Pig Bears and other mythical Creatures

Adventuring has taken place around home the past few days....but there were adventures nonetheless.

The dreaded pig bear was spotted sauntering through the gap in the fence around the long lawn and partaking of its favorite spring prey. Later, as the season progresses, it will change its diet from the native grasses and herbs to the green beans in the garden, thus the dreaded part of the equation.

The vest was soon shed...it was quite warm

And grandma was taken on a nature walk by the home school girl, who has also been involved in the construction of an elaborate blanket fort in the dining room...wish I had taken a photo....

Note pink purse for outward bound water bottle and pop tarts
and homeward bound rocks of good color, size, and style

Bright green beetles were seen on the walk, powder blue butterflies abounded, a Red-tailed Hawk was enjoyed, and a number of good rocks were acquired. 

A good time was had by all. I am kinda missing our peripatetic birding style though.

Female Baltimore Oriole
I wonder if she is building a blanket fort with
that milkweed fluff...

It's Here

Spring...so long awaited, so very welcome. Trees are blooming. The lilacs are almost open, as are the flowering crab apples that line Main Street down in town.

The first hummingbird arrived at the feeder a couple of days ago. Other birders, less blind than I, are racking up warblers like mad. The boss and I are doing okay though. Picked up a couple of flycatchers today, a Scarlet Tanager, Indigo Bunting (right on the feeder) and some other delightful fliers.

Semipalmated Plover

Least Sandpiper

Best birds of the week though, were a pair of lifers, Semipalmated Plovers and Least Sandpipers, plus not one but three Upland Sandpipers.

Upland Sandpiper

Finding the latter was kind of funny....there is a horse farm up in Ames, where they breed each year. It's a good place to find them even from the road. We were pulled off on the verge and I was scanning the distant fence posts as they like to sit on top of them. Nada, although one had flown off when we drove by earlier.

As I perused the far distance the boss asked, "What color are they anyhow?"

I replied that they are kind of tan, sort of.

Wilson's Snipe

He said, "What's that right next to the car there?"

Yeah, there were three of them cavorting among the lovely Thoroughbred mares and foals sharing the paddock we were parked next to.

What would I be without his sharp eyes and lack of preconceptions about where to look?

An adult Nottabird, nomming sliced apple I put out for catbirds and robins.

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!