Get the Witch Hook

The driveway is under there. 

They say that this is going to stop some time. Not yet though.

Meanwhile we are grateful for heat, light, and the internet to keep us entertained. And good food...we like that too.

Jade fed the cows so the boss didn't have to...and walked Finn for me....things were going swimmingly, until Liz looked out the front window.

Oops. There is a tree right in the driveway.

Untouched photo of the rest of the driveway

Jade sent Peggy to ask if she still had a certain tool available.

"Mommy, do you know where the witch hook is?"

Well, no, none of us had any clue.

But, then what he thinks he needs for this job is the winch hook.

Anyhow, the men are heading out to deal....again.....best wishes to all of you facing this mess. Hope you are safe and warm  and dry.

Yuge

Looks as if this storm is gonna to be. At four there were just a couple of inches of snow. Now the car is surrounded by a sort of reverse moat, perhaps it could be called an atoll, of snow that has sloughed off it. 

It's deeper than a Jack Russell Terrier. 

Just ask Mack. He tried to use it as a fire hydrant and nearly fell over. Talk about delusions of grandeur. 

The scanner feeds are full of accounts of trees down and power out. Not good.

Before I filled the feeders the little winter sparrows were digging through snow deeper than they are for spilled seeds from earlier days.

Now all the feeders and the ground are thronged with mixed blackbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds and Common Grackles galore.

Last year's Rusty

I am going to keep plenty of seed out there today, in hopes of scoring a Rusty Blackbird. We saw one last year during Winter Storm Stella, and I am pretty sure I saw one yesterday and this morning.

 Incidentally, thank goodness Becky is off from work!

And hey, Mom, do you and Dad have everything you need? Love you.....

And now the lights are flickering....

Fish Finders

Seven male Hooded Mergansers displaying like mad for a single female. She must have been a real femme fatale, as they flew up and down the river after her for several minutes, then all landed and tried to look fancy for her.

When they aren't chasing the ladies they are hot on fish and they catch plenty!

Time Zones

I write  texts to send our boy early in the NY morning. Things he needs to know and all. Then I don't send them until three hours pass....time zones you see. It's almost time now...

Spotting deer is important this time of year. Many of them stayed here rather than venturing south as they do in bad winters. 

They are stupid with bold and stroll right up to the road...and sometimes right across it. 

Just the color of the dry brown grass, they are hard to spot, but between the two of us we usually notice them in time to avoid them.

Alas, motorists behind us, doing a ton, and talking on their phones, often barely miss us and never even see the deer. We stopped for these two but a tractor trailer coming the other way spooked them and they returned whence they came.

Quite acrobatically. 

Rare Bird Alert

Check this guy out. He's an American Wigeon. If you go up to Montezuma in season you will see thousands like him. However, here in our county eBird flags him as rare. I have certainly never seen one here before. The boss and I found him in the river this morning, along with his lady, a Gadwall, a couple of Northern Pintails, and a Common Goldeneye.

Hooded Mergansers

What a morning, huh?

Mrs. Hoodie

Color me happy. Sorry about the less than spectacular photos, but these ducks were way out in the river.

Gadwall

Shipping Day

My only contribution was moral support, knowing where to stand, and when to move, and whether to be loud or quiet. And being bossy. I do that so well....

Many thanks to Liz and Jade for helping the boss extricate the big, horned, heifer from her mother and Bama and get her on the truck for freezer camp (as one wise farmer I know calls it). Not a job for the faint of heart or feeble of feet.

She was a scary critter and her mother, Moon, is about as smart as a post. Those things, combined with Bama being just a tad on the wild side, made things interesting.

It is done though and in a couple of weeks we can look forward to some nice beef.

After a diet of chicken, fish, and pork from the store it will be very welcome.

I think the boss has been dreaming about meatloaf.....

I have a new camera...can you tell?

A Week in Bird Days

Our little chickie with a chick

Mighty Bald Eagle youth
and mighty tame too!

Male Common Goldeney

Lone Snow Goose we have been seeing daily

American Kestrel, right where we see him every year

And a couple of Ring-necked Ducks

Just Ducky

Snowy Canvasbacks

Yesterday it hit 75. 

Today it is snowing like January.

We still ran down to the boat launch to look for waterfowl and got lucky.

There were ducks everywhere. Some were too far out in the snow to see anything but dull outlines. However, there was a flock of Canvasbacks, which are far from common here, and tons of Hoodies and Common Mergansers.

What fun!

Update: a couple of better shots from after the snow

Lulling Us

Into a false sense of spring....

The sun tracks the tiniest of fractions higher in the sky each day. Although it’s still low enough at daybreak and in evening that there is nearly equal light on all horizons, you can see the changes in shadow and shine.

New warmth is swiftly perceptible, a welcome hint of joy on winter-wind-chilled faces and hands. It is good to stand, sheltered from the wind, to just enjoy it now and then.

The snow can feel its subtle pressure too.

On days when the wind is right, a nubbin of the white stuff will break off the shale cliffs to the west of the farm house. Then another and another, until a fine storm of natural snowballs flows down the steep face, each gathering rosebuds as it may.

Or rather gathering more and more snow, until the ditch at the bottom is littered with them... Imperfect nautiluses, ephemeral as spring.

Snow rollers we call them. I love to see them, although it is nearly impossible to stop to photograph them, what with the wild and woolly traffic on our little road these days.

Then as they melt away and the snow covering the cliffs does too, the bright blue ice below shows its colors. Each year sheets of ice emerge from broken rock faces, along many nearby roads. sometimes it is white, or dirty brown, but here and there it shows sky blue, turquoise, or greenish-blue, in a sort of weird and lovely road art.

I wonder when the next storm will come.....

Gull-ible

I see you, but I can't always ID you...(Herring Gull BTW)

 I am terrible at gulls. If the commonest, most ordinary, most every-day sort of gull, say a Ring-billed or Herring Gull, were to land on my shoulder and start pointing out its own field marks, I would second guess myself anyhow.

Thus I often post gulls, even such things as first cycle Ring-billed Gulls on bird ID pages....just to be sure.

Glaucous Gull

I was pretty sure I saw a Glaucous Gull today. Big, even when compared to adjacent Herring Gulls, the right color and all. However, I posted asking if it was an Iceland Gull, as that seems to be the go-to plain white gull around here.

However, happy dance, it was a Glaucous. Then, as I was deleting unwanted photos I noticed what appeared to be a smaller white fella, with an all black bill...

Iceland gull

Whadda ya know, an Iceland Gull in the same picture.

How cool is that! A twofer.

The twofer

Look who else loves the glow ball

A Mystery

A couple of weeks ago we noticed what appeared to be a trap near the Schoharie Crossing State Historical Site, where a flock of American Black Ducks has been hanging out since the worst of the ice went.

Hmm, who would be trapping "our" ducks.

There are often ducks inside the trap apparently eating some sort of bait. There are often tracks leading down from the shoreline above.

The mighty Schoharie from one of the spots where we look for ducks

We figured that it was some sort of scientific project so we weren't too worried, but still, inquiring minds want to know.

Yesterday I found this story, which led me to this story, and all became clear.

How neat that the ducks we count every day....looking for birds less common than American Black Ducks and Mallards...are contributing to scientific understanding of duck populations.

BTW, it is great fun to watch the Black Ducks ride the roller coaster of the little falls above the aqueduct. They are like fat black corks, gliding over the riffles and ripples and then flying back up. I think they are having fun.

American Black Duck

Far

Horned Lark, taken up in Stone Arabia yesterday

From spring, or at least far from real spring. However, one day last week the male American Goldfinches were singing up a cluttery storm. The Carolina Wren started a few days later. He has to be the loudest bird in NY.

 This morning three Tufted Titmousies were calling spring songs. A Northern Cardinal was singing, as were the goldfinches. A White-throated Sparrow spoke of Canada or Sam Peabody depending on your interpretation. Sounded like spring for sure.

We saw a Song Sparrow the other day too. The starlings are making calls like Red-winged Blackbirds. Can the real deal be far behind? I think I saw some at dusk up in Sprakers the other night, but we were going too fast and it was too dark to be sure.

To me, the RWBLs are true harbingers of spring. Everyone tags robins for this job, but they hang around all winter. Most years we see our first American Robins within a week of the New Year. We must have seen a hundred yesterday in our marathon Valentine's Drive Around.......

We saw genuine winter birds, too. Horned Larks and Snow Buntings were plentiful everywhere we drove. The latter are wildly beautiful when they undulate over a field in bright, thin sunshine.

Also spotted two Northern Rough-legged Hawks flying together up on Fiery Hill. They are also northern birds, here for the hunting during the cold times. These two were stunning, with one almost pure white except for the diagnostic markings they sport. They were quite obliging and flew around us for a few minutes before sailing away.

It's certainly not spring yet, but it is kind of fun birding the cusp