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First of the May Apples
Few blooms are more beautiful than the May apples.
Partially opened bud 
Full bloom Yesterday the woods were full of them.
I saw some other wildflowers as well — starflower, as well as a few new ones: gaywing and wild lily of the valley. There was also one mystery flower.
Starflower 
Gaywing (Fringed polygala) 
Wild lily of the valley 
More wild lily of the valley 
Mystery flower 
Forest floor The forest floor made me wax poetic — a carpet strewn with jewels. Not all of them were plants, either.
Green darner dragonfly All in all quite magical…
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Lovely, dark and deep
I took the girls to a preserve yesterday that we haven’t been to in over a year. It contains a gorge and an old growth forest I think of as the Ent Woods. Some of the trees are enormous, and generally speaking it has a dim, brooding air about it.
An old stone bridge spans a stream that runs steeply downhill over a shale bed.
The girls (and the dog) played in the stream while I sat along the edge, watching some chipmunks playing on the steep, mossy far bank, listening to what might have been a grouse ticking somewhere, hearing a warbler I never saw, and admiring the wildflowers growing nearby.
Bird’s eye speedwell 
Trillium 
Trillium 
Wild geranium 
Forget-me-not 
Forget-me-not, pink version? 
As the girls played, I noticed they were being overseen by a tree that looked like it had a face. Maybe it’s an ent…
As I listened to the girls, it occurred to me to wonder whether they would be better off doing something more organized with other children. Are all these hours outside really what they need? It struck me that at some level I’m trying to give them something I had as a child: time to play in the woods. There were woods behind my house growing up, and a creek too. My memories of childhood involve more of the woods than of experiences with other kids. I caught toads, played with my plastic horses out there, and often found clumps of trees or streamside nooks that seemed like natural playhouses. Once, I remember coming home to a spanking; I’d been sitting by the creek not far from the house, daydreaming, while apparently my mother had been calling and calling for me. She was worried; I’d never heard a thing over the happy sounds of the flowing water.
I didn’t know as much about nature as my daughters do. They know the names and sounds of many birds — over 100 already. They know the names of more trees than I did, and what kinds of creatures thrive on the old decaying logs lying along the stream. And unlike me, who in the more innocent era of my childhood spent many hours alone in the woods, they are always attended by a parent — granted, one who tries to become invisible while keeping them in view, but one who’s there just the same, my mace and cell phone safely stored in my camera case, ready to take on any potential sinister creatures who come our way. (None ever have.)
I think that there are great advantages to these experiences. The natural knowledge they’re accumulating. The ability to be alive and interested and imaginative without props. The wealth of shared memories. The love for wild places that will mature into what Aldo Leopold called a land ethic. And then there is what I can only think of as the strengthening, quieting effect of spending time in a natural setting. Generally speaking, it’s never a bad thing to have opportunity not just to live, but to reflect on one’s living. That may be where the sense of self is most formed.
Yet spending time this way is a choice against other ways of spending it, many of them involving more structure and social interaction. Every now and then I stop to wonder whether we’re getting the balance right. I hope so. I don’t want something that’s so good in so many ways to end up isolating.
On our way out, we heard occasional bursts of birdsong. These woods are so dense, and cover so many acres, that the birds aren’t concentrated in flocks that can be easily seen. We didn’t see a blackburnian warbler, as I’d hoped we would. But we saw a black-throated green warbler, a chestnut-sided, a catbird, a few towhees, a Baltimore oriole, several robins, and, finally, a new bird:
Blue-headed vireo It was hawking insects like a phoebe, and singing.
We also saw this battered mourning cloak butterfly sunning itself.
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Bird lists and new pics
Migrating birds seen since April:
- Yellow warbler
- Chestnut-sided warbler
- Black and white warbler
- Yellow-rumped warbler
- Blue-gray gnatcatcher
- Palm warbler
- Blue-winged warbler
- Ruby-crowned kinglets
- White-crowned sparrows
- Magnolia warbler
- Black-throated green warbler
- American redstart
Heard but not seen:
- Prairie warbler
New returnees:
- Chipping sparrow
- Brown thrasher
- Robin
- Gray catbird
- Red-winged blackbird
- Baltimore oriole
- Eastern towhee
- Rose-breasted grosbeak
- Eastern phoebe
First sightings in 2013:
- Field sparrow (this bird has a beautiful song!)
- Veery
- Oven bird
- Several of the warblers listed above: black and white, blue-gray gnatcatcher, ruby-crowned kinglet, black-throated green
- Red-breasted nuthatch
I’d love to see:
- Blackburnian warbler
- Parula warbler
Here are some photos from an early morning walk today with my 12-year-old. We’d talked about it yesterday, but since she was up late I decided not to wake her up. She got up early anyway and came out to the kitchen raring to go!
She got the best pictures of the black-throated green warbler using the Canon SX 130IS I used before my husband blessed me with a Canon Rebel last Christmas. My auto focus would NOT focus on this fellow!
Photo courtesy of my daughter. Here are my photos of things we saw.
Magnolia warbler 
American redstart 
Black-throated green warblers 
Also seen: oven bird, towhee, yellow warbler, blue wing, chickadee, catbird, brown thrasher, white-tailed deer.
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Woods wonders
We saw an unprecedented five hawks in the woods yesterday. Two were Cooper’s hawks, flying together — a sobering reminder that all these beautiful spring warblers are in a daily fight for survival.
Along with the yellow warblers and blue wings, chestnut-sided warblers were working the treetops.
I heard but never saw a prairie warbler. (I even resorted to standing in a meadow with my phone, playing the recording of this warbler’s call from the All About Birds site… That was a first!)
There were two Eastern towhees digging in the leaves, rising briefly from time to time to send out their loud “Drink your tea!”
Why isn’t it in better focus? Bummer. I think it’s because I was using the hood in a spot where the sun wasn’t particularly bright. Such a beautiful bird, and I’ve been trying to get a picture for a few weeks now. Oh well.
There is a brown thrasher in the same area. He’s a rich cinnamon color and I just love to hear him, but he doesn’t pose for pictures. Last year I got a good one, though. This year the catbirds are the ones posing for pictures as they chatter in the bushes.
Once you see something once, it has a way of being visible again. So it is with oven birds. Before this year I never saw even one; now I’ve seen several.
I wanted to warn him to hush; there were hawks about. I’ve read that only 50% of oven birds survive. But he vanished into the leaf litter.
The dogwood and red trillium are blooming. The latter isn’t very prevalent, but I saw a few plants. There were lots of dogwood blooms illuminating the woods.
Dogwood 
Trillium 3 leaves, 3 sepals, 3 petals. This one’s drooping bloom is propped by a twig so I could snap my photo. Red trillium is also called wake robin — a wonderful, suggestive name that alludes to another favorite herald of spring.
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Spring feeder visitors
I was beginning to worry that something had happened to our male rose-breasted grosbeak. We’ve never NOT had a grosbeak — at least one — in the 13 years we’ve lived here. But though I’d seen the female, I hadn’t seen the male — till yesterday, when he appeared in his usual station, eating and chirping as usual.
This morning he was back with Mrs. Grosbeak, who looks very different.
The ruby-throated hummingbird is back as well, bringing the yearly challenge of trying to get a good picture. Maybe by the end of the season! For now, this will have to do.
We had a flock of pine siskins yesterday as well. They make a racket of busy sounds as they raid the feeder and resemble more muted, streaky goldfinches in their coloration. When I went out with my camera, they made a tremendous “Zheeee!!” warning call from several treetops.
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Black and white warblers, take 2
My daughter and I saw this little, streaky bird against streaky bark yesterday. I’d glimpsed one last week, but it didn’t stay around long. This time there were a pair of them working in a birch tree, along with a red-eyed vireo that insisted on staying hidden in leaves most of the time.
I was glad we got a better look this time! They’re so small that at first sight they’re just a movement out of the corner of your eye.
They worked their way up and down the tree harvesting insects.
I remember reading that chickadees have many more receptors in their eyes than we do, so when they see bark, it’s a rich, insect-encrusted feast. These warblers must be the same way. They seemed to find plenty to keep them there, though personally I never saw a bug.
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White-crowned sparrows
I saw these crisply-marked sparrows last year around this same time. It’s been chilly, so the one in the bush is all puffed up. The others are populating a flowering crab near my in-laws’ bird feeding station. Even on an overcast day, they’re lovely.
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Oriole
Such a treat to have this soloist out back this week. There are two of them, actually, battling for territory.
Last year, we watched the female pulling hairs from the girls’ horse swing to make a nest — somewhere. I haven’t seen her this year, but I hope they raise a successful brood.
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Chipping sparrow
I have a soft spot for chipping sparrows. They were the first birds that opened my eyes to how even “just sparrows” can be beautifully colored and delicately marked.
We have a pair of them. I’m hoping they’ll produce more this year, and don’t end up raising a cowbird baby instead.
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Celebrating Seeing
My daughters and I watched this pileated woodpecker in our back yard as we were eating lunch the other day. She captivated us for several minutes.
No sooner had she flown away than a rabbit appeared, gathering up mouthfuls of grass and leaf litter and hopping behind some trees to pad her nest. Now we know where to look for baby rabbits.
On the whole, this raised awareness of the creatures living all around us is the biggest plus of nature study. Who needs television if you have a window? Who needs computer games if you have eyes? The interest is simply there; all that’s needed is a very little effort to cultivate awareness.
It’s not always easy to be aware, though. Sometimes it brings sorrow. This year I notice several different areas around where bulldozers have cleared space for some kind of development, and every one of them will have an impact on birds or other creatures that lived in those spaces. Where will they go? And how much more space do humans need to take over, mow down, dig up?
Even something like Habitat for Humanity (which recently produced a house on an empty lot nearby) gives me pause these days. It sounds so positive. And it is positive to give someone an opportunity to help build their own home. But why take up new space to do it? Why not redesign an existing building standing empty? Every city has more than enough houses already, more than enough retail buildings and factory spaces. Why not use and re-use these spaces, rather than relentlessly sprawling outward like some seeping toxic spill?
Oh well… enough of the lament. Suffice it to say that I wish we gave more thought such matters before mowing down the bushes and trees to construct new buildings. Awareness — the ability simply to pay attention to what’s around you, wherever you are — is where an environmental ethic begins. Not legislation or speech-making. Opened eyes.
Speaking of which, I have seen many interesting sights of late that I haven’t recorded here, and what follows will be a long column of wonders.
Starting with an oven bird! I’ve heard these leaf-like thrushes many times calling from the forest floor, but never have I been fortunate enough to actually see one till this past weekend, on an early morning walk.
He was having a territorial squabble with another one nearby. The woods were full of them! Here, he’s standing on the ruin of an old nesting box.
At a nearby pond, we’ve seen the first of the green herons…
We’ve seen geese nesting…
…and geese newly hatched.
As I stood watching, I noticed movement from one grass tussock to the next. Meadow mice were darting like lightning from hole to hole, right out in the marsh. They’re the color of dust, but otherwise they remind me a lot of hamsters.
Water snakes abounded. None of them looked big enough to eat a mouse, but the frogs and wogs must be on the run.
I think this tiny butterfly is a silvery blue. Its wings are only about a centimeter wide. The meadow was studded with them; I also saw one bright orange butterfly too elusive to photograph.
The chipmunks are coming out of hiding — well, they’re awake. Some are still hiding.
Find that chipmunk Others look like woodland mariners sailing deadwood ships.
Happily, my daughter and I saw our first rose-breasted grosbeaks the other morning!
Mr Grosbeak 
Mrs Grosbeak There were other birds chorusing all around, including song sparrows…
…and yellow warblers.
It’s not every day that you get tracked by police while bird watching, but it happened the morning we saw these warblers. My daughter turned around, gasped, and said, “A police car!” We saw an officer circling our parked car and hurried back, fearing we’d broken some parking rule. “Oh, I was going to have her track you,” he greeted us, emerging from behind the car with a large police dog. Turns out he just saw our car and decided to take the opportunity to do some training!
There are several nests we’ve been keeping an eye on. We were thrilled to discover a red-tailed hawk nest in a spot we pass often, but it’s not terribly photographable. Still, as the nestlings grow and begin flappercizing, maybe we’ll get some better views (and pictures).
The other day, we were looking at a red-winged blackbird atop this snag when we noticed a tree swallow in a nest cavity beneath him.
Last but not least, the chickadees must have a few nestlings in this nest box outside our front window, because the parent birds have been active, flying to and fro and apparently feeding young.
It’s a great time of year for being outside. Here in the northeast the sense of release from the grip of winter seems so strong and so welcome.
Even our domestic animals like to get out and smell the flowers!
Whisper
