Surprise!

Somewhat blurry Common Gallinule chick

The first thing on your dance card today is adventure and it's gonna last all day.

I had no idea yesterday when we set out to take Liz to work and buy a spark plug for the John Deere weed eater, that retirement could be so exciting. At the sparking plug store the guy told Ralph he would have to come back in a couple of hours as the plug was in another town but they would get it.

Mama COGA

I was not pleased and made my feelings known. I envisioned hours of boredom in the other end of the county waiting for something that was far from an emergency. In case you didn't know it, I am a terribly grumpy person and don't do patience well.

Female Red-winged Blackbird carrying food to the kiddos

The boss dangled a visit to Cline Rd. Marsh in front of my snapping and snarling countenance and I somewhat reluctantly found myself appeased.

We proceeded to Oppenheim and I was strapping on my gear when a bird appeared in the middle of the road. A Common Gallinule! I have been trying all spring to get a photo of one, as we had heard them almost every single visit. And there she was. I grabbed some shots and looked back down to buckle up bins and sling on the camera.

"Chicks!" the boss exclaimed. And there were, FIVE of them! They scuttled across the road behind mama and I grabbed some blurry shots. I was pretty sure that I had heard chicks among the phragmites last week and here was proof that gallinules are breeding on the marsh.

Exciting!

Also quite startling was this large Northern Water Snake

I spotted what looked like a loop of rubber hose among the rushes
but it turned out to be this guy.

Also exciting were the 39 other species I encountered in the next hour and six minutes. The marsh was alive with song and flight. I regretted my grump intensely...as usual.

Green Heron

I was just finishing up...standing beside the car chatting to the boss with my back to him while I tried to record the gallinules when he exclaimed again.

Da Bear vanishing into the woods
right by Donnie and Hope's house!

"A bear! A bear! A bear!" He could barely get the words out.

I spun around and tried to get a photo but ursus wasn't picking any daisies. Five minutes before I had been standing right where that bear was!

We packed up and took the tour around the loop road where we encountered some furious Swamp Sparrows guarding a nest and a Mourning Warbler, a first in the county for me.

Then we returned home for a relatively peaceful rest of the day...

Until just the edge of dark, which comes pretty late these days. 

I went out to bring Mack down from his kennel for his dinner. As usual it takes a really swift grab to get the leash on his collar and I almost missed him. He was really excited. Since something has been drinking all the water out of his bucket every night, I turned to latch the door back closed. There was.....something....gazing up at me from the concrete floor of his run.

I put the light on it. A very dead, utterly disemboweled, woodchuck. He is a terrier. It's what they do. It wasn't a pup either. (Neither is he! He's 11, all grey in the face and looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth but he has the terrier instinct and it isn't hard to trigger.) It made a hefty load in the shovel when I took care of the mess after I took the dog down to the house for his dinner...because I may be a grump but I don't whine for a guy to deal with things like that even though it sure was a nasty mess.

Anyhow, from daylight to no light yesterday was quite a day. I am ready for some quiet today....maybe...

And that's one woodchuck that won't be eating my beans and lettuce this year.

TBRaC

If you are a reader...I mean, a serious reader who absolutely cannot leave home without a book...or even two (sure is handy having thousands right there on your phone)...you know that TBR means to be read.

Of course I have a TBR list on the phone. And I belong to an ARC group (that's Advance Reader Copy) wherefrom I get books to read just for the price of reviewing them. Some of them are truly terrible and get DNFed (that's did not finish-life is too short to read bad books.) However, I have stumbled upon some real gems and found some awesome new authors in that manner. 

However, I have an extra-special TBR pile. It is of actual books printed on paper and bound in covers and all that stuff. Digital and audio books are convenient for modern life...the phone goes where I go and so does the library. However, some truly extraordinary volumes are not available in e form (or alternately, I just don't want to buy them again, when I already own them.) Thus the TBRaC pile.

To Be Read at Camp. 

At camp I can lounge around with a good book with no need to get into a car to go anywhere or to cook if I don't want to, or do laundry, or walk the dog, etc. Reading at camp is gleefully stationary.

Thus The Sanctuary Sparrow, by Ellis Peters, The Chain of Destiny by Berry Neels, Lassie, Come Home, by Eric Knight, The Rising of the Lark, by Ann Moray, and Spindrift, by John J. Rowland in actual corporeal form, are piled by my chair, awaiting packing for our annual foray into the  Adirondacks for a week of birds, books, and bliss. I am sure others will join the pile, including The Horsemasters, by Donald S. Sanford, which Becky just purchased for me. I actually have the copy I bought from Scholastic Books back when I saved my 25-cent lunch money to buy books from the book club list they handed out in school. It is too battered by hundreds of readings to survive a trip to the woods. 

TBRaC, what a wonderful concept. 

Ooh, Becky just found me another Ellis Peters book to add to the pile!

Forty Years Ago Today

We grabbed a couple of our dearest friends and headed off to the JP. He must have done something right because we are still best friends and life companions. Happy Anniversary Ralphie.  (That's not some weird pagan dance up there...we were moving the bird feeders and Becky grabbed an unauthorized photo. So I stole it right back from her.)

Happy Birthday

 To this little one! What a cutie!

NotaBird

Group birding is peopled with folks peering at things in trees, only to announce, "it's notabiird."

It might be a nest of web spinning caterpillars or an errant plastic bag, dead leaves, the tip of a moldering snag, squirrel, opening showing a bit of sky, or any number of other foolers, but simply, notabird. 

Here are a few notabird photos I have taken on recent field trips.

Happy Father's Day in Heaven

 

Happy Father's Day

 

To all these fine men.

June 14th

 

Burbine Forest Revisited and Wren Update

Veery

 So, I talked myself into it. We went back to the Thomas H. Burbine Memorial Forest this morning, Ralph to read on his phone and me to walk the trails and stalk the birds.

This trip was even better than the previous one. As soon as I left the parking lot I heard my first of the year Winter Wren singing, and before the day was up I heard two more and saw one. If you have never heard one give this a listen. This song is my favorite of all the bird songs I have actually heard. It isn't quite a Musician Wren, but close enough for Upstate NY. (Do give both a listen; you will be glad you did.)

Here is a link to the trip checklist with two recordings I made of the Winter Wrens today.

After enjoying the wren, a nice flock of Red-breasted Nuthatches and some Blackburnian Warblers, I walked on and found some of the trails I missed last time.

They are much more extensive, enough so that I didn't dare walk them all for fear that Ralph might get bored and leave me to walk home. JK, he wouldn't do that but I was afraid he would worry.

Two different deer burst out behind me barking and coughing and snorting their terror and outrage at finding an intruder in their woods. 

There is a gazebo, a pond, and a nice little deck with chairs near the pond. I ended my walk with 34 species, many of them unique to tall, open woodland like this. 

There is a Northern Flicker nest with babies in a snag there. Hermit Thrushes singing everywhere. Veerys ditto.

It is a really nice place and I highly recommend it. Can't wait to go back.

Update on the wren situation I mentioned yesterday. Today there has been a tame little Northern House Wren singing on the sitting porch and checking out the nestbox all day. Could be a stranger but I have a feeling it's  Mr. C&LB. We'll see how tame he is.....

Ragged Robin

Thomas H. Burbine Sr. Memorial Forest

 

Although it is often birded by others, I had never visited, even though it is close to home, adjacent to another spot we frequently visit, and easily accessible. Last week I decided to give it a try.

Before I was even out of the car, while I was still looping camera and binocular straps around my neck, I counted birds singing in every direction. Crossing the wide, well-graveled parking lot I heard more Red-breasted Nuthatches than I have ever encountered at one time before. Blackburnian Warblers sang softly all around me. A Pine Warbler slurred its gentle, junco-like song from the underbrush.

Although the easy trails were not extensive, the open pine forest with little understory was not unlike a cathedral, almost silent except for the bird song. I think I missed a lot, not knowing where to go. 

I hadn't gone more than a few yards before I heard a singing Hermit Thrush, a bird that had eluded me in our home county this year up until that point. Because the big trees muffled most of the traffic noise I was able to record even a very vocal Brown Creeper, and Golden-crowned Kinglets were easily heard.

The forest would be beautiful, even without the plethora of lovely singers, but the birds do add a delightful dimension. I look forward to returning, especially maybe next spring during warbler migration. Spectacular habitat for anything that likes tall evergreens. I'll bet there are owls there!

I knew Tom and liked him a lot. He gave me a deer foot fern once because I admired one in his office...that was just the kind of man he was. I am glad to have visited this forest tribute to him.

Tough Little Mama

 

Northern House Wren in the act of fledging

Late May and early June brought our wrens back to the Sitting Porch, sporting a brand new name, as the House Wren species was split this year. Now there are Northern House Wrens and Southern House Wrens, plus some new Caribbean wrens. (I predict that, like many other splits, the US species will either be "lumped" back into one pretty quick, or the powers that be will discover that the two species hybridize with "hybrid vigor" along the line of demarcation like it was their job.)

Anyhow the early season went by in a normal fashion. One of the pair hated me with a thousand passions, scolding furiously if I so much as walked past the screen door...on the inside. The other half of the equation hopped around my feet, landed on the flower box next to me if I dared to sit in my chair out there, and generally seemed to find me downright acceptable.

The chicks hatched. The one I assume to be the mother, as she spent much more time in the box than the other, hated me ever more vigorously as the bug shuttle began. The male just yawned and shrugged.

Insect Door Dash in the side yard

Then her partner vanished. It is hard to tell if you are seeing one or two wrens in the never-ending insect delivery brigade on the porch, but I was only noting an angry bird with not a sign of Mr. Calm and Laid Back. I lamented him. I am sure if she was capable of lamenting the hen wren did too, as both parents normally feed the nestlings. 

A couple of days later I was watering plants in an upstairs bedroom when a wren calmly hopped up to me and perched on a corner shelf. I was sure it was Mr. C&LB. I couldn't catch him though, and he vanished again. I think he got through a gap into the attic.

I felt terrible. I looked and looked but no luck.

Meanwhile Ms. Ultra-Karen continued to feed the kids alone. I read in Cornell's Birds of the World that a male that had lost his mate was documented making 1217 insect deliveries in one day. She probably didn't bring that many bugs but the shuttle ran dawn to dark, with pauses only to natter at me to get offa her lawn...or porch as the case may be.

Today the babies fledged. There was much cajoling on her part to get them to come out into the world. They were pretty reluctant. I don't know how many there were altogether, but babies came out of that tiny white bird house like clowns out of a circus car. I can't say I was sad. it is always great, every single year, when I can finally water the plants on the porch in peace and guilt free.

A couple of hours later as we ate our lunch in the living room there was a soft window strike on one of the big windows....

From the inside!

Our visitor was an adult Northern House Wren. Did the female accidentally find her way indoors? Was it one of the other pair that has taken up housekeeping on the other side of the house?

I don't know. We managed after a few tries to shoo it out the door to the Sitting Porch and it flew off as if its tail feathers were on fire.

I do know that I will be watching...and hoping...to see an extra tame, really, really friendly Northern House Wren in the coming days. I sure hope that it was Mr. C&LB.

Also, I wonder if the missus is a new bird this year and the male was half of the old pair...a lot can happen to a bird that weights less than four tenths of an ounce on a trip from here to Central America and back. If she nests again this year or returns next, I hope she gets used to me though. Last year's wren adventure was much more peaceful.

I don't like you!

Happy Birthday

To our personal horse/cow/dog/etc. whisperer. Also oldest kiddo. 

Hope you have a wonderful and .....peaceful....(as if) day. 

Love you Liz. Happy Birthday! 

Some Gave All

 Thank you!