Ponds & Streams
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Spring Preserve
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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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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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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. -
Plain Brown Packages
The girls and I took a walk at the local pond where we saw the redtail a month or so ago. He flew by a short distance from us but didn’t put on a show like he did last time. But it was fun to see (and hear) a flock of tree sparrows peeping as they fed in the bushes accompanied by goldfinches, cardinals and white-throated sparrows. The bushes were full of rustlings and twitterings, and the white-throated sparrows were in top form flipping over leaves on the forest floor.
Sparrows are thought of as plain birds, but seen up close they never fail to win my admiration. These tree sparrows have such a beautiful combination of browns and golds. They seem like flying chipmunks. I never noticed the yellow on the lower part of their beaks before.
There was a song sparrow too, in the same place I’ve seen her before.
Not far away was some fresh beaver work. Younger Daughter was convinced we’d startled the beaver because the tree “had spit on it.” 🙂
There are two large beaver lodges on the pond, as well as a number of muskrat homes. This lodge seemed to be where the numerous saplings and bush stems the beavers has nipped off were being taken.
It was cold, but we enjoyed seeing these reminders of creatures busy about the work of survival. It almost seemed like they enjoyed seeing us too. We certainly gave the birds something to gossip about.
“Dotty the Tree Sparrow spends the winter here. He left for his home in the Far North about the time you took it into your head to wake up.”
“Why do you call him Dotty?” asked Johnny Chuck.
“Because he has a little round black dot right in the middle of his breast,” replied Peter. “I don’t know why they call him Tree Sparrow; he doesn’t spend his time in the trees the way Chippy does, but I see him much oftener in low bushes or on the ground. I think Chippy has much more right to the name of Tree Sparrow than Dotty has. Now I think of it, I’ve heard Dotty called the Winter Chippy.”
“Gracious, what a mix-up!” exclaimed Johnny Chuck. “With Chippy being called a Tree Sparrow and a Tree Sparrow called Chippy, I should think folks would get all tangled up.”
“Perhaps they would,” replied Peter, “if both were here at the same time, but Chippy comes just as Dotty goes, and Dotty comes as Chippy goes. That’s a pretty good arrangement, especially as they look very much alike, excepting that Dotty is quite a little bigger than Chippy and always has that black dot, which Chippy does not have. Goodness gracious, it is time I was back in the dear Old Briar-patch! Good-by, Johnny Chuck.”
(Thornton W. Burgess, Burgess Bird Book, chapter 4)
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Amazing
The girls and I watched this hawk hunting for awhile at Brick Pond today. He saw us too. (From here on out I’m calling it “he,” because “it” seems not quite right…)
Older Daughter showed great patience. She wanted to see him take off, or pounce on something. Eventually her patience paid off; he crossed the water and we lost sight of him — till he flew into a tree on our side, about five feet from us.
He sat there through a battery change in my camera, and my daughters’ whispered exultation. Then he pounced on a mouse right in front of us, and took it to a tree next to our car. It was as if he wanted his activities documented.
He polished off the mouse in about 3 minutes. I thought of the line from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: “There’s nothing better than fish that were alive a half hour ago, and came out of the pan half a minute ago.” But in this case, it’s “There’s nothing better than a mouse that was alive a minute ago, and is now in my crop.”
Then he wiped his beak and jumped handily to a post-meal perch.
It was unusual… I remember watching a documentary about Pale Male, and how close people would come to the Central Park hawks — and how foolish that was. But in any case we weren’t harmed; he came to us, rather than vice versa. And there were no visible injuries, and no problems with his hunting ability — that’s for sure.
We left him looking regal in the waning sunlight.
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Green herons
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. I’ve reduced my screen time quite a bit this summer and experienced corresponding benefits. But I’ve continued to observe and enjoy some favorite haunts during this all-too-brief (here in the Northeast) warm season.
One bird I started really noticing last summer is the green heron, and I’ve had some good opportunities to photograph some this year. At one pond here locally, there must have been a successful nesting pair, because young herons have been marauding together, discussing everything and everyone. In the process they’ve posed nicely for some pictures.
This bird took a break from looking lordly atop its snag, and scratched an itch. You can see its nictitating membrane in this pic.
Then it flew away. It looks awkward in flight, maybe because its tail is so short.
Another bird that posed for photos was this next green heron, which the girls and I watched through the windows at Sapsucker Woods. It seems almost too easy, this kind of nature study. In this setting, the bird’s small size next to the crowd of talkative ducks was striking. It was hunting with great concentration.
Like any good fisherman, it posed for a moment with its catch. Then it turned the minnow neatly and swallowed it, head first. It was interesting to me to see the disturbance in the water’s surface increasing as the heron waited and then snatched. I’m not sure if the minnows were reacting to the heron, or if the heron was merely watching the minnow activity as the group approached it under the water.
So much of “nature study” involves watching animals simply eating or taking care of young. They are just surviving, doing the same ordinary things we humans do. But they have the intrigue of being different species, highly skilled and adapted.
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Sapsucker Woods Walk
I saw only one other person on the trails at Sapsucker Woods on Wednesday, and I saw more birds than I photographed. It was brutally hot, but I was in town and couldn’t resist a quick walk.
This fellow was fishing — and scratching an itch.
Immediately across the small bay was an unexpected sight — a deer cooling herself in the water, the first of two I saw.
There were bees busy in the wildflowers.
Quite a number of these pretty flowers poked through the rails of the first boardwalk. I believe it’s called pasture rose.
As usual, there were many chipmunks to be seen. This one was climbing rather than scurrying across the trail, squeaking.
I haven’t been out and about much this week due to a bout with what I believe was tularemia, a disease transmitted through a deer fly bite. It was an unpleasant experience involving a bull’s-eye like irritation around the bite, a high fever, and achiness. Thankfully antibiotics did the trick.
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June 21, 2012 — Walk
Least skipper moth 
Green frog 
Nosy woodchucks 
Damselfly (bluet?) laying eggs 
Baby pine forest 
Why couldn’t I get the focus right on this little showman? 
Lady Catbird 
Plumpkin Specklebreast — a juvie robin 
Daisy among the chokecherries -
Hidden
My daughter spotted this yellow warbler nest on a walk we took this morning. It’s a great example of something I’ve marveled about before: more eyes = more wonders. It seems like you would see more going alone into the woods because it’s much quieter and less disruptive. But you never know what you miss for the lack of additional eyes. I’ve seen some neat things by myself, but this one I’d have missed entirely!
The girls are excited about going back each week to investigate the nest activity.
