Not Much to Say

Great Egret Cedar Key boat launch

It is just cold and our days are spent finding ways to make the house warmer. Yesterday this included putting bales of hay along one part of the foundation.

Black Vulture Manatee Springs

Getting some furnace tape and taping up still more cracks made by the big explosion a couple of years ago.

Black and Turkey Vultures

Moving the plenum that transfers the heat from hot water from the wood stove to hot air for the ducts to make a tighter seal.

Ever more plastic in ever more places. 

Stealing some pallets from calf stalls in the barn to get the stove cranking like it means it. No calves any more so no need for the pallets and they burn fiercely.

And an old pizza box bent to deflect warm air from the kitchen register into the actual kitchen as opposed to the ten-foot-high ceiling.

Not exciting at all, but necessary. Stay warm.  

A Bird on the Head

Summertime and the livin' was easy

Is worth two on the porch.

The Carolina Wrens seem to be enjoying the porch as much in winter as in summer. I hadn't seen them in a while, but night before last we heard the boss screaming when he went out to get the water taken care of.

"There's a bird on my head! Come get it off."

He went out wearing his big thick John Deere hat with the ear flaps and a bird landed on top, walked down to his neck, and started cruising around his ears.

Must have been the wren because they are in there every night now. In fact there is one there right now. They nested in Alan's old hard hat. Hopefully they don't have design's on the boss's winter hat.


  

Hatched and raised on the porch

I'm Not a Robot

I keep telling Blogger this, but it simply won't take my word for it.

I am cold though, and if you enjoy life here in the Great Northeast, no doubt you are too.

Not a good night for sleeping, as the house was just plain cold. We finally closed off my portal on the night sky...the window on the stair landing...with plastic yesterday. I will forego Orion and the passing moon for a little bit less of a draft.

Heck, let's be honest, Yesterday that draft would have made a four-master strike her sails in terror.

However, as I read the long range forecast I see that after a few more frigid ones we are returning to more bearable winter weather. From nine below, thirty degrees looks real good.

And meanwhile, as I go to sleep at night I remember white beaches and silver sands and skies full of birds that I am still looking up.

Muscovy Duck..I believe you can count these in Florida under some circumstances

I Blame the Moon

It was full the other night and is still fat and sassy. I swear it brings the cold right with it, just pours it out over the land, then walks away without a backward glance.

Walking in to Manatee Springs

Sure is pretty though. It rises in the evening right outside the big windows in the living room and sets just before dawn out by the heifer barn. Although I hate the cold I can't help but enjoy the difference it brings to the landscape.

Nothing is the same by moonlight, ever. Mundane objects take on an ethereal glow as if touched by distant magic. And the shadows....ah, the mysteries they conceal, and the wonder they reveal. 

Cormorant by Alan...that boy has steady hands, as this was very far away
Suwanee River

If it hadn't been so cold I might have gone outside with the camera, but instead I huddled under my spotted cow blankie..thank you Tawny....and shivered at the sight of it painting prisms on the icy frost on the window.

Manatee Springs

At least the house is pretty warm this morning. The boss brought down some different wood last night and it was warm when I got up and lots of hot water too. I shamelessly grabbed the first shower. Liz and Jade both fell on the ice yesterday with attendant damage, so nobody going out on that front....and Becky has a late start today...so it was mine....all mine......

Complete with Manatee

I hear that a lot of the country is going to join us in the deep freeze....ouch.......
stay warm good friends, and endure. Spring is coming.....it says here in fine print.....

Wild Winds

Sunrise over the St. John's River

We had 'em. And they were awful. When a house this big moves in the wind, you know it's a danged stiff breeze. No one slept too well, night before last.

The house was cold all day too as the stove didn't want to burn. One of those hang on and get it over with days.

Now we have come to dealing with a frozen milkhouse. We have an electric heater in there, but it is not efficient and is very expensive to run. So far this season the boss has instead shut off most of the water lines. Then each night he shuts all the water off in all the barns and then uses an air compressor to blow all the water from the cow barn over to the heifer barn and drains it there.

This has worked pretty good. We also fill the wash vats and several buckets with water and keep water in a big tub for the cows. However, this morning there was an ice shell in both vats, ice in the milkers, ice here, ice there, ice, ice everywhere. Guess we will have to turn the heater on today.

Ack.

And if we can't keep the pipeline thawed so we can milk, we may have to dry the girls off until they calve back and haul water for them to drink from the house. Have to see how it goes.

Jax Beach almost to ourselves

Anyhow.....

It sure makes Florida look good. We are slowly picking away at the mystery birds....yesterday's duck was a Gadwall, a lifer for me.

Didn't visit, what with no time and driving a Camaro and all, but it was a thrill just to drive past

More ID Questions

Is this a Horned Grebe?

And these? To us northerners they are LBBs....little brown birds,
 but I'll bet they are lifers if we knew their name.

Red Dhouldered Hawk?

Mystery Duck

For the pros from the Sunshine State.

Sunday Stills.....Legs

Great Egret?, White Ibis?

American Avocets?

Cedar Key Beach with legs

Tame brown bird on one leg, Not a this, not a that, but certainly a something or other

Florida showed us lots of legs....and lots of birdy conundrums too. Just when you think you know the local birds.....you move to a new local and know a lot fewer. So any Florida folks feel free to offer IDs or correct my mistakes.....thanks

For more Sunday Stills.......

Thank You Florida for Being Such Fun

And thank you Florida bloggers, you know who you are, for sharing your wonderful state with Alan and Becky and me for two amazing days. And for writing about the cool stuff so we knew where to go.

Virginia was for shivers

We went running up and down and back and forth, feet in the sand on both coasts in one day, Manatee Springs, Cedar Key and the Jax beaches where our family lives over two fast forward type days. Axis deer, feral hogs, unicorns...birds, more birds, still more birds.....I could have birded the Walmart parking lot and gone home happy.....more on that later....

World famous Cedar Key pelican

And thanks to the really friendly folks on the Cedar Key boat launch who made us feel so welcome and told us where to find the sights and critters.

To the nice trucker who saved us from the tire "gator" in the middle of the interstate.

To the manatees, giant fish, and monster turtles and did I mention birds?

To the people of Jacksonville Beach for sleeping in on New Year's Day, thus giving us the beach almost to ourselves.

Special thanks to the good folks who stayed home and fed Daisy and Elvis and the other critters and kept the home fires burning.

Most of all, more than my words can express, the biggest thanks to Alan for being the kind of kid who calls his mother up one night and says, "Let's go to Florida."

Could some kind Florida person help us with this gull?

And proceeds to take his mom and older sister on a wild tour of wild places (we spent a total of six dollars on tourist attractions; we wuz there for the birds and the sand and the wildlife) and takes care of them every mile. Pays for everything, food, gas, rooms to lay our weary heads after all that traveling and birding, and manateeing

 And the only time I was afraid on the Interstate was when other people created dangerous situations. Four days of safe, fun and happy, and so many exciting discoveries.

G̶r̶e̶a̶t̶  Boat tailed grackle.....(not a lifer....alas, but thanks for the ID

How lucky to have a kid who would drive nine states in 21 hours, all by his loneself, (as a six-speed Camaro on the highway of the world is not my thing)....just to get home in time to drive back to Washington DC tomorrow to work on Monday. I think we'll keep him.

There are tangelos...limes....and grapefruit too. 

  

Found on Jax beach, New Year's morning

Go here for lots more on manatee springs. Make sure to click "older posts" at the bottom of the first page for many more posts on Florida's springs.

I may have Mentioned

The Great Sacandaga on a calm day

One Particular

One of the sweet spots. Nothing here this year though

Trout ponds at Hale Creek

Trout pond overflow

Sunset in Mom and Dad's side yard

That I have a  ❤ for water light. There was plenty of it yesterday.

More on the Bird Count

A bad hair day in the swamps

We had perhaps the nicest weather ever seen on the count, and since it was after Christmas the traffic was not as bad as some years.

The most exciting birds we saw or heard, for me at least, were two Great Blue Herons Matt and Alan saw, a Brown Creeper Alan and Jen picked up in Gloversville, and a Carolina Wren heard singing "Tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle" loud enough to be heard over traffic in the Mayfield part of our area.

Matt's bluebirds

Oh, and the Bluebirds Matt got on perhaps my favorite bit of the area, Ashler Road. Sometimes Ashler is impassable, but this year it was hard and dry.

Other than that it was more large birds than small as the light was terrible for two-thirds of the day. it took real hard work to even be sure about a large flock of Goldfinches behind Mom and Dad's house early in the day. They weren't talking, so we had to peer really hard at them. I knew...and yet.....of course as soon as we were positive what we were seeing they began to call like crazy, "Che wink....che wink....."

Lots and lots of Crows. The ubiquitous Chickadees. Kegan has gotten as good an ear as you could ask for hearing the little guys. Many flocks of Canada Geese flying over. More ducks than is normal, including a good-sized flock of perhaps fourteen that flew right over the truck in the really dim light in the morning. I'm sure they were Mallards, but I didn't count them as such, not being able to see them well enough.

Ashler Road

Alan and Jen took some roads and Jen drove while he counted. They got a nice representation, plus that Creeper.

I only started keeping a total of all birds seen a couple of years ago, but this year's 1251 is certainly a respectable total, especially since we only saw a very few raptors, a handful of gulls, and not one single Robin, Cedar Waxwing, or any of a number of other normally counted birds.

A good day, and thanks to everyone who drove, made incredible chili for the starving hordes, peered through windows, and sang out for all those elusive garage eagles.

  

And an outboard motor in a motor tree

Johnstown Christmas Bird Count 2014

We saw domestic birds

Plastic birds..... this guy had me fooled until I put the binoculars on him

Drastic birds

A yellow pelican

And every single garage eagle and fake butterfly in the Town of Mayfield
At least there weren't any mailbox cardinals this year.

We also saw 1251 real birds....226 American crows, 2 White-breasted nuthatches.....etc.....etc.....