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

Coming in Squalling

We all know about March and lions and lambs, but what is with all this squally weather in April anyhow? I don't remember ever having been this cold during this month.

Of course it may have something to do with being outdoors a lot every day, doing fool things like walking on the exposed riverbank down at the confluence of the Schoharie and the Mohawk, counting ducks and looking for sandpipers....

We were out yesterday evening driving over the local hills during a clear yellow sunset, which was very beautiful btw. All around us were small snow squalls, dragging chilly curtains over the fields and forests. It would be sunny in one spot and just feet away flurries were flurrying and winds were whirling.

It was pretty, but, oh my word, so cold. Still is today too...at least so far. I just came in from hanging out towels and they froze into weirdly contorted shapes before I could even grab the clothespins.

Oh, well, it stiffens up the mud at least.

Of Apples and Trees

This is my mama back when she and dad were birding. Isn't she wonderful? I hope I take after her....dad gave me this photo last time we visited and I just love it.

It's all a Scam

You know, that whole butter wouldn't melt in their beaks, cover of kindergartners' coloring books thing and all?

Yeah, that is fake news. Robins are the most combative, aggressive, battle-loving birds you can imagine. It's a wonder they don't wear kilts and clan tartan, so fiercely do they make war every day.

Right now it's time for them to work out who gets the best spots on the Northview Farm eaves, branches, porches etc. and they are going at it hammer and tongs...or should I say beaks and feathers?

I was standing in the driveway at just about dawn, trying to get a photo of a large bird in the distant hedgerow (crow, alas) when something brushed right past my leg with a whoop and a flutter. I mean they were THAT close!

Two male American Robins, so engrossed in fighting that they didn't even notice me. They went INSIDE the upturned lawn fertilizer spreader (!!!) to continue the fight. 

What a clatter. 

I could hear them in there right at my feet and wondered if I should tip it up so they could escape.

But no, after a few more curses and mutters they emerged, the victor spitting feathers and acting like he was all that and a bucket of rice.

I had to laugh.

I took to the Hills

Friendly Golden-crowned Kinglet

I've been so impatient, all winter since the snow came, so darned eager to walk out on the hill.

I couldn't. Our roads drift in feet deep; my knees will have nothing to do with snowshoes, and I just couldn't.

Then came mud. Same story with the knees. I kept trying though....can I go down the driveway? Down to the heifer barn? Up to the orchard?

Well, some days I could and did, but not up on the hills. Even a few days ago the road was clogged with snow and ice, with mud and running water filling in between.

This morning dawned bitter cold with the aftermath of horrific wind flowing down the valley from the west. I had to virtually kick myself out the door, even though the sun was shining bright and the farm roads calling. I put on all my winter stuff and chanced it.

What joy! What delight!

Oh, it was cold for sure, but the Golden-crowned Kinglets I hoped to find came right out to see me and even allowed a photo. It felt so good to walk somewhere besides around the mall and house. I found that I still had most of the muscle I worked for last summer and could stride right up and over. Eventually I came to a snow drift I didn't want to chance and called it good, but what a morning!

Hope it will be as cold tomorrow only without the wind, so I can climb right up unhampered by the mud, to see what the hills have to show and tell.

Peekaboo

I see you.......

The Loop

A pair of Wood Ducks on a rainy, snowy, pond. We saw 14 more in a wet spot in a hay field

Two Snow Geese are still hanging around

And this Snowy Owl, that seems utterly unconcerned by our presence
We saw Horned Larks and Snow Buntings up in Stone Arabia too.....

We have a set of roads we travel here in our home town. It rarely lets us down. It is where we saw the Merlin, the Golden Eagle, and many others. Today was no exception.

I Accidentally ate the Easter Bunny's Carrots

My first chore most mornings, after walking dogs and all, is picking up kitchen detritus deposited after I went to sleep the night before.

Yesterday there was a paper plate on the stove. It held a few kinda shriveled carrot sticks. I ate them and tossed the plate. It's a mom thing.

A couple of hours later Liz came to me and said, "Thank you so much, Mom, for taking care of the Easter Bunny's carrots for me! I forgot all about them."

Well, okay then. 

Just how low do you have to stoop to steal food from a magic rabbit?

I dunno, but I guess I can bend that far.

The Hills are Alive

A doe with last year's fawn. From what we saw she may still be letting her nurse
Look how fat she is!

These photos were all shot from the back porch door

And show the top of the heifer pasture hill, where everyone loves to party