from the maiden voyage on Bristol Pond

Across the water a great blue heron hunted, apart from the four Sandhill cranes. They watched our paddle lift and fall still, lift and still. We drifted and the heron watched. The cranes returned to their own business. A kingfisher chattered. Our bellies grumbled quietly, as we too thought to seek our own dinners. A swallow caught its prey overhead.

Turning, we glimpsed an osprey bearing a fish, pursued by a young bald eagle—seeking to claim it for its own? The osprey dropped its catch—no fish for either bird tonight. At least not that one. Three ducks, fast and sleek, patterned browns with pale-edged wings, returned to where we'd seen only two earlier. A pair of white-rumped harriers rose and sailed easily from the marsh to drier upland, vanished from our view. Rounding the last turn, we took ourselves finally to shore to the last splashes of vanishing frogs. Packing up the new kayak in the joy of a daydream come true, with new birds for our life lists, the seven-year-old and his mama were off to find their own well-deserved pizza.

Late snow, early geese

Well, OK, the Canada geese might not be early.

I took the pup walking this morning near Horseshoe Bend of the Huntington River. A light snow was falling under an overcast sky. As we crossed the edge or the meadow, a pair of Canada geese flew across, dark against the sky then light against the evergreen-covered rise to the northeast. They honked as the flew, one deeper-voiced than the other. Maybe they were heading toward the pond off Mayo Road, unseen to the east, and above me.

The pup spared them a glance, but when back to snuffling old scents on the crusty settled snow. Me, I paused, watching.


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Seasonable

Daffodils, up and in bloom. Scilla, also. Lilac buds are leafing out.

Wish I knew more about which trees were which. There's a project for this year... or next.

Seen (and sometimes heard): Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted Nuthatches, Song Sparrows, American Robins, Mourning doves, Common Raven, Blue Jays, Eastern Phoebe (at our house, this one is known as "squeaky phoebe"). Possibly saw a Fox Sparrow.

Heard: My ear is woefully absent-minded. At my sister's, I heard (at least a month ago), someone saying "witter witter WET feet". At home, I'm hearing something like "maids maids kettle-ettle-ettle" (local dialect of song sparrow?).

Haven't been paying close attention, and we were away for a week.

Saw Eastern Newts and snails in High Pond. Three Gray squirrels this spring; two to four Red Squirrels (the end of the tail of one is patterned like a turkey feather!). Several Eastern Chipmunks.

My favorite spring observation so far: Kids playing in mud. (Me too.) We're building "gunk walls" to direct the water away from Pine Castle. The water comes from our spring, crosses under the road (in theory; there is a culvert again this year at least), seeps in more or less and eventually meets the creek. Pine Castle is a now topless white pine on a large mound, which makes for a good fort. Maybe photos sometime.

Little Shaker

This morning I chose to sip my coffee in the rocking chair by the living room windows, instead of my usual spot in the nook in the comfy chair. I don't know why, exactly. It was a good choice, though. A little shake of the apple tree branches, and I saw more wet snow fell down.

The snow from yesterday's 2-foot-ish snowfall was already off most branches: the warming temperature yesterday afternoon and occasional winds and the branches' own flexibility sloughing to the ground. And the apple was getting a little help from a ruffed grouse.

LittleBirder came over and I helped him see this little wild chicken-cousin: buffy and brown patterns against wet branch patterns the color charcoal on a overcast dawn gray background. Easier, of course, when it moved! I don't know what it was finding on the branch. All the apples have fallen from that tree. Maybe some small insects?

some tweets from April

I'm on twitter (as metasilk). Sometimes I manage a relevant-to-small-measures post there, and sometimes I run out of time to update this blog as much as I'd like. So.... this post.

April 9: To chirps of woodpeckers dueling over suet, I finished a tedious bit of a small project.

April 14: A little brown bat is flying around over the road, in the shadow of the hillside. Sweet to see, but I worry he's not catching much.

April 23: Cool: purple finch on the black oil sunflower seed feeder today. Two Broadwinged* Hawks over the yard yesterday!

April 26: LittleBirder is making a mud puddle. I keep hearing happy noises from the front yard!

April 28: There's a white-throated sparrow singing LOUDLY in our woods, near our yard. Almost louder than the road grader! The birds are really delighting me recently. Wish I had time to write down all the observations, audio and otherwises. Heck, I wish I knew them well enough to ID them from said audio and visual... oh well. That's in the "someday when I have more time" daydream-pile, I suppose.

*I had originally, and mistakenly, ID'd these as Cooper's Hawks.

feed the birds!

Just added a membership/donation form (PDF) to Birds of Vermont Museum's site. If I can get them up w/ PayPal we can do online memberships as well!

Great Backyard BirdCount 2009

They also send out a newsletter as well. Click, click! Find out more!

Hinesburg-Huntington Christmas Bird Count

This Saturday Jan 3

from eBird Vermont:

The 109th Christmas Bird Count will run from December 14th through January 5th. Last year, thousands of volunteers counted nearly 60 million birds across the Americas and beyond. Each count occurs in a designated circle, 15 miles in diameter, and is led by an experienced birder, or designated “compiler”.... The longest running Citizen Science program in the world, the count originally began on Christmas Day in 1900 ...

The Hinesburg-Huntington Count will be January 3rd. Contact: Paul Wieczoreck mgcpw@gmavt.net

Small Neighbors between snows

Pine Siskin (Carduelis pinus)(female?) feeding under hydrangea bush

Pine Siskin (female?) on the black oil seed feeder

We had a good dozen or more Pine Siskins appear today, now that it's thawed (again). I understand we're supposed to get more snow, after the rain that wiped away much of the Christmas snowstorm. (There are still soggy piles, one of which you can see behind the feeder, but a good bit of wilted and chilled-crispy grass and mud is now visible all across to the yard.)

The photos were taken through the glass door, and on a fairly high zoom, so any blurriness is probably camera shake and vague dust. IF you click them, of course you get them larger... and there's the album as well.

I think I've seen this species before, but haven't had a chance yet to root through the older photos and journals to be sure. Ah well, some other organized version of me in some other alternate universe is keeping a detailed, accurate, citizen-science-y life list... With any luck though, I'll remember to post this at least in eBird!

soft light

Of course, now it's up to 60°F. Heh.

This is good, for me personally. What with one thing and another, I'm afraid I'll worry about "enough wood" all winter, so every warm day comforts. It's slightly hazy now, but the early morning sun slanting up the slope and through the trees, splashing across the mossy stream rocks, was stunning. I think of Fall, like Spring, as two seasons almost: Foliage and Quiet. I love the light in November, slantwise at the turns of the day, whether on ice or warmed over leaf litter.

Blue jays, juncos, chickadees here at home, but last week I saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk at the Birds of Vermont Museum!

second snow

It snowed again last night; thicker, wetter, heavier. It bowed the lilacs, the roses, the crabapple.

The chickadees seem to enjoy the resulting arches. All I have at the moment is mixed seed and two small feeders half-full, but there are about 5 chickadees and 3 juncos visible right now.

Happenin' In the Dooryard

A Boy
A Hose
A Mud Puddle

Sunlight

Orca (the dog)

Brand-new (mother's day) boxes for raised bed garden! (Made of old lumber and nails we had leftover around. No money spent for the exactly-what-I-wanted present!)

Chickadees
Titmice
Dark-Eyed Juncos
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (a pair)
Nuthatch
Goldfinches (a pair)
Chipping sparrows
White-throated sparrows

Eastern Chipmunks (at least 4)
Red Squirrel
Bumblebee
White Butterfly
Dark brown teeny butterfly with white stripes

Blooming, or nearly:
Bluebells
Lilacs (white and purple buds)
Tulips (from [info]lepi's drive-by crocussing)
little purple-and-white ground cover
White Violets
Ruby and Yellow Pansies (from last year!)
Red and Yellow Primroses
Dandelions

Recently Planted:
Bee Balm (to compete with the Snow-on-the-Mountain)

A Slide and Large Rocks to climb on

Heard recently:
Black-throated Green Warbler
Oven Bird
Robin
Hairy Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe ("SqueeKee Phoe-Bee!")
Wood Thrush

more idle observations

Saw and heard the Eastern Phoebe today. He was out back, briefly on the beams of the back balcony and more usually on the second-largest yellow birch that leans up toward the house from the creek bank.

Also saw 2 Chipping Sparrows on the mixed seed feeder. We probably need more bird seed again.

Must note them on ebird.

idly noticing birds

Seen this morning: 2 Tufted Titmice; 1 Chipping Sparrow in Breeding Colors.

Heard: More than 3 chickadees. No phoebe this morning. Don't know what these are:

(warbly whistle) puwé puwé puwé
(squelchy) squué!

International Migratory Bird Day

Saturday, May 17th, will be International Migratory Bird Day.

Come celebrate at the Birds of Vermont Museum, if you are near Huntington, Vermont, that day!

Hairy Woodpecker

Over the last couple of days, I've taken some short videos of the male and female Hairy Woodpeckers (Picoides villosus) that have been coming to our suet feeder. The camera work and lighting leaves a lot to be desired (as does the background noise -- you can hear in this one a train video LittleBirder is watching on YouTube*). Nevertheless! It's delightful to have the pair visiting us.

* By the way, it's kind of a neat little train video, with a troll. I am not this skilled in my vids!

Owl House

Two or three Christmases ago, Grandpére built lots of bird houses in lots of sizes, and we each chose one. For ridiculously long time, our barred owl house has been sitting either on our front stoop or in our entry area.

Then, we added white cedar shakes over the pine.

Today, we—mostly my sweetie-pie—put it up on a old maple by the creek.

Aside from being perhaps too close to the road, the location is probably pretty good: right by the creek, a mix of dense hemlocks and deciduous, easy flight path down the dirt road to the old meadows...

We may have put it up too late, in that I read in one place that barred owls pick their nesting sites as early as September. Still, we hope! We know they're around...

Christmas Project

On Christmas Day, Grandpére and LittleBirder put together a bird feeder. This is a very cool Christmas present.

The hammer is a present for LittleBirder as well; it came with the kit that Grandpére made.

Kingfisher!

I spotted a kingfisher midafternoon today, on our way to get a Christmas tree. It was perched on the branch of a young tree on the shore of the Huntington River, just where Main Road crosses the River, north of Jubilee Farm.

Seemed late in the year for it? But my sister (the Director of the Birds of Vermont Museum) says no, not necessarily. So cool.

wood for the winter

We finished stacking this year's today. I estimate: 4½ - 5 cord. Two rows is just under a cord; the shed holds 10 rows or nearly. Hope it's dry enough.

Saw a dozen or so chickadees, a titmouse, two or more blue jays.