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Worth a thousand words
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Morning Discoveries
Older Daughter and I took a walk on Saturday morning. It turned into a sunny day in the 50’s, but the day began frostily, especially in the shadier patches of trail.
We stopped to visit the resident raptors at the nature center before starting out, and we found a surprise: a squirrel who’d gotten trapped (temporarily, we hope) in one of the empty rooms.
He disappeared through an interior passageway somehow, and provided he didn’t end up in the hawk cages he probably came out all right. We saw no evidence of tragic demise when we returned on our way home.
It warmed eventually and we enjoyed some beautiful morning vistas.
There were lots of robins about…
…as well as some chickadees. I always think of Blackbeard the pirate when I look into these snappy little eyes.
There were some sobering sights as well. This pile of feathers is all that remains of some kind of ground bird or duck caught unawares.
And a little further on, this lay in the center of the trail.
Of course these are horrible sights and I hesitate to post them. (I did resist photographing the several piles of coyote scat we also saw along this upper meadow where the deer bed down at night.) But anyone who sets out to “discover nature” has to come face to face with them at some point. There is the beautiful, scenic, astonishingly adapted side of nature — and there is the predatory side. When I come upon things like this I can’t help but think of the last moments of whatever animal has become a meal, and of the violence the remains testify to. There are other factors too — the hunger of the predator, satisfied only by cunning and strength and persistence, and these are all part of the picture as well. But I still haven’t found a way to process sights like this easily.
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Park in early spring
We took the dog for a romp at a local park yesterday and saw an enormous raptor of some kind fly over. I’m guessing it was a juvenile eagle — we saw one there back in the icier weather.
Other than that, just a couple of robins for bird sightings. But the sun and the sun-deprived grass now laid bare were welcome sights.
The girls hunted fossils and the dog frolicked. She doesn’t look 13, does she?
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Recent Sights
Mostly our recent walk at a wetland was about water birds and evidence of creatures not seen. Like this beaver mark from last year — freshly chewed this year.
Or these pileated woodpecker excavations at the edge of the parking area. Wouldn’t it be great to come upon the woodpecker at work?
In the raptor category, we’ve seen a pair of American kestrels in the same field for several weeks running. One of these days I’ll get a good picture!
My daughter and I saw this hawk capture a mouse as we were driving. I pulled over and she was able to get a nice picture — not nice for the mouse, though.
In the back yard we’ve enjoyed seeing the squirrels. Mostly they feast on maple buds, but once in awhile they get a piece of stale bread. This fellow is on the base of the bird bath, where he at least enjoys the privilege of eating NEAR the bird feeder — though he’s continually foiled in efforts to get INTO it.
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Pontius Pileated Comes to Call
This fellow is a little bigger than our usual feeder visitors!
Too big to get a good grip, as it turns out. Makes me want to rig up a different suet cage and see if he’ll come back… What a fun sight to see as we were eating lunch!
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First day of spring
Someone told me recently that when the maple buds swell, maple syrup season is over. It’s definitely colder this year than it was on the first day of spring last year. I recorded the sights from this date last year at my other blog. Things were definitely further along then!
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Signs of Spring
We still haven’t seen our first robin yet, though my in-laws have seen several around their house. Today we ventured out for a very muddy walk on a sunny day, and though we saw nary a robin, we saw — and heard — other birds testifying to the inevitability of the changing season.
It was in the 30’s, and there was some sap snow in the afternoon. But its days are numbered.
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Timid Goldfinch
This little goldfinch sat inside the rhododendron for perhaps 20 or 30 minutes yesterday — a long time! It’s just below our thistle sack. Finally s/he got up the courage to rise to the top of the bush, and then flutter up to the seed.
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Morning Glory
This fellow has been singing in the mornings since last Sunday — almost two weeks now. So technically my last post was incorrect; though the sparrow I heard on our walk was my first birdsong heard while out and about, it wasn’t truly the first of the season. That distinction belongs to our back yard songster.
This cardinal is an early riser and begins while it’s still dark out. Here he is, perched high above our feeder, dueling with another cardinal declaring territory elsewhere, making sure everyone knows this is his yard.
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First Birdsong
We seized upon the first sunshine in what seems like ages to go for a walk this morning. As far as sights go, it was mostly about textures and colors in little patches here and there.
These lichens seem to be doing their best to hurry spring along, stretching out toward the sun. 
It’s amazing, the variety of textures growing on this one furry tree foot. Here’s a close-up of the same tree:
There were other small wonders, like this tattooed rock…
or this woodpecker hole (I heard the pileated laughing in the distance)…
or this fallen tree. When I stop and study all the varieties growing here I wonder what it would be like to be small enough to live among them. It’s kind of strange thought, but there it is. There just seems to be such diverse vegetation in such a small area. (The pic will enlarge if you click on it.)
The vernal pool was still iced over and had a layer of snow over it, but in the deeper pond we did actually see a salamander or two. I didn’t envy them.
No beavers, though the lodge is safe and sound. No muskrats. A few deer. Two accipiters; one redtail sailed over. We heard cardinals doing warm-ups, and chickadees singing their spring love songs. And at the pond we heard what I think was a song sparrow singing like he meant business. I didn’t see him, but his song cheered me. It may not sound like much, but the first song of spring means a lot to a color-deprived Northeasterner like myself.
We headed for home after that, assured that all is progressing toward the warmth and color and wakefulness of spring. Just a short wait now.
I played with some of the artistic filters on this pic.
