more blue

I noticed two pairs of Indigo Buntings were at the feeder today. What a fantastically intense color. How lucky we are!

quickie garden catalog

Not to post twice in the same day, but at home, there are some lovely colors...

Dragonfly spp.

Blooming right now: yellow buttercups, pale pink geranium, purple columbine, red bleeding heart, purple lilac (but fading), white lilac.

Male Indigo Bunting on feeder with thistle seed

More color flutters about: several species of moths in various leafy browns, tiger swallowtails, more. One of these days I'll try to learn butterflies too. Not to mention this glorious dragonfly in gold and black, and the handsome Indigo Bunting.

High Pond, Low Pond

We took ourselves out for a walk today, LittleBirder and I. Near our home is a pair of ponds. In a fit of practicality, I dubbed them "High Pond" and "Low Pond", referring to their elevations with respect to dirt road that runs between them. (In the google map behind the link, High Pond is on the upper left; it is the larger of the two.) There's easy access to the ponds, even with the raspberries nearby (these are blooming white today).

Green Frog (Rana clamitans) - Starksboro, Vermont, June 2007

In High Pond, we saw an Eastern Newt. In both ponds, we saw fish—two species, although I don't know fish and can't tell you which ones. In Low Pond, we saw a frog with a brilliant yellow throat—a Green Frog (Rana clamitans). (I really should know my frogs, since I've worked for the Vermont Atlas of Reptiles and Amphibians as a field worker, and currently they are one of my clients. However, I had to look this up.)

Overhead, we saw at least two male Red-winged blackbirds and just down the road over the meadow, an American Robin—on a different wire this time, although for all I know it was the same bird as we saw last week. I spotted an Eastern Phoebe on a dead branch dropping low across the stream (there's a stream just to the north of the ponds, running roughly east; we saw the Phoebe from the bridge).

And for the first time in my life, I found a four-leafed clover.

white-spotted sable, pansies, sedum

Blooming pansies and sedum
in a little bed on top of stone wall

I mentioned the other day that LittleBirder's pansies were blooming. Grandma gave us a sedum as well (and in an unexpected move, I planted it promptly). I understand this will bloom in the fall.

White-spotted Sable
Starksboro, May 2007

I also was able to identify this little wee butterfly: a White-spotted Sable (I think). (Thanks to Google's image search that got me to the BugGuide.)

butterflies fly, lilacs don't move, and chickadees bite

Saw a Tiger Swallowtail at the white and purple lilacs, bumblebees on the ajuga, and the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird on the tall ash by the power lines.

Bumblebee at ajuga
Starksboro, Vermont, May 2007

We saw the road commissioner, and it may be possibly to straighten the road, giving the lilacs a little more verge from the plow. The verge has been steadily decreasing the whole time I've lived here, and I'm quite sure the lilacs haven't moved.

I was bitten by a chickadee, too. How silly!

tricksy pix

How to make taking photos trickier:

• have a moving subject
• have a toddler play with an umbrella about 2 feet from you
• let the target subject eat all the seed or bait the day before you try, and have no more to put out
• take it through the glass window in the door, because you're trying not to scare the little critter

With that in mind, some neighbors of the day:

Stubbs, the red squirrel
Gray Squirrrel (inverted)
Chipping Sparrow
Eastern Chipmunk (through glass)

Heard the ovenbird today; I don't think I've ever seen one. We've been hearing him daily, and well into the evening.

There are at least 5 chipmunks around and about, living in the stone wall or in tunnels out back under the hemlock roots.

By the way, we also saw an Indigo Bunting today. This was a male, on our mixed seed feeder. My sister tells me that this bird requires early successional habitat; we have that more or less because the power company has been clearing extensively under the power lines in the past few years.

May is SUCH a happenin' month

LittleBirder and I put out more seed this evening. We watch. A chipmunk arrived. LittleBirder walks over slowly, carefully ... and 4 or 5 feet away, the chipmunk stops stuffing his face ... at 2 feet, the chipmunk leaves.

Bumblebees are happy in the purple-blooming ajuga under the lilacs, just loving it there.

I saw an American Robin up on the wires. I'd thought I'd heard it, but I'm still learning the differences between that and the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.

We thought we'd heard a Ruby-throated hummingbird yesterday or the day before. Today we saw it on the bleeding-heart flowers and the first blooms of the crabapple.

The violets are fully in bloom now. And dandelions. And bluebells! Both the white and lavender lilacs have started this week. There's wild(ish) strawberry in bloom and I'm seeing birds on one of the geranium-type plants. LittleBirder's pansies that we bought are still blooming. Bedstraw (That's what I call it, anyway) is blooming white. Some weedy to-be-yellow things is coming into bloom.

not for grilling

Deer Mouse Mama (Peromyscus maniculatus) in grill, Starksboro, Vermont, May 2007

We knew there was a mouse nest in the grill; R found it a couple of weeks ago, before it was really warm enough to grill.

It was warm enough today...but when we opened it, it was not just a mouse nest, but mice! R called LittleBirder and me over to see them, and after a few minutes of mice peeking out at us and us talking quietly about them, we figured 4 (maybe 5) young ones and 1 mama. Mama was quite a bit larger and brown--a fawn color--with scars on her tail. The babies were about half her size and mole-grey.

My Audubon's Guide to Eastern Forest tells me they were either Deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) or White-footed (P. leucopus). Mama was about 5 inches long, with a bi-colored tail the whole length of it. Later I looked them up on Animal Diversity web, and now I'm pretty sure they are Deer mice.

Fabulous whiskers on the babies.

not a bear

I know I'm not supposed to feed the birds right now: the bears are waking up. And I know there are a goodly number of bears around. I "compromise" by not putting out suet and by having a 75-lb. dog. On the other hand, these are probably of no concern to a bear. On the third hand, I'm surrounded by steepness with trees, including beech; perhaps there is enough other food between us and the bear denning sites.

Well, I haven't seen one here myself.

Perhaps, like seeing the moose a few years back, and the deer this spring, it's only a matter of time...

early and on the porch

Have I mentioned I love sitting on the porch early in the morning with my coffee? I'm seeing 2 Mourning doves (I"d heard them before but not seen them yet), a Blue Jay, a Goldfinch or several, some chickadees. I can hear the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak again.

Stubbs and another Red Squirrel are hanging around, as is one of the Chipmunks. There's a Gray Squirrel as well. They all want to eat seeds on the big rocks, but if the Gray Squirrel wants 'em, he gets 'em, and the others duck out of the way. *chuckle*

quick notes with LittleBirder

LittleBirder and I cleaned the windows and fed the birds. (More in his blog...)

Much later that day, we saw 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. And still later, we strolled down to 'High Pond' and saw 2 Red-Winged Blackbirds. All males.

migrants in a very small space

We saw a Baltimore oriole and a White-crowned sparrow today! Very cool. The oriole is a summer resident, and we saw it fly across our lawn and then up in some tall maples. The white-crowned sparrow is just passing through; it stopped on our feeders for at least one meal. Very pleased to think that our small space is big enough to see birds like this...

early flowers

Toddler investigating pansy-like blooms on a spreading groundcover, May 2007

LittleBirder had a lovely time running about the yard this morning. Daffodils are blooming; leaves are budding; weather is warming...

This ground cover has a light purple and white pansy-like bloom, but it's only a centimeter or so across. I'd like to know what it is.

Both yellow and orange-centered daffodils are blooming. Some of these are old, old bulbs, so deeply buried under years and layers of adding to the garden bed that I cannot find the bulbs to move them. Some are much newer, thanks to a friends' "Drive-by crocussing" a few years ago.

The bluebells have their buds that are just about to open fully. These are leftovers from the previous owner, although I have moved them around the yard a bit as I slowly reshape the garden landscape. The violets are the same, except they're spreading under the crabapple on their own.

Spring is always a burst of journaling time, isn't it. My sister reports the same thing...

daybreak

LittleBirder and I went outside around 6:30 this morning, letting the Dadda sleep a bit. We sat on the front stoop in our jammies, wrapped up in a fleece-lined workshirt. We opened our eyes, opened our ears, and kept company with our old cat.

From our house, the sun wasn't up yet; we are ringed by mountaintops. Doesn't that sound circular; that's not how it is; we live on one side of a skinny sloping, turning valley. At any rate, the clouds overhead were pale grey; the ones glimpsable to the east between new leaves were beginning to have the shallow gold tints of dawn. Water drops glimmered on the crabapple from last night's rain.

Our presence (mostly the cat's, who went out a bit before us) convinced a red squirrel to depart hastily. She'd been sitting on the exposed framing of the stoop, tucked up under the roof, thinking about raiding the bird feeder. We have at least 3 red squirrels on the property. One is clearly identifiable; it has a shortened tail. I'm trying to learn the slight distinguishing features of the others.

We watched a chipmunk climb up the smooth square post that holds the thistle feeder and green feed, over by the hydrangea. It had to make a leap to reach the green feeder (which has black oil sunflower seeds). The first time it tried, it missed, and tumbled to the ground about 3 feet below. Undaunted--those were black oil sunflower seeds, by golly!--it scrambled up again and succeeded.

There was lull in birdsong for a bit, as if the earliest birds had called off for the day, and the second shift hadn't quite begun. When it did, we hear "weecher weecher weecher!" from the trees across the road, and a few "ee-oh-lay"s from up to our left. A single male goldfinch laid claim to the thistle seed in the feeder, once the chipmunk had headed off towards storage. Three or so chickadees scuffled and chuckled over the various shrubs and feeders, and more sang "fee-bay!" from the forest.. One titmouse scolded the red squirrel. An unidentified sparrow poked about the rock border by the lilacs and the daffodils. Everyone fell silent when the blue jay hollered "jay! jay! jay!" ... and resumed when it stopped. Far above us, we saw a raven, or possibly a two. We quorked back to them.

Chipping Sparrow

Yesterday morning, LittleBirder and I saw a small sparrow poking around the violets (which are just up this week, I think). We watched it and I asked him questions: "Is it bigger than your hand?" "Yes!" "What color is the top of its head?" Red!"

I noted: russet crown, black eyeline, dark beak, two shades of brown on its back, two pale wing bars. LittleBirder wasn't too interested in looking it up in the book (hardly surprising!). After some flipping back and forth in the pages, I figured it was a chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina). I don't know that I've ever seen one before.

I recorded it in eBird. Turns out I have 20 birds on my lifelist there; who knew?

It's a crabapple, not a cherry!

Pink-flowering crabapple, just coming into bloom, May 2005.

So there's this tree that the previous owner planted. It's right off the front step, and lovely. I always thought that was a cherry, but nope. Our neighbor, who is an arborist, explained that it was likely a decorative variety of crabapple grafted onto the root stock of a hardier one. The stem that has grown swiftly in the last few years, overtaking the pink-flowering older one has grown off this stock. So we have a pink-flowering and white-flowering tree -- one tree, two varieties, two heights, different sizes and shapes of fruit.

Edge marks

Finally, some snow. MonkeyChild and I took two walks today to enjoy it properly.

Our afternoon walk took us up the road to the first old stone bridge. On the way, we passed the triangle point of the property. I pointed out the marble post and the Three Watchers. The 4" x 4" post has probably sunk into the soil and humus generated by the Three over time; we can see now only about 6 inches of slightly greyed and apparently evenly-textured marble. The edges don't seem all that worn, though. How fast does marble erode, even in a region with acid rain?

The Three themselves are hemlocks of different ages, yet each bears two blaze-scars, almost overgrown in back. There are still faint traces of the white paint used to mark them. For the ten years I've lived here (even the bit when I didn't), I've meant to re-cut those marks, to freshen them. I've never gotten around to it.

Birdfeeding

Filled the feeders yesterday with black oil sunflower and mixed seeds. Tossed older seed on the ground. Old apples from the tree outside our door are still on the ground, too.

Seen today so far: at least 2 bluejays, at least 2 titmice, 3 or more juncos, more than 7 chickadees,. Yesterday we had a mourning dove.

Everyone seems to prefer the feeders in the cherry tree -- a greater pecentage of black oil seed? Better eating perches? The juncos also poked about the stone wall.

Saw a kingfisher -- possibly 2 -- at the pond yesterday. Seems late for them; don't they migrate? I suppose I really don't know.

I suppose I should post this on eBird, too.

small beginnings

The property--an acre or so--is roughly triangular, skinny on the upstream end, wider where it goes along an old fenceline. There's still some barbed wire. The dirt road is the second side, the nameless stream the third. It's overgrown ex-grazing and forested stream bank--which means mostly maples and yellow birch--with a couple of somewhat decrepit apple trees, a fabulous white pine that lost its top last fall, and hemlocks along the creek.

And I'm here because my heart is, all involuntarily-like. It's certainly not a useful piece of property, in most senses of the word. But I can sit stone or wander small, and I've got good neighbors, two-, four-, and no-legged ones. It's to talk about them that I'm making this blog. A record, a witness, a celebration.

Well, and maybe the development of ritual for me, too.

Welcome.