wonderful state-marked trail the other day, right next to one of my very favorite in-county birding spots. There is a pair of closed gates at the entrance and I always thought that, like most of the side paths on Sara Lib Road, it was a private lane.

However, the other day I walked up to the gate, where I found state forest markers and red trail markers. Color me excited! 

The trail starts right above the big swamp across from the quarry where we park while I peruse the cattails for the resident Virginia Rails, occasional Common Gallinules, and whoever else might be home on any given day.

I didn't walk far on the trail, as Ralph couldn't see me, and I didn't want him to worry and look for me. Also, although it was deliciously cool in the woods, I was afraid that he might get hot in the car...and he did, so I was glad I cut my walk shorter than I might have liked.

However, even in the little time that I had, I had a wonderful encounter with some Blue-headed Vireos. The male sang and sang until he decided that he didn't like me much.

What a scolding I got then!

With all the rain the woods was dotted with all sorts of fungi, many of which I hadn't seen since my Adirondack hiking days, which were a long, long time ago. Some shown like little lanterns in the softly decaying leaves and litter.

Not a fungus, but I love this log

I cannot wait to go back when I can take more time to hike farther down the trail. Meanwhile it was a thrill to stand many feet above the swamp, where I could look down into it. Although it was high noon that day, so things were quiet, I am hoping for an early morning visit sometime soon.

Anybody want to walk it with me? Slowly...so as not to miss any birds? And softly, softly, catchee monkey? Or maybe a Sora someday...

Sharing

Blue Jay kids are brats

 The Sitting Porch. Each year birds of one species or another, and even sometimes more than one at a time, nest on the porch where I grow my houseplants in summer...and where I like to sit and watch the valley and observe the occupants of the yard.

With some birds there is no problem at all. Last year a Mourning Dove used an old robin nest and never once flew, even when I sat a few feet away.

American Robins are utterly flighty and ridiculous though, and I hate it when they nest on the pillars. Silly things will not be on the porch at the same time as I am and make a big noise about it too. I usually water the plants quickly and leave them to it. Kind of annoying though, as I like to actually, you know, use, the porch.

No robins this year, but instead a pair of House Wrens. I let them enjoy their fiefdom with their first nest, in the little white house, which Matt and Lisa gave me for my birthday many years ago. For being just a decoration that one has an amazing history of having been nursery to Black-capped Chickadees, Carolina Wrens, and many, many broods of House Wrens.

However, when they came back just a very, very, very short time after fledging their first brood and built a nest in the other box...the red one, a Christmas gift from Alan and Amber...also not intended for birds...I got irritated.

Okay, you guys. You can nest on my porch twice, but this time I am not giving in. I will sit out here when I want to and you can just deal.

Look closely...you can see Mama's beak
at the bottom of the hole

It was as if they read my mind. Instead of panicking every time I wanted to water the banana tree or the petunias, the little hen soon stayed right in the box peering out at me. If she is out to lunch, as long as I sit very still, she comes right up on the porch and settles on her eggs.

Détente is a wonderful thing!

Feed me, Ma!
Feed me!

Along with that happy development, the Blue Jays brought their fledglings in to the feeders for the first time this summer. And after a couple weeks of the very best goodies being served in the little feeder in front of that porch, they even come in and let me photograph them.

Wot!
No peanuts?

Yay!

And yes, I am still feeding. A top notch bird expert I follow feels that the bird illnesses (mostly to the south of us) are insect treatment related rather than infectious, and as everybody local seems healthy and happy, I will continue until I see a reason to do otherwise...stop spraying cicadas, will ya?

American Goldfinches
have never been too worried
about my presence on the porch

Between the Raindrops

 

Sunday Stills...in my Bag

 

This challenge could be interpreted a lot of ways I guess. There are a lot of bags in our lives, some of them useful and others preceded with the word "old". 

I haven't carried a traditional woman's purse in decades. However, a camera bag and a utility bag are a whole 'nother story.

From a pocket "chainsaw" and compass, to a portable phone charger, ponchos, sunblock, tasty little mints, and a good, solid, field guide to the birds...oh, and matches. Can't stand not to have matches in case Jack London's To Build a Fire comes true with me in the cast....I have everything I can think of that will fit in these bags.

Plus camera and spare camera and binoculars, without which I would be blind and unable to communicate in my favorite fashion.

Also: fishing license, tick remover, nail clippers, lens cleaners, spare camera batteries, tiny card shaped knife kinda thing, athletic tape and other first aid stuff....and more, much, much more.

For more Sunday Stills....

 

So then, this happened

Yesterday it rained most of the day, so we puttered around the house. Late in the afternoon the rain let up to an intermittent drizzle, so we took a peek at the parks.

I stay well back from this

The river is on the boil, crammed with logs and debris and up to and/or over its banks in a lot of places. At Yankee Hill Lock there is a spot where a huge bite of bank and lawn(!!!) has been scooped out by the rushing water. I walk way inland on the grass when I pass that spot because the ground in a big half-circle around it is noticeably depressed and utterly saturated. I expect that one day soon it will liquify and sluice away down the river like the rest of the spot.

I would prefer not to be standing there when it happens.

Anyhow, the boss sat at a picnic table for a while watching the muddy water swirl by, while I walked my usual route counting birds.

I was just coming down the hill off the bike path when things started to happen.

A police car raced into the parking lot, our sheriff jumped out and ran down to the river bank. Two trucks with volunteer fireman were hot on his heels.

You normally walk down
onto this dock above the lock

We stayed in the car, thinking that they might need to ask us whom or what we saw while we were at the park.

However, after a little time the men returned to their vehicles at a much more relaxed pace, conferred for a short while, and were on their way. The sheriff stopped to exchange a few words before he left...a very pleasant and professional man... we will never forget how very helpful he was the first time the boss's dad wandered off and we had to call for help to find him. 

We soon discovered what had happened.... here is the story. Another video.

Imagine going over that dam or even through the lock and being washed that far downriver. And check out that stack of logs at about 1.30 in the video. I believe that those were fished out of the river. You can see many more bumping along in the waves. I can't imagine trying to boat with all that junk in the water.

Lock 12 is a place where we bird a lot in the winter both east and west of the bridge and dams. There is usually a decent stretch of open water even in the coldest weather and some really nice ducks are found here. (A couple checklists from last winter)

Anyhow, all's well that ends well and a big thank you to our friends and neighbors who risk their own lives to keep people here in the valley safe. Both people involved were rescued safely from circumstances that could have had a much different outcome. 

Sunday Stills...Flowers

 

Sorry I keep doing these on Monday. Sundays are very busy days for us, and this week was no exception.

For more Sunday Stills....

Parking Lot Wars

 

Yesterday the boss had occasion to visit a shopping center near here. As is normal I stayed in the car and counted parking lot birds and watched the tourist season sideshow unfold.

There was high drama.

A murder of crows raced by, the leader making a getaway with a slice of some breadly material en beak. I think it may have been pizza.

Hot on its tailfeathers was a hungry Ring-billed Gull with the menu on his mind.

He nailed the fleeing bandit right in his feathery fanny, right in the center of the lot, square in front of our car.

The snack landed in a well-traveled spot, confounding both gull and bandits. They perched on nearby roofs or sailed in slow circles, peering down at it, but afraid to land 'n' grab.

Meanwhile a little brown female House Sparrow hop, hop, hopped out from under a nearby car and proceeded to taunt them merrily as she nabbed bite after bite.

Not of fan of those nasty little bluebird killers, but it was still pretty funny.

Most of the bread-thing was still there when we left.

Filed under happy dance, we found the Sandhill Cranes that were seen earlier in Broadalbin. Thanks to the boss's eagle eyes we discovered that they were on the opposite side of the road from where I had been looking. I know they are common enough to be annoying in a lot of areas, but here they are rare and exciting.

Made my week.

Happy Birthday

 

Matthew, hope you had a good day and thanks for a nice morning of birding!

Remember the Cardiff Giant

???

 (If not here's a link to his story)

Kids who grew up here in the Mohawk Valley or the nearby Catskill Mountains certainly remember him from field trips to the Farmer's Museum back in the day (my favorite part of those jaunts, back when I had kid teeth, was the rock candy from the little general store).

Anyhow, the air today feels just like you might imagine his heart would. It's heavy and unyielding, clumsy, and hard to breath. Makes you feel about as lively as a giant carved from stone.

Thunder is grumbling and rumbling like you might imagine his footsteps if he was lumbering up and down the towpath, stepping over bridges so as not to break them, scaring dogs and little children willy nilly.

Jill the Border Collie is afraid of either thunder or stone giants and is quaking in her crate, causing metal food bowls stored on top to tumble to the kitchen floor, clang, bang, crash.

The little solar lanterns (Hummingbird and Peacock) Becky gave me are flashing on and off in jittery counterpoint to the stuttering of the lightning.

It is grey and gloomy and stiflingly muggy. I don't imagine much is going to get done outdoors today.

Ah, summer in NY. I think Peggy might benefit from a trip to the Farmer's Museum someday when the lightning bolts aren't pitchforking all over the place. What say you?

Sunday Stills...Red, White, and Blue

 

Friends and family know I have always wanted a cannon...

For more Sunday Stills....

I Know Where I Was

 

...Sixty-nine years ago today. I was in the delivery room of a now non-existent hospital in a town to the north where they made a lot of gloves....being delivered. (It's not Di Giorno, it's Delivery). I guess it was hideously hot. Poor Mom.

Having heard the stories of that fateful event...first grandchild on BOTH sides of two large and vigorous families...(spoiled much?)...so many times, I feel almost as if I was there.

Oh, wait, I was. However, I don't remember a darned thing until a birthday party on Grandma Montgomery's side porch I think either one or two years later. Don't know how old I was for sure, but I do remember a large, brown, stuffed dog I loved on until he was so skinny in the middle that I could drag him around with one hand clutched on his center with his head and butt hanging down in true hangdog fashion. (Later followed by Fluffy, a blue stuffed dog donated by a beloved aunt, that I hauled around with me until I was in my twenties, and he was dingy grey rather than pale blue). And cake. I swear there was cake.

Anyhow, the story goes that my imminent arrival was celebrated the day before with much imbibing of locally grown, homemade, wine known as  ethnic slur-red. Guess I was late or something. Pretty punctual now as a rule, but hey.

My mother was not impressed and said she insisted, "That's not my baby!"

Squashed head and all plus kinda red and wrinkley and downright unruly. However, she eventually had to admit that there was a certain physical resemblance and was forced to claim me and take me home.

She told me often over the past year or so that I turned out to be a lot of fun. She was just a kid, not yet twenty when I was born, so I guess I was like a large, noisy baby doll. There was the tale of how much I liked baby food beets and ate WAY too much of them with predictable (and purple) results. That must have been a LOT of fun!

I was the smaller one in this pic, along with 
that favorite auntie. (Stolen shamelessly from FB)

And holding me up to the window to see outdoors. I already knew what I liked. 

First discernable speech-"Ffft Ffft" while pointing at a fly. Could not say milk to save my life even though I loved the stuff. It was "Nup" to me. Grandpa Lachmayer, who also taught me about raising currants and rhubarb, used to tease me at the Sunday dinner table...where, as the spoiled rotten oldest grandchild, I got to sit between him and grandma. He wouldn't give me any of the wonderful moo juice until I said it right. Think it may have warped me into becoming a dairy farmer in later years. Or maybe not.

Etc.

There have been a lot of birthdays since, perhaps the most memorable being when I was thirteen. The folks took me to the artist's town where the concert of the same name later made the place iconic and turned me loose. 

Woodstock, with all its book and art shops and galleries, plus searching the cemetery with Mom for genealogical material, was certainly fun and memorable. The frying onions at the Colony Arts Center, where the antique show where they had a booth was held, are another family staple story.

There were horses
Magnum, my first one, in the middle

 Mom baked me dozens of banana cakes with white frosting over the ensuing years. How she made a simple Betty Crocker recipe into something so tender and delicious is beyond me, but I loved them all....there was always cake...

And dogs
threecollie...after these guys

We probably won't do much this year. Not even cake. Stuff holds little interest for me any more. I have a lot of it, although I can surely remember not having it. Once during my poverty stricken younger years when we were living on home raised rabbits, Mom brought us a care package that contained bread and ketchup and such. Ketchup was an incredible luxury at that time. Good stuff.

Birds!

We birded a lot yesterday and the day before, pretty much using up all the ration of gas allotted for such activities, and then some really.

However, I am on the right side of the grass still, although I admit that it needs mowing pretty badly, there are grandbabies, although I don't imagine I will see any of them today...unless maybe by facetime...so all is good.

I can bird the yard and play in the garden and be grateful for all the amazing things that happened between that first dramatic birthday and today's much more low-key example.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, America. It's pretty cool to share a name day with something so great. 

Lots of cows.
Broadway, a great favorite