The Best Bird

Yesterday was the annual Johnstown NY Christmas Bird Count. Our family has participated almost since its beginning in 1982, and myself for 26 years. 

It was not the most scintillating year for Mayfield South. Traffic was fierce and birds still dispersed away from the roads, because I guess of our relatively mild....so far...winter.

Red-tailed Hawk, I think Alan took this one

Still we had a lot of fun owling even without any tangible results. Traffic was already pretty busy in the pre-dawn hours and the Barred Owl Mom has been hearing at their house refused to cooperate.

Brr, brr, brr Blue Jay

High points were three Pileated Woodpeckers, high for our personal count, two Cooper's Hawks, six Red-tailed Hawks, a mess of Mallards despite a serious dearth of open water, and two Ruffed Grouse that Alan found hidden away in some trees on a relatively deserted bit of road.

It was, as always, fun.

This spot looks benign and beautiful, but is beside a busy road and kinda scary
You press the shutter and peruse with the bins right smartly or die

However, the best bird of the day was a Common Loon, gavia immer. None of the water left in our bit of territory is large enough for a loon to get moving and get off the water. Thus unless we get a flyover, way, way, way out of season, we aren't going to see one.

This one though was given to me and Ralph by my dad and mom.

It was hand carved by my dad, in 1988, and is a thing of haunting beauty. The golden butternut body tempts fingers to stroke its silken surface....so sleek and smooth and somehow so satisfying to touch. Ruby eyes hold the secrets of the north, just as do the eyes of the real deal that we see at Peck's Lake and other beloved places in the spring and summer.

Nearly Headless Cooper's Hawk

It is a true treasure, was received as such, and will be treated as such as long as I am around to care for it.

Thanks, Dad and Mom for such an amazing and unexpected gift.

And thanks Alan for driving, spotting with those laser eyes, and feeding us well before you had to race off to another state for work today.

Misty Mallard

Thanks Amber for your patience, riding around freezing with the windows down while the loonies looked for loons...or chickadees and finches as the case may be.

Thanks Becky for keeping the paper tally while people shouted over one another, "crow", "downy", "MODO" and other garbled goodies from the front seat.

Thank you all and happy birding....or happy not birding if that is the way you roll. And Merry Christmas too.

Gavia Immer

Don't Touch my Nutz

At least twenty years ago, probably more, the man who started the Farm Side column and later turned it over to me when he got too busy farming to write it, brought us a bunch of Black Walnut seedlings.

We planted them....mostly I did...except for some that we gave to our farrier to plant at his place.

The ones I stomped down into a woodchuck hole because the ground was too hard and tangled with roots to dig in...unless you were a groundhog of course...thrived.

Today they are quite tall and make a lot of nutz, which I happily cede to the squirrels. Birds love those trees though and I get some nice ones there, like my first ever Yellow-throated Vireo a couple of years back.

And every couple of years contractors for the power company come by to trim out under the lines.

Well and good. It needs to be done! However, their definition of "under the power lines" is more than a little generous. 

Thus every couple of years I must defend my nutz.

This year we mentioned them to the advance man. And then we reminded him.

Twice.

And went outside and watched as chainsaws roared through Box Elder trees, which, alas, will spring back up by next fall despite them. 

They were quite nice and stayed well away from the walnuts, which aren't under the lines anyhow. Now I have a nice view from the driveway down to the river except for a few cottonwoods down by the Thruway.

Thanks guys.

Ghost Bunnies

Flutter above the snow

White tails bobbing, off they go

I'm glad they do this

Don't cha know

Cuz if the doggies see them

Down I go.

Morning dog walking can be fraught with peril, although it's worse after the sun comes up and the red squirrels come down from the honey locust.

It's pretty out there in the moon stained snow though, quieter than usual,everything a soft shade of midnight blue

Not much traffic so early in the morning and the sound all muffled by a couple of inches of new fluff.

I listen as hard as I can for the Great Horned Owls, but not yet.....not yet...too soon I guess.

If the snow gets deep and they get hungry for rabbit, down they will come from the back hills I think..

There are a thousand, thousand, thousand footprints lacing the yard like rabbit macrame. 

What's not to like for a hungry hunter?

Silver Lining Adventures

Bad photo/good bird

The boss was hit by a falling hay bale a couple of weeks ago and it really trashed his knee. It would probably heal pretty good except for the constant supply of ice to slip upon and wood to fall off the log splitter and hit him.

Anyhow, besides the misery for him, which is considerable I believe, he can only drive for fifteen or twenty minutes before it really starts to hurt. Something about the angle required to sit behind the wheel...

Thus along with every errand and chore being a challenge, birding has been pretty much a no-go, except for watching the feeder and walking the yard...which is also very icy.

However, the other day the blasted knee locked up while we were driving to Fonda, just as we crossed the river bridge.

I was exclaiming over the number of Mallards sheltering in its lee from a vicious west wind.

He said, "Good, you can get out and go photograph them while I get out of the car and walking around for a minute."

Well, okay then. I hate to ask to stop there because....well, I didn't think he liked to.

However, I tussled with the wind out onto the bridge and photographed everything I could find. It was hard, between the bridge bouncing up and down under all the tractor trailers and the wind forcing me to hang onto the railing sometimes so as not to become airborne myself.

Then I grabbed some shots of a ball of gulls on the fairgrounds and he walked the kinks out of his knee and we were on our way.

Once home I scanned all the photos looking for anything of interest. They were pretty bad thanks to the impossibility of standing still..... hmm...there was an all white gull in one photo. interesting....

Turned out to be a first-of-the-year for the county Glaucous Gull. Nice! Only the 3rd I have ever seen. This brings my count in Montgomery County to 178 and the county total to 194. Lots of fun!

Next day same story, only this time a Gadwall among the Mallards. Not a terribly rare duck but I hadn't seen one since last winter.

And then there is the amazing bird guide Becky won because she is so witty. More about that later....let's just say I went to bed kinda late last night because I was studying swans. I am now confident that the swan I saw at Lykers this summer was a Trumpeter based on its call, but I probably won't count it just the same.

So popular the actual book is sold out on Amazon

A Plea

Can anybody get this awful song out of my head? 

Please...

It's the version of White Christmas from Home Alone. It first got snagged there while birding the pedestrian bridge in Amster-by-gosh.

I think I told you about that.

Then the other night I indulged in my annual personal enjoyment of the above movie.

This year Peggy joined me for the first one.

It was fun. Much delightful discussion of bad guys and don't-try-this-at-home and that sort of thing, plus fresh laughs through the eyes of a five-year-old. 

Good stuff.

However, it has been four or five days....maybe even a week...and that awful song just won't go away. Makes Baby Shark look like a walk in the park....and btw that one doesn't seem to bother me a bit, but when I started joking about it the other day, Peggy groaned, "Stop, don't say that, please grandma, it gets stuck in my head."

She has my sympathies. Not to mention my genes... 

Meanwhile, since the jukebox in my head plays night and day, I am dreaming of a white Christmas....

I would really rather not.

Frostlights

Cardinal perched in a frost lit tree, sun shining everything even though it has yet to pass the horizon. Like a Christmas postcard only....

....Cold.

Liz says below zero. I forgot to check before I went outside. The boss has a bum knee, so I thought to take some of the work off him and went out to tend the stove. Alas, it was woodless with few coals still going so it was a big job. And a long job too. The wood is oak and not the driest, although  lot drier than some we have attempted to burn. Glad he got a load of softwood in but even that doesn't really want to light today.

So beautiful out there though. Clear, frigid, but quiet, with every tree frost-rimed and the birds as friendly as a flock of chickens. I think they know who comes outside with scoops of tasty seeds each day.

Andiron cat is not amused......

Now if only we could get that darned stove cooking again. 

If he ever escapes his iron exoskeleton he will GET the bird that did that

Brrrrr.....

Well that was Accidental

When you live with someone who is five, there are things around, pretty much all the time. They tend to land wherever they are dropped....All kinds of things from Barbies and toy horses to stray socks and cowboy boots.

My morning routine includes coffee, medicine, and walking dogs (before coffee). And picking up things. Oh, and did I mention coffee?

There has been, since Thanksgiving, an ongoing battle for kitchen table space...as in Grandma wants it cleared off and will add that task to the other morning stuff. That bare, red-gold plank surface is so appealing...

Today there was a sort of an elf figure on the table by my meager pile of stuff. Ugh.

I moved it over to the finial on the back of Liz's chair...tied her little hands together around the knob and went about my business. It's a family culture thing anyhow, Becky and I moving Peggy's toys into funny places if she leaves them lying around. There is still a little cowboy in the ornamental corn on the porch that she hasn't noticed yet. Found him out in the yard last fall.

Aunt Lisa, this is the picture you took the other day
when you were trying out the camera....

This time however, little miss morning grumpy pants went to the kitchen for breakfast and went wild with joy.

"She's magic! She's real! She's real!"

She ran through the house telling everyone how her elf moved and was magic...

"And don't touch her! Her magic will go away if you touch her!"

Who knew?

A total, if serendipitous accident.

Anyhow, I guess I have another early morning job......

The McDonald's Alps

Happy Thanksgiving

Remember Lucy?
She was proof that you can love a turkey,
no matter how exasperating

To all my dear friends and family. Our crew is all here today with plans for carrying forth time-honored traditions, while making new ones as well.  There is much for which to be thankful indeed.

Saw this critter along a road during a birding adventure.
Wonder what his story is.....

Not surprisingly many of these traditions involve White-tailed Deer, which will be featured as sausage for the stuffing, and quarry in the field. Alan and Amber made the sausage, which I can attest is amazing.

What with all the cooking and deer hunting that is projected to take place, I will leave you with this interesting article from Alex at Ammo.com.

Thanksgiving, the Forgotten History. 

To be human is to be political on some level, whether we admit it or not. And even the birds have opinions.

Before the Storm

Friendly little Snow Bunting

What do YOU remember?

We were in class when the teacher rushed out of the room and vanished.

It was a lady teacher, but I don't remember her name.

She did not return and I suppose at first we were all a little rowdy. 6th grade.... kids at that age rarely miss a chance to make some noise, pass a few notes, giggle a little bit and just be silly.

 I expect that at some point the running feet and sobbing in the halls and the electric atmosphere of shock and horror got through to us little hellions though. I don't think the teacher ever came back. I don't quite remember, even though I can picture clearly just where my desk was situated and which side of the hall the room was on and where the door was..

And I remember the announcement coming over the PA system.

About what had happened. Oh, my God, NO! It couldn't be.

But it was.

School dismissed.

Go home to a different world than the one you left that morning when you left behind the dregs of cold cereal to make the bus.

I remember going home that day, turning on the TV, and sitting in the family room, which is now my parents's office, and watching the rest of the day instead of going out to play.

I don't remember much else though.

After all it was 56 years ago.

And I will bet every single one of you who was alive then and old enough to be aware of your world remembers exactly where you were and what you were doing the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and the world was never the same again ever.

If you see this guy today.....

Wish him an amazing and memorable birthday.

He is such a wonderful dad, a great brother, a sweet, kind, and generous person, and all around good man....

We love you, Scott. Happy Birthday!

Must Celebrate

Song Sparrow in the snow

Mallards

Rock Pigeons

Common Mergansers

Merlin

Long-tailed Duck

The continued resurrection of computer and photo archive.

Alan, you got your wish