Am I seeing Things?

Deer vs cat

We were out looking for birds yesterday morning and we had just passed a Great Blue Heron perched atop a power pole, which was odd enough

Then I burst out laughing and shook my head in disbelief.

Tables turned

The boss asked what I saw but I was laughing so hard I had a hard time telling him.

What I thought was a Wild Turkey out in a field with some late-lingering deer was a little black cat.

And one of the deer was following it across the field pretty much like a duckling after its mother.

The boss wanted to see it too, so we turned around, although we figured it would be all over by the time we got back there. However, the deer, the kitty hawk, as we call them when we see them out hunting in the wild, and a whole lot of other deer were still at it.

I grabbed some quick photos and we got out of there, as although it isn't a busy road, traffic does proceed at warp speed most of the time.

To my amazement when I got home to look at the photos, the reason the tableau was still in place was that the deer and cat were taking turns chasing each other. I'll let you judge for yourself what was going on, but I would call it play.

***You will probably need to click on these to see them...taken at great distance and through the wrong side car window. Sorry.

The Things you See

Auriesville Shrine

Getcher Mad On

Been hearing about this for years, been victims of it in fact, but this is the most clear and concise rendition of the situation in the milk market I have read yet.

You would think farmers could rely on the cooperative to which they belong to act in their best interests....yeah, right....read the story and see what you think.

If you Forget your Umbrella

Nobody can be dignified ALL the time.

Then you must BE the umbrella. Between torrential downpours and clamoring cloudbursts today, we found this Bald Eagle perched on a fence post at the horse farm where folks normally look for Upland Sandpipers. 

Upland Sandpiper, same fence but in June

The uppies have pretty much all migrated, but I am so in the habit of checking the tops of the posts as we drive by that I was doing so today.

Sure didn't expect to find this giant trying to dry his wings before the next storm came along. He doesn't look too happy.

I think he is judging us

We are not as happy as we might be either, as the driveway took a terrible beating.

Sun's out now though.

Someone is building a really big barn

Which is Scarier?

The vine or the sign?

Happy Birthday

To this delightful young lady. She is truly the other half, the missing piece, the just-what-he-needed to our much loved son. It is wonderful to have her in the family. 

Happy Birthday, Amber Lynn Friers!

Same Goals, Different Tools

These photos and video are a sort of accompaniment for next Friday's Farm Side, the inspiration if you will for my weekly thousand words. We live in a truly beautiful county, with agriculture as a very significant portion of the economy.

Besides putting food on tables, from those in Amish kitchens to those of large scale farmers and their families and employees, agriculture paints this county in stunning landscape portraits, and all the colors of the alchemy of land and livestock husbandry.

Farming is a labor of love and it shows in every green and golden acre.

1000 Days

1000 days ago I set a goal to submit a bird list to eBird every single day for a year. And we were off.....(our rockers mebbe)

We birded in fog. We chased in snowstorms. Early morning. After dark. Every. Single. Day.

At the end of that first year I kinda patted myself on the back and shot for another year.

Lo and behold this morning I made it to a thousand days. Perhaps I should say "we" because the boss has faithfully and without complaint driven me most of those days. He will come to where I am sitting or puttering and make steering wheel motions with his hands. I will nod, yes, and off we go to the river or the hills or the hidden hay fields where woodcocks dance.

Some of those lists were pretty skimpy. Flu and Adenovirus made for days when I staggered to the landing on the stairs, counted the birds on the feeders below, and fell back into bed. Other days we went to Montezuma, or the Outer Banks, or oh, so many amazing places, where we counted with gay abandon.

I was pretty happy to make this milestone on such a lovely day for birding. We didn't see any real rarities, but an Osprey flew over at our Rankin Grove hot spot...and I heard something there that I have never heard before and more than likely never will again.

As I stood in the warming sunlight in the middle of the road...not much traffic...a Turkey Vulture soared over. Then another and another and another until there were an even dozen, using the warm air rising from the road for a frolic.

Normally they would only soar on static wings, bending a primary feather half an inch to soar miles in a different direction. They look like so many solemn undertakers floating on the sky. 

However, these birds were dive bombing one another, playing I guess. They cut through the sky as sharply as any falcon, wings bent almost in half. Talk about agile! Swoop! Swish! Slip and slide.

 As I marveled at their acrobatics I thought I heard a jet plane in the sky behind me. It was weirdly low.

Then a vulture stooped at another and I heard it again. It was their wings! And it was loud!

How cool is that?

This little person was right out in the middle of the road when we first saw him
but he sauntered over to the shoulder at our approach.
I'll bet his heinie was warm when his mama caught up with him.

The top photo I took yesterday morning. It was so foggy that it was hard to tell that these were Wood Ducks...eighteen of them all together...except by their weird whooping whistle. Whenever I hear them I think of the jungle.

The rest are non-bird things we have seen over the last few of the thousand day marathon. It sure was fun!

A Hopeful Sign

A relatively uncrowded bit of wire

Working on the Farm Side for this week, on the recent report on the massive decline in bird populations since I graduated from high school.

It's pretty awful with a third of our birds gone since then. Agriculture was blamed by some conservation groups. However, I feel that farmers do a lot to preserve birds and other wildlife, often without even meaning to. 

After all, where are you more likely to find a Snowy Owl wintering successfully so far south of their native range? The ones that spent the last two winters in our county lived on large farms with big fields. They seemed untroubled by farm activity, with one hunting most evenings a few yards from barns full of hundreds of cows and calves.

Upland Sandpipers breeding here? 

On farms. There is a well-known breeding population right here in Montgomery County just a few miles west of here.

Barn Swallows? You need only check out their name. 

The list of birds breeding or stopping along the migration route on farms is long indeed. I have counted over a hundred species on our little farm alone.

Sunday the boss and I were out on our usual peregrinations in search of Peregrines and such. 

What we found....one of the things we found anyhow....is illustrated in these photos.

As far as I can tell they are all Tree Swallows. A lot of Tree Swallows. In some spots there were a dozen crowded into just over a foot of wire. They covered a lot of wire.

It's for sure that they were all resting and refueling on their way south on two separate farms out in the Town of Root in our home county. Not scurrying for popcorn on a city street. Not snooping around in the bushes in a city park.



Nope, they were hunting bugs and sunning themselves chittering all the while...on farms.

I found the presence of the largest flock of them that I have ever seen to be.....hopeful..

My Husband took me Parking

My first ever Olive-sided Flycatcher

He does pretty much every day, nice guy that he is.

Of course we don't exactly spend our time in the traditional fashion. Instead we stop by the roadside at one of our favorite ponds or in a state park. I wander off with the binoculars and camera. He sleeps, listens to the radio or reads his farm magazines.

This morning we did just that. Since it has been foggy down by the water we have been visiting a little wide place on a seasonal road up in Charleston, where there is swamp on both sides. 

Over the past few years it has become one of my very favorite places to chase birds as it is about as wild as you can get and stay on a safe surface. However, the whole road has been closed all summer up until about a week ago due to a much needed makeover in the construction department. Used to be you took your life in your hands if you met another car. Now it is nice and wide.

While the boss snoozed I mostly just stood still near the car and listened and watched. For someone who loves the outdoors as much as I do, just watching the morning unfold is a joy. Kind of like church for us wild folks.

Yesterday and today fall warblers were busy. The other night we got two Barred Owls. There is always something.

The bar in the foreground is the roof rack on the car.

Today while I was standing a buck came out right behind the car, stared at me a while, and then slipped back into the trees.

A few minutes later a dark flycatcher showed up on a dead tree. I took about a dozen photos, because, although I was pretty sure it was just an Eastern Phoebe, something didn't look right. There is always the possibility that one of the dozens of phoebes I see will actually be something rarer, right?

I won't tell you how many photos of Eastern Phoebes and Olive-sided Flycatchers I pored over before I finally put it up on What's this Bird? 

And guess what....It was an Olive-sided. Rare enough to get that yellow box on eBird that you have to fill out to report it. A lifer for me. 

Happy dance.

Anyone have any opinion on this unusually Pale Great Blue Heron?

Later we went parking again over at the Sprout Brook Auction. That time I sat in the car while the boss walked around looking at all the stuff. Then we came home and he stored some hay and raked some more. Hope he can bale this afternoon.

A good time had by all. 

The Things you See

Green Heron

Great Blue Heron

Sunday

Short grass, long legs

Not knowing he was being watched
Double-crested Cormorant took a bath