This is War

It started with oranges. We put a few out for the Baltimore Orioles. If you build it they will come and they did, several in fact.

Two hung around. A regular adult male and this individual. I hesitate to say he or she, as it is mostly female-colored and it hangs with the male mentioned above. However, it acts like a fella, singing, flaunting itself, and attacking everything in sight.

It started with the passenger window on the car, all day, hour after hour, staring at its reflection and then fluttering up and down the window, all fight and no flight.

I tried spraying foam on the window so the reflection would be hidden.

No dice.

So I cleaned that off and the next time we came home the boss parked the car in a different spot. Simple eh?

Or not. Just a short time ago we heard a noise in the kitchen. We thought it was Peggy, but there was no answer from that quarter when we spoke...still asleep.

Mebbe a giant rat?

Ugh.

The boss went to check.

It was (and is even as we speak) the oriole. Sitting on the windowsill over the kitchen sink, pecking the window, and flaring and flashing.

Mack went so crazy I had to put him up in the kennel run to shut him up.You'd think the Spartans were at the door. All of them.

At least he is a pretty bird. Guess we will have to get used to his territorial defense strategy for now at least.

BTW the birds seem to have been rendered a little desperate by this prolonged cold weather. The feeders are thronged. I put some dried fruit out for the orioles and catbirds, and to my surprise robins started coming to partake. Within a couple of days they are literally waiting for me on the doorstep in the morning! Hard times for insect and worm eaters. 

****Has anyone else noticed that Baltimore Orioles seem to be singing, "Swing me the cradle, swing it"? Seems kinda fitting.

Bonus bird, Tree Swallow, lookit them shoulders! Must work out. Or else
bugs'll really bulk you up.

To My Mom

I'm thankful to the Lord every single day that I can call my mother late in the afternoon or early in the evening and just talk.

Some days she plays Dragon Mahjong while I bash things on Klondike and we murmur about our Covid-crippled days, exchange I love yous, and say good night.

Sometimes we reminisce and I hear stories from before I was born or when I was a baby that I never heard before. Such treasures. Such laughter and joy.

My mother is a person of indomitable spirit, courage, and great joy. She always has soldiered through everything life has thrown at her bravely and brightly...and trust me, she may not ever let you know, but it has thrown a lot.

Although I have been most stubborn about learning...a Montgomery thing, don't cha know....she has taught me much about living a life of grace and thankfulness. I have a lot more to learn and all...and a very great deal to be thankful for...but I am surely working on it.

All of us are daughters and sons; some of us are blessed enough to be old fogies ourselves and yet still have our wonderful mothers. 

I want to wish all you mothers a Happy Mother's Day today, but most especially my own because she is so special.

Love you mama, you're the best!

Holy Beaver

I hope some of you skilled outdoor folks can tell me a bit about beavers....like what they do when they want you to go away sooner rather than later....

Another birder, more skilled than I, recently started walking a really nice state trail along the former Erie Canal towpath. It's the most incredibly awesome place you could imagine, lined out along the remains of the old canal, featuring an antique lock of impressive proportions.

In pursuit of the good birds she sees there, and maybe a few of our own, we walked it the other day. It was fun but the boss didn't have a warm enough jacket so we stopped and went home. 

Doesn't this leucistic Canada Goose look like a granny wearing a mob cap?

Then last night he sat in the car while I wandered down it at the end of a long day of quarantine related confinement to quarters.....thanks, I needed that!

It was amazing. Full of peace and calm and wild glory. I didn't see a single human soul for the better part of an hour. I won't bore you with the wonderful birds that literally accompanied me (geese and a Wood Duck, carefully preceding me up and down the canalway, keeping just the right distance from my danger). Trust me that they were many and varied.

However I had an encounter that was somewhat uncanny. I was standing at the very end of one bit of walkway right next to the big lock, glassing over a large swampy area lined with water-killed trees and festooned with swampy vegetation.

A rustle in the tall grass RIGHT NEXT TO ME caused me to notice a beaver a few feet to my right. I turned to look and grab a photo as it walked up the bank next to a bit of limestone foundation there. 

It stood up on its hind feet, threw its head back and began to hiss like a tea kettle. It was most alarming. 

I grabbed a couple of quick shots and backed away precipitously as it waddled slowly down the bank, hissing the while, and slipped slowly into the water. Then it swam around in a little circle sounding more like a rattlesnake than a big rodent.

As I hustled away without getting even half a look at the swamp it blasted its tail down upon the mirrored surface as it to say, "Take that!"

And again, "Take that. And that! And that!"

Wood Duck giving me the stink eye as he slowly glides just so far, but no farther
away from me down the Erie

I can't lie. I wasn't exactly terrified, but I sure was concerned that it was going to come after me and bite me. Not sure if I accidentally walked too close to it...having not seen it...or if it came out of the water to threaten me.....However, I was quite happy that it went east while I went west.

Canada Gosling

And that is all. I think the next time...and I surely hope there will soon be one....I will cross the little wooden bridge and admire the swamp from the other side of the lock.

Here is my checklist for that excellent walk through the waning hours.

Taken at a different swamp, but this is what those teeth can do.

Just add Black Flies

The size of this guy

And you can be outdoors in the Adirondack foothills.....

When Boredom Strikes

The Kentucky Derby may be postponed for months and there may be no racing at the speedway, much to the boss's disappointment. However, there is still the fun of watching  buggies crammed with Amish kids drag racing home from church, over the blind hills on Pavlus Road. There were three in one batch and a few high-steppers soon to follow. The lead horse was going at a dead gallop, head stretched out and legs gathering the ground like a Pony Express horse. The other two were on a high pounding trot that would have shamed their former classmates at Saratoga harness track. Try as they might they could not catch up with that fat old galloper though.

It was a little scary....did I mention blind hills....but it sure was exciting.

And those kids were sure having fun. I never saw such grins.

To Every Thing

There is a season...

Around here it's nesting season. You already probably know about the Mourning Dove nest on the sitting porch. Have I mentioned that I love that bird? She never ever moves (except to blink) when I am out there. It is refreshing to be able for the first time in years to share the porch with nesting birds and not have to go indoors every few minutes so the flaky  cautious parents can come back to feed babies or keep eggs warm.

Eastern Phoebe

There's also a pair of Eastern Phoebes that are nesting somewhere on or under the porch Alan built us a couple of years ago. I can't for the life of me spy the actual nest. I don't want to disturb the birds, which were carrying grass and twigs and now are shuttling large beaks full of insect material, so I don't go too close. I think that they're going through the lattice on the bottom and nesting underneath. Handy spot.

Then the other day I spotted a Carolina Wren sneaking into the freezer the kids left in the backyard....don't ask. Wrens are anything but subtle and Carolinas are the noisiest of the lot. I knew something was up.

I tiptoed up into the garden and sneaked a peek. There's a football-sized conglomeration of sticks and junk parked in the corner of the top shelf of the old thing. 

A little later a tiny brown projectile shot out through an opening on the side of the football.

Nice! Smart little critters. The freezer faces east, out of the prevailing winds, it's watertight, and thanks to its orientation to the house you can't see inside. I'm staying away from that part of the yard for now but I can't wait to see the nestlings when they hatch and fledge. Cutest little things....

Best one though:

We were on the way to purchase milk for the folks the other day, when we found the most exciting nest of the season.

As we drove through busy traffic on a feeder road leading to a main arterial highway through the county to the north of us, a large bird flew over the car quite low. I thought it was a Great Blue Heron at first, as something long was trailing behind. However, the something was a large branch not legs. The boss quickly stopped the car in a handy-dandy pull off right there.

The bird was an Osprey. I'd never seen one in that county before.

Amazingly there were TWO Osprey constructing a huge nest on top of a convenient cell phone tower right near a business building. Even though they are right in a semi-urban commercial area, but they seemed unbothered by traffic and travelers.

How cool is that?!?

Ajar

A gallon jar sits on a dresser.

Cool, clear, green, a little dusty, a flaw here and there

But lovely in its way.

It's filled with pennies, almost to the brim.

Their dates represent many years, some have stems of wheat on the back, strange mint marks, and dates before, behind, and between.

Some glow brightly, fresh-minted, and warm pinky copper, shining like small sunshine in heaps inside the jar.

Something moves.

Something changes.

The jar is shifted, teeters, tips. Pennies fall from its wide mouth. First a few, then a dozen, next a hundred and a cascade.

They roll and flow across the dresser, some dropping to the floor and bouncing away across the carpet. Some lying where they fall. The jar tips farther and farther until it falls right over. The last of the pennies tumble to the floor with a noisy clinking tinkle.

The jar crashes down upon them and splinters into tiny pieces, scattered on the floor.

Oh no!

Where once there was a familiar container full of tokens of value, some prettier than others but all of worth to the owner, there is now only chaos. Nothing familiar. Nothing normal. Nothing right.

Hard not to be daunted by what will be required to make things better.

Not the same. The jar is gone forever. 

But at least better.

You may find all the pennies, even if you have to get down on your knees. Even if you must move the dresser and sweep under the bed you will find most of them. You will have to work around the bits of glass, pick them up ever so carefully, and find a way to put them out of your life.

But the jar is gone.

Maybe you will find a new one, clear glass, or perhaps painted with a pretty pattern. Maybe a piggy bank. Maybe you will roll all those pennies, take them to the bank and turn them in for folding money to tuck away in a drawer.

No matter what, everything will be changed when it is done.

Everything. 

And that is how these days feel to me. Life still has its pennies, bright ones, wonderful wheat pennies to be saved in the saki bowl on the mantel, shiny new ones fresh from the mint, but they are mixed with what feels like shattered glass and sharp edges, in no clear pattern and with no clear plan.

Good thing there are still birds....or I would really be getting crazy.

NAY-pril

This is NOT April.

April is a month of new baby birds, fresh bright flowers, and balmy spring breezes.

At least in theory.

However, April was hijacked.

This is a stone b*tch of a month dug from some ancient calendar of horrors sent to make staying home more fun. Shudder.

Also the longest month in history. Usually first of the month bills race up to the checkbook finish line, out of breath and palms extended. This year they just keep moving the goal posts.

I suppose that is a good thing. Sorta.

That is all.

Thank you.

The Eyes have It

There is an American Bittern in this photo.
The boss and I spotted him at just about the same time.
I really wanted one for my county list this year.
No FOY dance though as I was too busy taking photos.

Patience Grasshopper

All things come to she who goes birding and racks up around 12 complete checklists with Google maps down and non-functional. Maps is an integral part of the app and you can't submit checklists from the phone if it isn't working. Guess who uses mobile pretty much exclusively....

And therefore figures out the next day more or less where the heck all those lists were geographically and enters them by hand on the computer.

Only took an hour and a half.

And then must uninstall eBird and reinstall it. Plus the bird pack for the region.

Will it work now?

Thousands want to know. Particularly me. 

Guess I will go out on the porch to count a few yard birds and see.

Catch you later.....

Update: it worked!

Birds are my Crack

The road to adventure

Been realizing lately that they have always been mega important to me. I started taking notice when I was small and living upstairs over Grandma and Grandpa Montgomery. I remember checking out Common Grackles and American Robins on the sidewalk beside the house while my little brother was racing his wagon down the hill with sometimes dire consequences. I remember the lilacs and lilies of the valley too, but that is another story.

Birds have fascinated me ever since and I have always, always watched. However, there used to be many other things too, horses from infancy, both real and imagined. Dogs, starting with beagles that ate the kitchen linoleum in the same time frame as the grackles and Radio Flyers, and progressing through many amazing creatures, culminating in Border Collies. (Jack Russell Terrier thrown in for comic relief.) And music. There was always music.

Then came cows. They will consume your life. You won't mind.

Now retired from cows, too old, lame, and halt for much to do with horses, down to just one dog, a good boi, but just one, birds remain.

And I am addicted.

Looking for an American Bittern seen by a birder friend yesterday
Didn't find it

I agonize over finding new ones. List compulsively. Am not happy until I have photographed every single one of them. (Haven't met that challenge yet, but I have 211 species with photos on eBird. That's out of 238 species I have technically seen, but there were many more before eBird that I can't document. I saw them though.) 

Probably couldn't have seen if it was perched on the hood ornament

When I can't list, I study, take quizzes, and then study some more. 

And dream about birds at night. I've always thrown myself wholeheartedly into my assorted passions. Now, as other things wane, it's birds, feathers down. (Not to mention down feathers, tee hee.)

Call me obsessive.

But hey, it's a lot of fun. 

This does not mean however, that I am delighted at the Mourning Dove building a nest on a porch pillar right over where I like to sit. Sharing is caring and all, but still.....

And I thought the robins were bad.

Smol Thing

Brown Creeper, nemesis for three years
Found yesterday thanks to his tinkly song

Opened the sitting porch yesterday, a small thing for sure.

And yet kinda lorge as well. This morning it is a little chillier in the living room than it might be because most of the plastic is off the door.

However, the chickadees found the summer feeder as soon as I hung it up. I think they followed me around the house when they saw the seed cup in my hands.

They were downright gleeful at having it all to themselves and kept up a steady shuttle to and fro until they all had their fill.

It's the little things.

As the mornings warm up a bit I can now sneak out there for a few early minutes with the dawn and the dinosaur descendants and forget about the bigger things we are all facing these days.

Oh, and coffee. It wouldn't be morning without coffee.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

The Straws

That broke the collective lock down backs seem to have been boat launches and golf courses.

It appeared to me all through this that our illustrious goobernor wanted a new headline every week, "Look what I'm doing to save you!" so each week he announced yet another stricture in the lives of his subjects. Many of them were fairly sensible and sensible people were probably adhering to them anyhow.......

However, there were some that were plumb senseless. Golf courses had been left open, as most people are able to observe recommended distances while whacking little white balls in the great outdoors. The ones who weren't going to follow those concepts probably weren't doing so anywhere else either.

Same with boat launches. The boss and I visit a boat launch pretty near every day, preferably early in the morning when the birds are out and the people aren't. 

Although marinas were one of the early things closed boat launches were still okay until last week's go round of new rules and regulations. It was disconcerting in the extreme to meet a ranger going into the park as we were going out....would we have been in trouble for birding? Dunno, but it was a concern and an unnecessary added stress.

Anyhow, talk about a tipping point. Or a back breaking straw if you prefer. Most of my Facebook experience up to the boat and white ball strictures consisted of people arguing mildly and calling each other stupid, but in a routine, this is Facebook after all, sort of way.

After the boat launch/golf course thing I was invited to join a number of secret protest groups full of rabid people who were really, really, really outraged about the deal. Memes popped up like dandelions in a shaggy lawn. And yes, I did join the groups, but soon had to hide most of their output as it was just more people calling each other stupid only in an angrier sort of way.

There was no joy in Upstateville to put it mildly.

I predicted, aloud so I have witnesses, that the first things reopened again had better be boat launches and golf courses and that it had better happen in the next couple of days or there would be an uprising and good ideas would go down with the bad..

Lo and behold.....look what happened.

Sometimes there is nothing like a swift backpedal, or should I say backpaddle, to calm restless waters.....

Time

Male Eastern Bluebird

Sneaky snipe. Now you see them, now you don't
Wilson's Snipe

Snowgansers
Don't let the weather stop you
Hooded Merganser pair at a pond we have started visiting

The local lineup at another nearby pond

For some birds!

Tux and tails with red spats
Male Common Merganser

In appropriate habitat
Female Belted Kingfisher

It's ALL appropriate habitat
American Robin