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Back yard peace, front yard violence
A few mornings ago, I sat in the back yard and enjoyed sights like these.
The rose-breasted grosbeak has a habit of singing quietly while he eats at the feeder. There were lots of other birds, and the continual scratch of squirrel claws on bark as the gray squirrels chased one another among the walnut branches. As a purely aesthetic experience, everything seemed very peaceful.
But out front, it was a different story, more revelatory of the underlying peril in all things natural. When I went inside, my youngest greeted me seriously with the announcement that she’d heard “two kerfuffles” involving wing-flapping just outside. When we went to the window to look at the robin’s nest in the shrub just beneath, there was only one nestling left.
By the end of the day, it looked, like this.
Previously it had looked, through the window, like this.
And then like this.
Crows robbed the nest.
I’m reading a book by a wildlife rehabilitator, and in one scene a Cooper’s hawk nabs a newly-released young blue jay she had raised from a nestling. It’s devastating, yet she can’t blame the hawk for needing to eat. “Whose side are you on?” her husband asks her.
“I’m on everyone’s side,” she replies.
I wish I could be that magnanimous. I know crows are incredibly smart. I respect them and respect their need to eat and recognize the irrelevance to them of the human moral code. But anyone who has ever seen nestlings holds that sight in mind as the archetype of utter defenselessness and fragility. They were a week old.
We took the nest out of the bush just in case the robins might try a second clutch in the same location. It’s not a good spot — too exposed. We feared that from the start, and had been careful not to go near the nest or otherwise draw attention to it. Predators are the most attentive nature observers.
It’s also more of a front-row seat than I want to have again any time soon.
The life of the birds, especially of our migratory songbirds, is a series of adventures and of hairbreadth escapes by flood and field. Very few of them probably die a natural death, or even live out half their appointed days… They lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gardens and orchards, and under the walls of our houses. Not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs are laid till the young are flown, when the chances are not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its contents devoured — by owls, skunks, minks, and coons at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, snakes, and rats during the day. Infancy, we say, is hedged about by many perils; but the infancy of birds is cradled and pillowed in peril. (John Burroughs, “The Tragedies of the Nests”)
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Scenes from Ithaca
On the way to Ithaca the other day, we saw this American kestrel hunting beside the road. They are such beautiful little birds! It was perched on a lightpost, then it fluttered to the power line, studying the ground in search of lunch.
He’s so beautifully colored; he looks painted. We see them sometimes hovering as they hunt, but this one put on no such show for us.
Having survived the decision to stop beside a busy thoroughfare to snap pictures of a kestrel, we went on to Taughannock Falls for a hike.
We took the trail up to the top of the falls and looked down on some of the smaller falls from above.
We met some turkey vultures along the rim.
It was a walk of a few miles, and though the overcast wasn’t great for photos, it made the heat much more bearable. The girls were ready to wade when we got back to the bottom, so we joined the rest of the multitude of people and polliwogs there, splashing around.
We hadn’t seen any songbirds, though we’d heard a few insistent warblers up along the rim. But after we packed away the cameras and went across the road to use the rest rooms before leaving, the trees were full of birds: cedar waxwings, warbling vireos, and I even caught a glimpse of an American redstart.
We visited the hawks after that, and as we were leaving Ithaca we made a brief diversion to Sapsucker Woods. The Visitor Center was closed for the day, and though the trails were still open, it all had the peaceful atmosphere of a place being reclaimed by its inhabitants. A squirrel sunned itself on a railing and watched us drowsily. A ruby-throated hummingbird — a species I have seldom seen in any other mood than territorial fury — shook out its feathers and rested. Turtles eyed us from the grass. A couple of orioles caroled from treetops. Everything about the scene radiated a quieting spirit.
No visit would be complete without a look at these guys. 
This guy ran full-tilt toward my daughter -- then turned and high-tailed it away when he saw himself being photographed! 
Smile, friend! 
This turtle was sunning itself in the middle of the pavement, so we moved him. 
All in all it was a full day, rich in beauty. We always have the sense of barely scratching the surface when we visit Ithaca.
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Cornell Hawks: Preparing for Takeoff
We’ve visited the red-tailed hawks at Cornell a couple of times. Yesterday, we saw them again, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be our last time. The hawklets may be flying before we get back!
They’re large enough to see easily from the ground now. We got there in the late afternoon, and over the hour or so that we were there, we saw two of them; the third, we saw on the nest cam, was resting out of our sight.
It was a hot one, and they were panting. (So were we!)
Ezra was on a nearby light pole, keeping an eye on things. Initially we didn’t see Big Red, but after a few minutes we saw her on the nest with the chicks. I’m not sure whether she flew in while our eyes were elsewhere, or whether she just changed position so we could see her better. In any case, she had a mission in mind that involved a short flight.
“Someday I’m gonna fly like Mom!” Obviously I was photographing this in a window through the trees. She flew over Older Daughter and me, and into a small tree about 40 feet from where my husband and Younger Daughter sat on the steps of the building across the street! There she proceeded to rip some home improvements from the tree while a chorus of small birds scolded from the neighboring branches.
Hidden picture exercise: Find that raptor! She flew back to the nest with her hard-won beakfull of bark. It was hazy, and the light doesn’t bring out her color as much as I’d like, but she is so amazing in flight — beautifully marked and powerful.
Back at the nest, she deposited the bark and headed off across the neighboring athletic field. She perches farther away than Ezra, who has picked a lightpost on the same field as the nest both times we’ve visited recently. She spent her time eating something atop the pole, circling a little, and landing on a neighboring pole.
Do red-tails wipe their beaks? This is after she finished eating. 
Walking to the other end… Meantime, back at the nest, one of the hawklets practiced flapping.
“Can we help you with something?” 
Head bump (or assist) 
Ezra had taken off shortly after we arrived, and we saw him getting mobbed across the field.
He must have held his own, because he arrived back at a lightpost near the nest.
“You with the camera again??” We were about ready to leave, but we waited a few minutes more just in case Red flew back across to the nest. Instead, Ezra launched from his post, and she followed a few moments later. They circled together and went out of sight.
We decided to take their cue and head out ourselves. We’d seen what we came to see. The most incredible experience was seeing Red in that tree, so close, yet so intent on her bark-ripping!
I wrote about our other two hawk visits here (at my other blog) and here.
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Pileated Woodpecker Feeding
I watched the pileated woodpeckers feeding their young yesterday morning. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and I was still rustling around in dry leaves trying to find a good spot to settle, when the female showed up.
The youngsters made an incredible racket declaring their ravenous appetites, sounding like a combination of rasping hinge and buzzing insect. When she left, they continued calling for food.
The male came next, regurgitating directly into their beaks with his own formidable tweezers. (He came quickly, before I had time to move so that twig wasn’t in the way…)
How does he dare thrust in, open-eyed, among those stabbing beaks?
Unlike the female, when he finished the feeding he pushed the young back inside.
Normal clutch size is four eggs, but I’ve seen only these two young woodpeckers. Maybe there were only two successful eggs. Or maybe a predator has gotten the other two — a snake or an owl, either of which could reach into the cavity. It’s not a possibility I like to think about.
What an amazing experience to get to see the feeding! A year ago I never would have dreamed of it — I would have heard the occasional pileated call and felt a thrill, but the idea of seeing this kind of activity close in wouldn’t even have occurred to me.
The only disappointment is the graininess of my pictures in the low-light conditions. Maybe I will get another try some sunny blue day, when the sun is higher in the sky. But it’s hard to imagine two such opportunities… and the time is getting short. These young’uns seem like they must be close to fledging.
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New-to-me warbler
Yesterday morning, I heard what I was sure was a yellow warbler out back in the brush. It turned out not to be a yellow warbler at all — a fact I discovered as I waded through shoulder-high phlox and bushes in my running clothes and bedroom slippers, scanning the trees.
It was this handsome little fellow.
He was impossibly small and impossibly loud — singing his head off.
I heard the garage door go up — the signal that my husband was leaving for work — and crashed back out of the brush to find him standing in the driveway, waiting for me. “Did you see it?” he asked.
“It’s not a yellow warbler!” I said excitedly.
“That right there?” he asked, nodding toward the earsplitting birdsong. I thrust out my camera and showed him.
“Sure enough! What kind is it? Girls, new bird!” he called up to the open dining room window where both girls huddled, waiting to wave goodbye. “Mommy ‘shot’ him!” He understands the fascination with tracking down mystery birds. Last week he spent part of his lunch hour searching bushes near the parking lot where he works until he found that the source of the sonar-like song he was hearing was a prairie warbler.
Back inside, I looked the bird up and learned that he’s a chestnut-sided warbler. (My 11-year-old knew the minute she looked at my picture what kind of warbler it was. That’s what comes of poring over field guides for pleasure!)
I wish my photos were less grainy, but even grainy he’s a remarkable sight — another reminder that the more you look, the more you see.
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Walk at the Pond
The sun was out yesterday morning, and I urged the girls on in their schoolwork, dangling the carrot of a walk in the sun. They rose to the challenge, and we headed off in good time.
First to sound the alarm was this guy: “Humans! Humans!”
Apparently he was ignored, because just beyond him we saw a couple of green herons.
This one looked pretty typical... 
...till the wind blew and gave it a punk makeover. There was a whole cavalcade of geese camped out on the berm across the pond. They made an impressive racket as they took off. We could almost feel the wind from their beating wings.
There were some other water birds around too.
There were several great blue herons there — 4 or 5. They may be feeding young at the heronry down the river.
The bracken was particularly lush…
And there were some wildflowers around. Learning the names is helping me to feel more like I belong in this place.
Forget-me-nots 
Blue flags 
Bramble (I think) 
Mystery flower Back at the car, the oriole that usually hangs out in Old Man Willow was humming his way through lunch. I thought that the Burgess Bird Book named the oriole “Glory,” but it’s actually “Goldie.” I prefer Glory. It doesn’t get any more glorious than this colorful bird with his agreeable warble.
Glory the Oriole 
By then the sun was retreating behind a bank of clouds, so the flash of fire from Mr. Oriole was all the more welcome.
When we got home, Younger Daughter requested tree swallow coloring pages. Older Daughter requested a library book on caring for injured robins (for reasons I’ll share in a later post). I’ve been slacking on official nature journal pages, but I think we should probably get back into them. They’re not necessary for learning, I don’t think, and only sometimes are they an aid to seeing. But they do document the experiences of our various walks together. Someday I want the girls to have them to look back through. Once they learn the name of a flower or the habits of a bird, they will remember. But the particular treasures of particular walks may fade or get mixed up over time.
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Spring White
The whiteness of winter gets oppressive after awhile. Even in winters like this last one, which dropped very little snow, the sky is often a dull white overcast, and there’s a general absence of color.
Considering this, it’s strange how happily I welcome the flowers of spring — even though so many of them are white. Theirs is a more vibrant white than snow, often accented with a delicate touch of color here or there, and wrapped up in the transition to brighter days and new life.
What are these? I don’t find them in our Peterson’s First Guide.
I don’t find these either.
This next one is Dame’s Rocket, I think.
Here are a few more:
Star Flower 
Wild Blueberry 
Wood Anemone 
Trillium -- not quite blooming! 
Wild Cherry (I think...) These two I posted previously, but I can’t leave them out.
May Apple 
Queen Anne's Lace I’m simply learning their names. Each bloom has a story to tell, but for now I’m just getting familiar with the titles!
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Evening
Last night, my older daughter and I went for a walk at a nearby preserve called Brick Pond. We loved seeing this rainbow!
Other sights: great blue herons, green herons, wood ducks, a mallard and her brood, a killdeer, a muskrat, geese with goslings, tons of polliwogs, and an enormous bass. It must have been 6 or 7 inches deep, from the top of its head to its chin. There were a couple of kingfishers at work, and we heard yellow warblers and a Baltimore oriole. Two deer fled when they saw us coming. The first blue flag of the season bloomed by itself among some ferns. Any number of familiar birds — robins, catbirds, red-winged blackbirds, grackels, chickadees, woodpeckers — discussed us. Some kind of flycatcher fluttered overhead, but the light was too poor to identify it — or to take many photos.
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Carolina wren
TEA-kettle TEA-kettle TEA! TEA-kettle TEA-kettle TEA!!
Pause. Shake out feathers and puff up round like a pom-pom. Hop into the air, do a 180, and prepare to send your boisterous call out over the landscape in the other direction.
He’s no bigger than a golf ball, but inside he’s the ruler of all he surveys.This little bird is a great favorite in our family. He and his mate have a nest somewhere in the brushy area over our back bank. He and his family will help us out by consuming lots and lots of insects that might otherwise consume lots and lots of our garden.
Apparently these wrens nest in some unusual places! — line-drying overalls, laundry rooms, old boots, planters. Ours are more conservative and just nest in the bushes. It always strikes me as a paradox to see him singing so loudly, telling the world where his territory is, in this season of secrecy for birds who keep their nests hidden away.
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Beaks!
Just after I expressed my wish to see little beaks at some point at the pileated nest, I did!
My husband and kids and I were taking my parents for a walk along the trail, and Mrs. P appeared.
She was there for a few minutes, then left. Mr P appeared then and went inside — briefly.
I’ve read that clutch size is typically 4 eggs, though it can vary. It’s likely that there are more youngsters in there.
I also read that adults have yellow eyes. This is true of the male, but the female’s eyes look pretty dark. But I’ll reserve judgment unless and until I get some better pictures.
This site is helpful on pileated woodpeckers.
