Room Without Walls

Cat's Tail in the Door

2012-02-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

The weather has been mild enough that even with my small handicap I have been able to sit outside more often and watch the brown winter struggle to remain the owner of the season.

Yesterday the sky was filled with the sound of a cat dying. Not a pleasant sound unless you are a raptor fan such as I. A male Red Shouldered Hawk was singing to his mate while dancing high in the blue sky. He soared up becoming a distant silhouette with a call that is similar to what a cat might make if you slammed its' tail in your front door. He then spiraled elegantly for a while as the sound echoed again and again in the winter air. In an instant he then collapsed his wings tightly into two sharp arrows and made a nose dive toward the area of the female. The fall is so fast and frightening he certainly must be breaking the sound barrier as well as risking his life. It would be very heart-stopping if you were with him in this command performance.
At the last minute he pulls up and starts the dance all over again. He must have captured her heart because we saw the pair doing the love dance on the high branch of a locust tree a short time later. That dance lasted such a short time considering the aerial performance that had seduced her in the beginning. Oh well, looks like there will be baby red-shoulders in the woods this spring.

Enraptured With Raptors

2012-02-15T12:01:00.001-05:00

I recently had an opportunity to visit the Carolina Raptor Center outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. This is an non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation and rehabilitation of birds of prey. There are a least 25 species of eagles, hawks and owls for viewing all in one location in the woods. All of them are so damaged they cannot be returned to the wild. They do also house raptors for rehabilitation and release when they can. You can see from the photo below that some have had serious wing damage. These photos are photo-shopped extensively since they were somewhat out of focus and had to be taken with a link fence both in front and behind the birds. To the right of this bird below and hidden behind a screen there was a female sitting on two eggs on a nest! The nesting could be viewed from a mounted camera in the gift shop.

They also had a golden eagle building a nest for his sweetheart. If you are ever in the area of Huntersville, North Carolina, this is a great place to stop.

And if watching raptors makes you hungry there is a great BBQ place just a few miles down the road.

A Distant Purr

2012-02-13T07:21:00.000-05:00

Late last week we were warned of a cold front (finally) coming through. Thus a few errands were in quick order two of which involved our family of birds. We made sure the feeders were full and the water dish filled to the rim with fresh water. It was getting dark before we finished outside chores.

As we were tying down the cover to the BBQ on the deck we heard a deep gentle repetitive sound in the ravine on the right side of the house. There is something so magical when some small life form sings its territorial song with such bravery and self-confidence across the darkening and mysterious woods. You cannot help but stop and listen.

My husband thought it was a frog because of the warmer weather. But I knew in my heart that it was some type of owl. I do not know why I knew this, because I am not an owl expert, but something made me sure. I searched for owl calls on the Internet once I got inside and found out it was a screech owl, megascops aslo. The sound was not at all what I expected from that sound and the owl's common name. If you want to know what a screech owl sounds like, at least one of their more common sounds, click here. The sound that we heard was most like the first part of this sound and a little slower. We never heard the horse neighing sound that comes later on this link.

Anyway, I hope my ankle heals sooner rather than later so that I may go searching for a screech owl nest. These owls are very small, fluffy, and the color of the bark on the trees. They will be hard to see. Thus far in my small woods we have heard a screech owl and the great horned owl but I only saw the horned owl once and that was years ago.

On the Catwalk

2012-02-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

These beauties have been hanging out at my feeders in abundance throughout this mild winter.

Sometimes I get lucky and several of the colored flags are on the catwalk all at once!

If you want a chance to win a reproduction of one of my many photos, please visit my other blog before Thursday P.M.

Headache

2012-02-03T12:35:00.002-05:00

Here she comes again with that camera...

OMG...she gives me SUCH a headache.

The Big Maw

2012-02-02T18:14:00.003-05:00

Does not this photo above look as though some prehistoric animal is crying in pain? Granny Annie gave me the theme for this post and I have thought her exact thought many times as I stare from my bedroom window and see this fallen tulip poplar that fell two years ago. Had it fallen toward my house it would have damaged the roof. She is right.

Bones in the Graveyard

2012-02-01T07:15:00.003-05:00

Just the smallest of powder dusting. That is the extent of the white winter we have received as we enter this February 2012. It is as if winter spilled a cup of flour on her way rushing who knows where.

This "new-time" winter has been bittersweet in its gifts. I love the warmer air and the crystal sound of the birds in the morning. I love sitting on my deck and smelling the unusual warmth of plants and new earth that are rising from their too short nap. Temperatures are in the 50's and 60's, breathtakingly uncommon for early February.

Even as I love the warmer air kisses on my shoulders and the sweeter songs filling my ears, it also comes with the sound of wood cutters. I fear for what this really means for the planet. Is Mother Earth going through her hot flashes as she comes to the end of her life? Is this change happening too fast as the scientists indicate such that plants and animals cannot keep ahead of the game of changing climate? Are my trees dying because they do not have a long enough winter rest? Are they dying because of the increase in stronger storms and heavier rains in the summer? Are they dying because of the increase in disease and insects that survive these milder winters?

Or are the trees dying because it is naturally their time and I am just being too dramatic about the changes to the beauty that surrounds me? Maybe this love affair is just naturally coming to an end and earth is awaiting a re-birth. That is what I can certainly hope. This 'widowmaker' in the photo above leaning precariously and over 100 feet high and reaching her long arms across the path to the dock tore free from the earth's tether just fifteen minutes after my husband passed to meet with dock repairmen. She did not even scream in pain as the ribbons of her years of life were revealed.
Oddly enough a verse from Paul Simon rings in my head.

"Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bone digger, bone digger
Dogs in the moonlight"  Paul Simon

Looking at You

2012-01-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

I have been good about staying off my feet as much as possible but getting a terrible case of cabin fever. Thus I am spending more time at the computer with my files of photos. This little chickadee comes regularly along with his 'mates' to the water dish and the suet feeder. I took this photo of him hanging off the feeder and then photo-shopped it (somewhat badly as an expert can tell certainly tell you) so that it looked more "natural." Although I have seen them in the cedar trees, I do not think they eat cedar berries as this photo might falsely indicate.

Masked Men

2012-01-28T13:06:00.001-05:00

About 75 of these cedar waxwings flew into my backyard the other day. They were intrigued at what all the other birds were doing at the feeders, but did not join them. Sometimes they come into the water dish and I was hoping they would so that I could take a closer photo. I fiddled with this photo above since it was taken through the window and has a misty feel to it a a result..you know, that double "pained" look. (Click image for closer view.) Maybe it can be my new banner for this blog?

Maybe some of my readers remember the drama with Zorro a few years ago. If not you can go here and here and if you need a conclusion to the drama you can click here.

Size Does Matter

2012-01-25T14:33:00.000-05:00

Things one learns if one watches birds long enough, and clearly that is mostly what I do!

Click on photos if you want a closer view.

You Can Make Anywhere More Beautiful

2012-01-22T07:43:00.000-05:00

Pothole Gardens

Eulogy

2012-01-15T16:03:00.001-05:00

I could say that I recognized you when you were stately andtowering. I could say that I remember yourgracious shade and the time a hawk rested regally within your embrace. I might suggest that the song of the wind wasmost especially lovely when it played on your leaves, and the late sun’s caresspainted your bark with more loving care than it caressed all the others. I could say that your proud carriage was the standard for all the others in my woods. But this praise would be more charitable thantrue, because I rushed past you most days and forgot you were there. You were so far away and my world was soclose to the ground. You were hidden bytwo holly trees that sheltered the birds that I fed each winter, and you grewon the edge of the hillside just as it fell away into the weedy and thorny woods. All that camouflage allowed me to forget you.

Last fall you exhaled with a deep and stunning sigh, and yourcollapse to the earth, as you leaned for the first and last time, shook my heart. It was in the dark of night that you tossedyour final good-bye. I was frightened bythe seriousness of your death, and even though I could see nothing through thescream of the dark night wind, I knew a hundred years had passed in that moment.

There is more space for the sun to play upon the ground these days. But even so, the sun caresses the shadows of your trunk asit makes its passage down the river toward the night. In some strange way you may be lovelier in death. You lie languorous and liquid as if you werepart of some gray river reaching on an unconcerned journey to nowhere.

Ouch!

2012-01-13T12:04:00.005-05:00

This little fellow presented an opportunity for such a closeup with my camera because he was a bit stunned by a hawk that had spotted him. He flew into one of our windows trying to escape and landed on the deck. The day was very warm, so we did not try to pick him up and shelter him. We were waiting patiently for a rebound. The hawk had flown on and this little bird was safe, and after about 10 minutes he flew away into the trees.

This photo above is the same bird taken just a little earlier before the attack. This is a red house finch and not native to the East Coast where I live. His ancestors were introduced from the west coast of the United States through a release of just a few on Long Island, New York, by some bird sellers that could not get them sold back in the 1940s. As a species they have done very well, as they can be seen almost anywhere. Cornell says there may be up to 1.4 billion birds of this species in North America! The male is the brightly colored one and some are more red or yellow than others depending on what they eat. I have seen some that are far more stunning than this one.

The female red house finch above is not so fancy in color as her mate. They usually come to the water bowl at the same time. They love seeds and clean me out each winter.

How to Catch a Bird

2012-01-10T09:45:00.004-05:00

Put a little salt on his tail...

...or on the top of his head?

"What YOU looking at? Got a problem?"

Yes, we finally got a little snow.

One Word

2012-01-07T12:03:00.000-05:00

That time of year again when the birds actually get irritated enough to tap on my rain spouts to remind me to feed them. I decided to try a little one word exercise for this first batch I have photographed since I have little to say or write these days.

Pretentious

Precious

Pleasing

Perky

Crow Haiku (?)

2012-01-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

Two crows in best black

Sharing a secret this year

About you and me.

Peace!

2011-12-21T09:59:00.001-05:00

Dormancy

2011-12-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

Photographers have to to work for their desires during the winter months. We do not have the dramatic whites of snows nor the scary crystals of ice storms here, I write somewhat thankfully. We do have many gray and cold days where the sun peaks through clouds only briefly and usually just before sunset to remind us that is it still there, behind the silver cold waiting for warmer weather to join us. As I left the driveway in exploration of something new to add to my files I saw one of our many damaged maples struggling to pretend winter was not upon us in full force. Its entire top had been broken away and while it stood headless it still was alive.

I drove to a new agricultural area and as I came over the crest of a hill I saw the scene below in the distance.

This is a dormant peach orchard, and being a photographer, I was also salivating at how lovely it would be to photograph in the spring. Nearby were other ornamentals that the farmer grew for others yards and that were more beautiful this time of year than other season.

There is beauty in the grays and silvers and sages, but my eye always goes to the energy filled reds.

The Harsher Times

2011-12-14T16:38:00.000-05:00

Winter is a harsh time of year for both man and beast. It pretends that its soft white snows blanket with peace, but if you look closely their is red blood on that white cover. While we do not yet have snow, there is a red tailed hawk that has kept our mouse and mole population down around the compost pile. We also have a large mulch pile of wood chips from the tree fall that will probably house a bunch of rodents this winter! The hawks are busy. The one below managed to swallow the little rodent he had in two gulps before flying away.

We have an abundance of deer this year (every year) and we have a hunter neighbor who is an archer. He eats whatever he shoots. If you are vegan, the image of deer wasting disease may be more to your tastes. I feel at peace with hunters and fishermen that control the excess. He now sits high in a tree at the front of our land waiting for a good target.

We have four young deer...maybe a year or even two in age, that come through the bracken and munch not so quietly each day. This is hunting season and they are wary, and as I stand on my deck and try to see them in the deep brush, I can see and ear or eye angled my way if I clear my throat. We also have a large doe who rests against the bank of our ravine on the opposite side of the house. She rests in the company of a large 6 point buck who is most impressive in stance. I have tried to get photos of him, but without success.

You may wonder if I eat venison. I do. I think it might be healthier than the hormone treated and corn fed beef available in my store. I know the deer have happier lives than many feed-lot steers.

Competition

2011-12-12T10:59:00.000-05:00

This time of year there seems to be competition for attention. My geraniums have actually survived the cold freeze as they are tucked against the foundation and beneath the deck. They will not survive the winter, but I did save one plant for my sunny windowsill.

The holly berries are in abundance this year and not to be outdone by one little geranium blossom! They compel man and bird alike to pause and enjoy. Food is provided for both the stomach and the soul.

But when I tire of the cold and bitter air I come inside and find that something else is competing for my gaze during this season. Yes, it is artificial and has too much glitter, but it is here for such a short time and does manage to keep the house a little warmer.

Planting Trees in the Forest

2011-12-10T06:14:00.001-05:00

We planted a tree like this one, this past spring. Ours is still too young to produce young, but it is turning a lovely shade of pink rust as the winter sets in. This is a bald cypress. Such an odd name for such a symmetrical and lovely tree. It would make a perfect Christmas tree but it drops all its needles in the winter and thus, was given the name "bald" because of that. It can grow up to 70 feet tall and grows well in swamps. But it also does a good job in our front yard which is high and dry. Because our tree's feet are on dry land we will not get that distinct round bowl at the base that it produces when sitting in water nor the bumps of the roots seeking better stabilization which are called cypress knees that can be found sticking out of the water in swamps.

According to wikipedia "The tallest known individual specimen, near Williamsburg, Virginia, is 44.11 m tall, and the stoutest known, in the Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a diameter of 521 cm. The oldest known specimen, located in Bladen County, North Carolina, is over 1,620 years old making this the oldest living plant in Eastern North America." Quite an impressive tree, is it not?

Our little tree was bought at the garden club sale and currently stands only three feet high, but every tree has to start somewhere.

Tiny Swimmer

2011-12-05T06:37:00.001-05:00

I could not wait for the light to get bright enough so that I could make my way down to the dock and personally greet the still morning. Sitting in the house and hearing the heater kick on and off was not soothing to my soul. The fog was extra heavy as it hung close to both edges of the river denying the sun its pink light as it does most mornings this time of year. Birds were singing as if it was spring even though the temperatures hung in the low 30's F. Since there was no wind, it was very comfortable.

I had on my heavy dark gray down coat covering my Jennifer Lo animal print flannel PJs. Thus I looked much like a tree trunk as I carefully navigated the path toward the dock. I had to really pace myself when I learned that the dock was covered with slippery frost hidden from the eye.

Our resident bald eagle flew high over this section of the river on his way to better waters for the morning meal, and, although I remained still as the water watching him, I could swear he spotted me as he glanced down my way. He seemed to "eagle eye" me with a tilt of the head, shocked at my wardrobe.

I didn't take many photos but just watched the morning stretch and open its way into the world. Eventually, off to my right, I saw a small dot swimming toward me.

The swimmer was steady and focused, and of course, I had the wrong lense! I was hoping to capture the big picture. As it finally cruised closer I recognize that it was a gentle bufflehead duck, our smallest diving duck. Because of the fog, I could not see the green and purple gloss of the head, but the white patch was a distinctive identifying mark.

These birds are extremely wary and impossible to photograph without a telephoto lens, but this diver did not notice I was human and came just close enough for this grainy photo with my regular lens. I did look a little like a fatter version of one of the dock pilings, and thus he was fooled. He scooted past onto the next dock where he spent several minutes diving and flapping in the smooth waters eating something just beneath my neighbors boat lift.

I eventually tired of standing so still and as I moved slowly back up the dock toward coffee, he immediately recognized my movement and headed out and away beyond sight.

More on My Visitor

2011-12-02T09:35:00.001-05:00

I did some research on the Yellow-bellied sapsucker because of a comment or two to my post. These birds are only temporary in my neighborhood as this is the upper range for their winter home. The females fly all the way to Central America for the winter months. They breed mostly up north and in the woods of Canada, so I will never see a nesting pair. This siting in my yard was rare.
They are essential to other birds such as humming birds and some mammals with the sap they get the trees to release. Many species benefit from the sweet sap and humming birds would not be able to stay in the woods of Canada without the sapsucker since there are few flowers for them to use. Sapsuckers also eat the insects that come to the sap holes and include berries in their diet.

In the spring the male may use traffic signs or other metal for tapping to declare his territory. The males are the better parent, selecting the site early and creating the nest. They also incubate the eggs in the evening and if one of the parents meet with death, the male is the most likely to be successful in raising the birds on his own. Fascinating stuff.

A New Visitor

2011-12-01T11:54:00.001-05:00

One of the things that I do when I am trying to ignore chores is stare out windows. I couple this with the Cornell Feederwatch Project and it makes me feel like I am wasting less time. Today I saw this visitor in my front yard eating bugs and perhaps berries off the holly tree. (Our hollies are prolific with berries this year. I am hoping this does not mean a long hard winter.) I have not seen this bird in my yard and rarely see it elsewhere, so I was truly excited and want to share. Photo taken through a double paned window...so not a crisp or great shot, but the species is recognizable...yellow-bellied sapsucker.

Poetry in Motion

2011-11-27T15:01:00.001-05:00

Birds are wary and do not linger long for photos. They dart in and out of the feeders, hiding frequently in the nearby holly's evergreen bows for shelter and camouflage. I spend time sitting very still and sometimes they seem to forget I am there until I cross an ankle or turn my head, but still it is difficult to get a crisp shot.

If a hawk lands in a close high up branch they freeze. They look like stuffed animals at the museum exhibit and do not turn a head to see if the shadow of the raptor is behind or beside. They do not move one tiny feather. Their form is that of a hunched life form ready to fly, but tucked tight in the center. They are usually tucked beneath a flower pot, leafy branch or in deep shadow.

Thus the truth of nature is that motion catches the eye. You know this if you have tried to view wildlife. Someone may point out that bird or animal, but you cannot see it, unless it moves. And then it comes into focus surrounded by grass or leaves or branches.

I learned that even I can be hidden. As I sat on a plastic stool at the edge of the patio, camera in hand, trying to catch various bird photos I also disappeared. I heard rustling leaves to my side, but assuming it was a digging squirrel, I only turned somewhat later. There was a young deer digging for roots or moss. A warning cry from some bird caused him to pause as he started the climb up the ridge toward my lawn. He raised his ears, then lowered them, ignoring the warning. He came out into the clearing only 15 feet from me and I did not move but held the camera in his direction. He seemed to sense something was amiss but continued to graze. I clicked the camera and he did not seem to hear. I continued to click and then he looked up and stared at me. He tilted his head as if to get a better focus. I did not move...he could not see me! There I sat in full view and he stared for several minutes before something about me...perhaps the movement of my breathing caused him to trot off across the lawn and into the other side of the ravine.

Movement, the dance of the living, that is the key to it all.

Not a Turkey

2011-11-22T07:39:00.000-05:00

That time of year again when we show thankfulness by eating and drinking until we make ourselves ill. I saw this duo in the photo below just a week ago. They seemed to be saying "We are NOT turkeys!" I felt it was my duty to post a close-up to make sure you didn't accidentally eat one of these on Thanksgiving.

I Hear Dead Things

2011-11-18T05:58:00.001-05:00

Morning is still sleeping, but I cannot. I seem to be getting up before the sun regularly on these shorter than short days. The full moon peeks behind high clouds and then ducks back taking the gaunt moving shadows with it. I sit in a silent room sensing the quiet cold that has settled outside as I tuck the throw more tightly around my legs. A simple sound could carry a mile on the thin crisp air out there. Even the few lights on the river seem to twinkle so quietly, almost fearfully, with a silver white glow.

Suddenly, the house seems to take a quick and deep intake of breath as if bracing itself, and I hear the rattle of twigs and leaves beside windows, scraping across the porch, and clacking across the roof. Just like boney fingers with long nails they tap as if testing to get in, reminding me they are spinning out there, in the waiting cold, flying against and over the house, scratching and biting their way through the woods, clattering and spinning chaotically.

Once the sun is up, they become nothing more than dancing debris, but now in the dark they are dead things that move.

(I know...compared to the prior post...I am a little bi-polar.)

Falling Love

2011-11-16T09:26:00.000-05:00

I have always been addicted to the passionate beauty of autumn. It never hides its love. No caution is thrown to the wind, only jewel toned leaves. Autumn does not fear rejection nor criticism nor competition. It is all about the sex without reproduction. The trees throw flaming red scarfs to the ground until they stand naked and cold before you. It is the passionate center of things that is valued. Autumn stands brave, unapologetic, and stalwart with emotion. As a teenager I declared it my favorite season, and I even wrote sappy teenage poems to it! I think that love affair is still ongoing.

I took a walk around my woods as the sun was just beginning to rise a few days ago. The former night's evening dew still clung to some of the leaves like diamond jewelry. I decided to select only the reds for this post, because it is, after all, all about the passion. (I reduced pixel size to save space on Blogger which seems to be losing memory (space) rapidly.)

A dogwood at sunrise just waking.

Dogwood Dew (and she does!)

Stunning reds of the sweet gum tree.

Sweet Gum kiss.

Now don't you really need a cigarette or a shower?

The Rest of the Story

2011-11-11T14:28:00.001-05:00

I finally previewed a few of my foggy paddle photos and can now tell you the rest of the story. First, let me write about the photo that I missed...the best one of the day. We had just reached the dock. The water was like a silver mirror and the horizon that met it was covered with cotton batting. Hubby held the canoe stable and close to the dock and the high tide made it easier to enter with one wobbly ankle. I was just bending to sit when looking up and only yards away a juvenile bald eagle swooped in what appeared to be slow motion and gently touched the surface of the water with its claws and retrieved a small fish which it carried away to a distant tree. It would have made a stunning photo even without a telephoto lens since the bird was so close. Our eagles are extremely shy and it is rare to see one so close. My heart sat in my throat for minutes.

Slowly the colors of fall revealed themselves as we coasted close to shoreline.

Once the sun had burned off the fog there were only tentative pockets of mist in the tucks of the river beneath the shadows of large trees. The rest of the shoreline welcomed us with open arms.

We carefully pulled out way through marsh grasses up a finger of the river toward a familiar beaver dam. It was high tide, but soon to change, so we could not stay long exploring this home.

I did managed to capture a photo of this marsh sparrow who was singing his heart out at the melting of the fog.

And not all of the stars had disappeared with the night. A few were caught in the marsh grasses.

Bored Walking

2011-11-09T10:52:00.001-05:00

I actually took a 2 mile ~~walk~~ stroll around a nearby lake yesterday. I had trouble going down the small hills along the path, but no trouble walking up them. That is progress certainly?

At my age when I walk with a limp from the injury, I age 10 years or more to those that see me. But with healing comes an ability to stifle the limp and to stand up straighter and I think I look like a different person. Thus, I took some before and after photos of my walk to show how we see things differently with subtle changes. I took a photo of one of my favorite places on this lake...the beaver dam with a resting bench that one reaches by going half way around. The first photo is what the camera saw. The second photo is what I did in post processing to reveal what my eyes saw. (I even removed that tiny sign on the tree...!)

Float With Me

2011-11-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

If you have never been in a canoe or are not a type to head outdoors in an early morning fog, come let me share my recent morning with you as you sit safely in your easy chair at home under the warm glow of the computer screen. If, alternately, you love something like this, I am thrilled to share with you my most recent outdoor adventure in photos.

There is nothing quite like that effortless feel as a canoe floats away from its tether at the dock and your first paddle stroke breaks the smooth glassy surface of the silver water picking up speed. (A description on the intricacies of getting in and out of a floating canoe with an injury is for my other blog.) The fog had settled on the river over the night and a very gentle breeze was just beginning to push it away in soft misty drifts. The sun was hidden behind heavy moisture, but soon would burn its way warmly over head.

I felt as if we had been surrounded by a soft white comforter and we were trying to find our way across toward the open light. It was not quiet as bird song did begin to pierce the cover of moisture letting us know they were awake and also thinking about the start of the day. The air was cool but layered clothing kept us comfortable. The fog re-painted the river and we saw everything with new eyes as we carefully set direction. Large shadows melted into trees along the shoreline and sharp items became boats at dock.

By the time we reached the open area into the river, the fog was beginning to pull away and formed a wall against the bank on the far side. It looked so gray against the blue sky. Fog was drifting without wind as you can see from the mirror of the water's surface; there was just a slight breeze. It is mid-fall and few boats were visibly moving at this finger of the river.

Our tourist geese were beginning their shopping trip to the nearby corn fields and were magnificent in flight if not quiet as they flew off the water just ahead of us.

These few stragglers were certainly surprised at our quiet appearance as we passed the corner of this marshy island. It did not take them long to paddle quickly until they got speed and also took flight.

The fog cleared just as we entered the wider part of the river where motor boats could have been a challenge. We saw some lovely fall colors, sea gulls diving for fish, bald eagles, marsh wrens and sun. But that will have to wait for another post.

Honk!!

2011-11-01T05:56:00.001-05:00

Some small towns have those seasons when tourists arrive in droves. They buzz like noisy bees, poke into nooks and crannies like rude in-laws, and then, they disappear just as quickly as dew on the morning grass. They come for the spring colors, or the summer waves, or fall leaf changes or winter skiing. Thank goodness they only stay through the peak because they are not shy in revealing their presence. They actually act as if they were the owners and not the visitors!

Well, my small river has its tourists as well - the geese from Canada. The "early birds" arrive just as fall winds get cold and the rest of the mob crashes in ahead of winters nor'easter. They laugh and call to each other and generally fill the river with discord as the sun sets. They are nightlife zealots and the party lasts until well after midnight. The males in the center of the river and the gals swimming around the edges. Then in what can only be called a drunken stupor, they finally sleep it off muttering gently through their night dreams with heads tucked under wings until the sun reaches the horizon.

Once morning is pale pink this cabal begins again a noisy cacophony that only a dysfunctional family reunion could mimic. The noise carries for miles across the water on the cold air.

"Move over!"
"My side! My side"
"Wake up you sloth!"
"We are going this way!"
"NO, THIS!"
"Your mother wears army boots!"
"Your mother doesn't migrate!"
And on and on they call and honk until finally the noisiest one begins a chant that seems to resonate - "Your left, your left, you left, right, left."

And, as the sun reveals its golden glory, there is much slapping of wings on the top of the water and increasing noise and bellowing and with much effort they leave the surface. They move like low flying cargo planes or heavy laden bombers skimming the water, gaining elevation only over time, heading in the direction of distant dormant corn fields.

They leave behind tufts of white floating on the glassy surface and cast against the shore. An unbelievable quiet fills the air as if the river has just sighed...until the next evening when it is repeated all over again.

Shhhh!

2011-10-28T12:50:00.001-05:00

Tonight the moon is more than half full. That cold pearl light sharpens the dark shadows that lay across my path and the glow washes past the field that I must cross. It is the only light I have as I set out on my journey.

Did you hear that? It is the muggy warning call of the owl. He sees and hears all. What is he trying to tell me as my feet crunch the leaves covering this narrow path? I hear nothing else except the ground fog breathing cautiously below and hiding my way as it flows behind the tree trunks. The air smells damp and dead and of black mold. The earth is old and wet which I notice as my heel slips on the downside of the path. Then a tree root catches my foot causing me to stumble against a craggy oak. I have bumped my head and as I reach to rub it, I touch a web and brush it with panic from my forehead. I turn but first must adjust my shoe before returning back on the path.

Tonight it is THE night and I cannot turn back. All of the night creatures will be there waiting for me with their glowing eyes and sudden screeching music. Even now they crouch low and wait to pounce as the moon slides behind a cloud for a brief time. This is their hour of power.

At last I have reached the edge of the mowed field bathed in the last of the moon light and I see the barn up ahead. What a perfect night for a Halloween Barn Dance, I think as I wrap my scarf closer about my neck!

Falling for Fall

2011-10-23T15:18:00.002-05:00

A month ago, when I could amble, I took an exploratory trip to a place called the Monocacy Battlefield. It has a wonderful historic museum as well as several farms to wander around. They are actively leased by real farmers who put up with the tromp of tourists. I took the photos (manipulated for an autumnal feel) below. They do not actually fit into the Room Without Walls, but all I have for now. I hope they get you ready for fall.

A traditional rail fence along a meadow path.

A modern barn.

A well maintained traditional tobacco barn converted for storage.

2011-10-20T07:18:00.002-05:00

I miss my room without walls these days. While the weather has been nice enough to keep the windows open all day and all night, I long to be sitting under trees somewhere, in a canoe on the water before it turns cold, or hiking through some crispy fall leaves. I miss brushing spider webs from my hair, kicking mud from my shoes and carrying my camera everywhere. Being the addicted photographer, below is what I have been seeing for the last few days.

More Dancers

2011-10-16T10:25:00.008-05:00

They come to dance and flirt and tease and I am compelled to share their photos on this day. They skip and loop and flutter close past your forehead causing such a distraction that you unconsciously wipe your brow leaving a brown streak with the mud from your hand. And just when you think you have been distracted to the limit with their inability to form a serious parade, they twirl far away.

Summer's song is not too long

It is not too loud and

Not so familiar

That you can sing along.

Your eyes begin to adjust

To the carnival lights

Your ears to the buzz of warm rhythms

And your nose to the smell of ripe honey.

And then Summer has waned

The days are smaller on each end

The earth no longer needs your care
And the butterflies laugh and all flirt away.

My gift to you while I recuperate and miss being outdoors.

Hootenanny.

2011-10-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

When fall arrives I am always surprised how the long angles of the sun can make everything so crisp and clean and new looking. It is as if I am staying in a new place. The sun has ended with its hot burn lighting making everything flat and bright and is pulling out all the soft hues and new gel filters even before the leaves begin to change colors. That hot orb paints the last of my autumn blossoms with deep lavish colors giving me memorable visions to hold me over during the winter months. The wind blows billowing clouds back and forth and even sometimes lets them pause long enough to allow some rain to fall. The musty smells of the forest floor are dry and dusty this week and ground birds are noisily tossing leaves all around looking for the really fat fellows hiding below. Squirrels chase each other scratching the back of the tree up one side and down the other as their larder must be filled. The crickets sing, but sort of sorrowfully, as if they know their time is short. Spiders hang out by my windows and doors trying to sneak their way inside before the cold comes.

Last night deep in the woods as the fog formed over this river in the photo above, I heard the owls singing their autumn song. I have my own front row seat to the regularly held Autumn Hootenanny just outside my bedroom windows as Halloween approaches.

Would You Like to Dance?

2011-10-04T17:59:00.000-05:00

If you follow either of my blogs, you may need a life, but you also will know that I have an ongoing contest dancing with lonesomeness and togetherness as they twirl me and whirl me hither and yon. I tend to favor the waltz with lonesomeness because it brings peace, quiet, gentle rhythms, and my dress whirls so symmetrically around the room, and, of course, I have accepted that it will be my inevitable partner as I age. My years reward me with a lack of fear of being alone. In contrast, the dance with togetherness is crazy, full of life, and throws me unpredictable turns making me seem to miss my steps more often. While I need this partner, I have outgrown its energies. I feel more awkward and drained of life at the end of the togetherness foxtrot.

I write this because the emptiness and solitude of places in the photos below fill me with an unexplainable awesome peace. While I stood, camera in hand, I was very aware that people have been here and struggled to survive and lived lives of quiet desperation. Their sacrifice is in the soil and the air and the brilliance of the sunshine and commands your attention. They came before in prehistoric and historic times and left behind the strength of life and the closeness to the strength of the earth that they experienced. Trying to find or create sustenance from this desolate area was a blind challenge for them. I hear ancient chants to eternity on the desert winds...what a dance that must be!

There is a purity of human spirit that seemed to hang close as I took these photos. While taking the photo immediately below I heard the rhythmic rush of the wings of a large black raven as it flew very high overhead on some long journey. When did you last here the rush of a raven's wings?

Along the Roadside

2011-10-02T08:59:00.000-05:00

We put over 3,000 miles on the rental car which we drove from Denver, Colorado, to various parts of Northern Utah on our adventure two weeks ago. No grass grows under my husband's feet (or car tires) and this mileage was completed even though we did lots of daily hiking and visiting museums and historic sites. We did move once the sun was up and did not stop until dark. We are not idle vacationers and get our money's worth. (No sitting around the pool with mosquitoes and mojitos. We can sleep when we get home.)

One afternoon, we had gotten a little lost in the vast rural areas and flat lands and were trying to find a specific unmarked road outside of a small farming town in the unusually green high desert. Hubby who has the 'eagle' eye spotted the hawk pair in the tall grasses by the road first. Knowing my love of raptors he slowed as we passed and then made a quick U-turn on the empty country road to go back so I could take a photo. I worked rapidly to change lenses in the car.

When we cruised past a second time, they appeared to have already departed the area. One was so expertly camouflaged that we saw him sitting on the fence post just seconds before we cruised slowly to a stop and seconds before he took off again. I snapped the blurred photo below from the car window.

The raptor couple retreated to a nearby and safer utility line and proceeded to scream at me and my invasion of their privacy. I did not see what prey they had found in the grass and perhaps it was a small rodent who had escaped with no thanks to our curiosity. I took a few other photos, but nothing that truly showed their dignity and beauty.

After research I think they are a common marsh hawk or harrier. But I am open to any expert identification.

Too Quiet

2011-09-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

(Why I play such sad and haunting music when I am alone and hubby is on the other side of the world is something only a well-experienced psychotherapist could explain. I skate dangerously close to the precipice as an aging soul.)

The photo below is a perfect example of the breathtaking beauty and strength of old trees in the West. The air is dry and the sun is hot and wood just seems to grin and wrinkle and age in such a lovely old way. It becomes a parchment skin that is neither fragile nor brittle. Instead it is a thick skinned dinosaur that reminds you of its magnificence just a few decades ago. It lies about paths and trails daring you to stop and study true aging, to stop and see what you can learn from the patience of a dignified life. While sometimes a cold gray color, it is not cold, but welcoming and just begging for your touch, which, of course, you must do gently before moving on down the path to a destination with a view.

Big Sky Country

2011-09-25T06:56:00.001-05:00

Wide open spaces. You can see for miles and miles and sometimes even to the ends of the earth. Big sky country. Enough piney air to breathe and enough land to get away from it all. The wild west always lives up to your expectations. Above is a little hike we took outside Denver, Colorado, on the second day we arrived. We did not see much wildlife, but with such open land, the animals know how to hide when hunting season is near. (It is getting harder to take a photo without a house in it!)

One Blog Room is Clean

2011-09-23T14:32:00.001-05:00

I find that this blog seems to have no malware warnings when I try to open the pages where my other blog did...for a while. I had to break the link to Kenju's blog, Imagine, and for some reason it helped. Maybe when my head clears of code and malware I will write a true post.

Sighing

2011-09-05T08:46:00.000-05:00

How can she be so lovely and peaceful? How can she end the day with such grace and quiet charm? Just last week she was angry, spewing tears everywhere and thrashing about like a 4-year-old. I am tiptoeing about hoping she is done with her temper tantrums for this year!

Tough Love

2011-09-02T10:40:00.001-05:00

While taking my granddaughter around the zoo the other day, I had fun watching all the wild birds. Wild birds in large numbers hang out at the zoos since the food is so abundant...seeds and fruit leftover from cages, dropped french fries from the kids, and garbage cans full of interesting foods. The birds are not intimidated by humans, I am guessing we are just more zoo residents to them. I wasn't able to take the dozens of interesting behavioral photos that I would have liked to take, since my granddaughter required much of my attention. But I did get the interaction below from a baby bird (no longer a baby!) begging for food and a mama bird telling him to fly off alright already!! The zoo if full of food all along the sidewalks, so this fledgling was being super lazy.

Still Standing

2011-08-30T08:11:00.000-05:00

Amazingly after Irene's visit the fig tree written about in the post below is still standing. Trees fell to the right of it and to the left of it, but only one branch was broken and we thinking of pruning it more carefully this winter anyway as the fruit grows on new wood.

The night of the hurricane I opened the front door to the torrential downpour and roaring winds to check and see what had fallen and I ended up frightening a small wren that had taken shelter under my porch. Out she flew into the deafening storm. I made sure I did not open the door again until morning, feeling so guilty.

As we surveyed the damage the next morning, the front yard barely being recognizable, we saw a hummingbird fly in and stop at a few blossoms still standing by the sidewalk and this was followed by several butterflies looking for what remained of the cosmos and zinnias for their morning refreshment.
Birds were singing, if not energetically, a least musically and the hornet sound of chainsaws had not yet begun across the neighborhood. It was time for taking a look and being thankful for all the big stuff in this world...which unfortunately also includes hurricanes.

A Fall Sweetness

2011-08-23T17:38:00.002-05:00

The first year that our fig tree produced we got about a dozen figs over a two week period. Hubby and I carefully shared them. They were like rare pieces of candy and we were amazed at how they tasted like figs! Imagine our surprise at not being duped by the fruit tree catalog.

This year our fig tree has produced about ten cups of figs and we hurry to pick them the day before ripeness so that squirrels and raccoons and perhaps the resident ground hog do become aware of this tree candy. We have been eating them like popcorn because they are still a luxurious rare form of fruit for us. Then I sliced them in half and made a lemon/fig tart as the abundance became too great.

The tart was made with sliced lemons, honey, butter crust, figs and fennel seeds. It was sweetly delicious. Honey and figs make me think of the Bible or some exotic tent in a desert with an Arab offering his figs. I have so many now that I made a date bar recipe and froze half of it because it was made in a large pan.
The next figs picked as this season ends may be frozen as well, because I have read that they can be kept that way. What on earth will I do next year as this tree gets bigger?

Feeling Green

2011-08-19T14:01:00.004-05:00

I am exhausted. I have been one with the green earth and a 6-year-old boy for an entire week. Are you green with envy? Little boys seems to find green things most easily. So these photos are just something we found on our recent hike. Click on photos for closer green.

Hear ye, Hear ye!

2011-08-13T06:21:00.000-05:00

One of those very peaceful very early Saturday mornings in late summer. The air is not clear because there appears to be a gentle haze of smoke from some distant fire hanging across the river. The gentle birdsong of these woods has been abducted by the brass band call of a murder of crows in the ravine. They had landed mid-tree line, and with the determination of a political candidate, continued their wining and screaming and protesting across the woods, each one determined to caw louder than their brethren.

In a few minutes just across the top of the trees a shadow was silhouetted against the gray sky. A brown hawk flew in and quietly landed in a nearby tree. The crows ignored or missed seeing the new visitor. Then a few minutes later another brown hawk entered the foray, but with much whistling and sharp singing making his/her presence known. The second hawk landed in the highest tree and cried and cried and cried. To no avail, as the crows ignored it and continued their shouting and cawing.

After some time the noise of all the feathered cast diminished and the shadow of what appeared to be a third hawk flew quickly and quietly through the dark greens of the mid-level trees into the distant peninsula and beyond my sight. I did not see the other hawks leave, but the woods became silent once again as the crows followed quietly.

Was this a young'un being driven away by the resident crows and being protected by mom and dad? Made me wonder if hawks ever gang up on crows to make a point?

Hot and Heavy

2011-08-08T13:54:00.002-05:00

This summer heat and humidity has meant that I can go outside and just stand in the shade and within minutes sweat starts to trickle down my temple and into my eyes and ears. Really. I have showered so many times a day that I am worried I may start growing fungus all over!

Then, as I am pulling three foot weeds (which are now growing a foot a day) and deadheading flower blossoms (which bloom in the morning, sigh with limp petals in mid-day and begin to drop crispy petals by late afternoon), I have to be careful or I encounter these yellow fellows below. I have destroyed a few of their webs unintentionally. They build the strongest and largest capture units I have ever seen and there is nothing more breathtaking than getting some sticky web across your face or in your hair while you are focused on something else! This garden tenant was really this large!

GOTCHA!

My Final Look Back for Now

2011-08-05T12:53:00.005-05:00

I think in all this heat we might need a smile now and again. I wrote this post the first summer we lived in this house. I am driving back today and should be back to a routine soon. Wonder what the last few days have left of my yard?

Another Look Back

2011-08-01T12:49:00.002-05:00

This is one of the best frog photos I ever got. It was taken so long ago when I first started writing about the magical life in my new yard. I have not seen a frog like this again, but I hear them! Please click on the photo for a close-up.

Looking Back

2011-07-28T12:47:00.001-05:00

I am on travel (vacation with family) so I thought that I should give in to my ego and help you look back over my earliest posts during a summer a while ago.

Here are some of my first efforts at bird photography in the heat of the day.

Hiding or Hidden

2011-07-24T17:23:00.005-05:00

I live in a world where the young, smooth, quick, colorful, shiny, loud, and moving is the beautiful. This is what the eye goes to, admires with lust and what the eye cannot turn away from. But this would not be able to exist under my gaze if it was not for the old, rough, slow, fading, muted, quiet and still that is around every day in every way. Just remember all that must come before so that the new can exist. It hides and usually works when the weather is very hot or very cold and may be just beneath your footfall while you are gazing at the beauty under your eyes.

Skipping

2011-07-21T10:33:00.001-05:00

The butterfly above is the Silver Spotted Skipper. I do not think the name is an accurate description of this common butterfly. I see them all over my yard and sometimes they have yellow or orange patches as the flyer above shows, sometimes they only show white. They are the largest of the skippers. The caterpillar form looks like a green exclamation point with the head being large and dark brown. They scatter their frass (poop) a distance behind them to distract and confuse wasps who follow the smell.

One thing you may notice is how large and bulbous their eyes are.

These butterflies seem to like everything that blooms in my yard, but I did read that they do not favor yellow flowers. I will have to see if I observe that. They are not wary for photographing, but do not sit still for more than a few seconds in any one place. I was most happy to capture this 'flight risk'. At night they build themselves tiny wispy shelters using cut leaves and they hang out under the leaves until daylight.

Pretty In Your Face

2011-07-18T10:08:00.008-05:00

Let me share with you what gets me out of bed in the mornings. This is the time of the year when all the flowers are blooming at once and I spend much of my time staking, dead-heading, pinching, picking off bugs, removing dead leaves, watering and cutting. Busy days, but I am rewarded by these beautiful faces:

Gifts

2011-07-14T09:16:00.006-05:00

This photo has been photo-shopped and a larger version was posted on RedBubble, and therefore, probably looks better there. Anyway, one of the wonderful benefits of feeding birds all winter is that come spring and summer you will get surprise sunflowers scattered arbitrarily throughout your yard. I have tried in prior summers to plant sunflowers and all were eaten by bunnies before they even got a few inches high. The ones planted by birds somehow make it through to full bloom, although they may prosper in the most inconvenient or unusual places. This sunflower is growing right at the very edge of my driveway and I have to carefully miss it as I pull out of the garage. It is tucked just in front of my tall ornamental grasses and that may be the reason it was overlooked by hungry animals. I also have two larger sunflowers in bloom in the middle of my flower beds, one in my herb bed with the sage, one out in the garden with the blueberry bushes, and one tiny one struggling further down the edge of the same driveway. This is certainly a gentle reminder of the natural order of things. Whatever we do does come back to haunt us, so we must remember to do nice things only. I took this photo in the setting sun while waiting for the goldfinch to drop by who have also found the blooms.

(I am currently watching the goldfinch (which I do not normally see since I do not put out seeds in the summer due to fear of disease issues) land on these sunflower blossoms and pull out the unripened seeds. I keep trying to get a photo, but they are pretty shy.)

Splish Splash

2011-07-10T15:31:00.001-05:00

I live in the mid-Atlantic which means the summers are long and hot. This year we have had a good amount of rain which makes it easier on all the plants and animals. When a week goes by without rain in such high heat, the animals begin their search for water. There are a few springs in our woods and the deer seem to be able to get through marsh grass to those.

I have two bird water baths. One in front and one in back of my yard. Birds rely on these often, both for drinking and for bathing. Yes, they do drink their own bath water! It is fun to watch them splash and shake the droplets every which way.

I keep the bird bath in the photo above clean. Washing it with hose water and little bleach every so often, but certainly spraying it out at least once a week and filling with fresh water. We are on a well, so I do not have to worry about city chemicals, either for me or the birds.

I have read that the 3% of birds that are marine species have salt-control systems because they spend so much time away from fresh water. They can remove the excess water by using larger kidneys, oily lipids that break down in the digestive system to produce water, and salt glands that sit in bony pockets over the eyes that are important for the excretion of sodium chloride. They must cry very salty tears!

This is the Cute Season

2011-07-08T09:12:00.002-05:00

Bored?

2011-07-04T05:57:00.000-05:00

Nest sitting can be very boring work in the heat of the afternoon.

Bonnet Head

2011-06-29T17:11:00.001-05:00

I posted this photo (in a higher resolution) on RedBubble in my portfolio because I was fascinated with the colors, texture and shapes that I was able to capture with very little post production work. Flowers blossoms go so fast. They last only a few days and if you are busy you fail to see the bud, the opening, the blossom and the fade. This poppy's seed pod, on the other hand, is just as lovely in its futuristic beauty as it was in its full orange petal brilliance a few days earlier.

Don't you think?

Cardinal Drama--Part II

2011-06-26T05:44:00.003-05:00

Back to the cut leaf maple tree in my front yard. (Get ready for some preciousness.)

The drama of the cardinal family did continue. I am an early riser and soon my morning ritual, after making coffee and while waiting for the sun to provide more than gray light, was to peak at the nest through my bay window allowing my eyes to adjust to the shadows to see if mama was sitting on the nest, and she always was. She was very hard to see because she is the exact color of the leaves. Later I would head out for my early morning walk around the yard allowing the security light to go on and thus see the tree in much more specific light. This was the time that woodland birds were singing lustily and bumblebees woke from last night's drunken honey stupor drifting from their all nighter deep inside the hosta blossoms falling into the moist morning air. During the rest of the day I could not walk by the tree to work in the yard without stopping and peeking at the two fledglings, and taking advantage of a photo opportunity.

Within days the pencil lead wings were covered in soft gray feathers and the naked bodies began to be covered in soft fuzz and slits in the eyelids began to appear. They still looked comical and alien when opening their mouths begging for food.

By the end of the week the first fledgling with feathered wings hopped from the nest and worked his/her way to the edge of an outer branch looking around at his/her new world with those sleepy bug eyes. Both parents, who were sitting at the forest edge in the nearby holly tree, behaved the same we way we do when the kids get to use the keys to the car...encouragement, bravery and insane panic.

They tweeted for the little bird to join them, flitted from tree to fence line to trellis at the side of the house, tweeting and looking around. He looks like he just woke up. Doesn't this remind you of your teenager at breakfast? The parents hopped across the front lawn pretending they were gathering bugs while all the while watching the novice flyer. It took twenty minutes of persuasion and pleading before the first sibling flew 30 feet across and just a foot above the lawn and fell into my bed of pink impatient flowers scattering petals everywhere. Dad cardinal flew to the edge of the flower bed and begged the little adventurer to fly to the net fence nearby. The fledgling eventually made it to the fence netting but with graceless balance became caught in the net like a fly in a web and hung there awkwardly for some time.

He looked about stupidly, wing caught on one side and seem to be cheeping, "Help!" Dad refused to join the fledgling and instead gathered wild raspberries on the other side of the fence line and held them high in his mouth as encouragement or bribery.

At last, this seemed to work because the bird fell through the net and then flew at a downward angle and crashed into the tangle of honeysuckle and other vines that live on an old tree snag on the woodland side of the fence. Both parents and fledgling disappeared into the deep shadows of those vines with only the adult cardinals intense conversation indicating their location.

It took longer for number two to make his/her way to the branches. He seemed to have an attitude problem and his mohawk haircut did not help me be more confident in his abilities. This freak of nature was determined to wait for food delivery and reminded me of many a rebel without a cause that I have known through my teaching days.

The parents hopped here and there with chirping and cheeping and whistling and all I could think about was all the attention they may be calling to any nearby predators.

Eventually number two took a flying leap and joined mama in the nearby holly tree. There seemed to be a small celebration before he/she also disappeared deep into the darkness of the woods.

Sadly for Tabor, as in human life, this soap opera has now been cancelled and the next season picked up on location in the deep green woods where only Mother Nature could continue to watch. The nest in the tree was empty. It got more quiet as the afternoon wore on. Tabor's yard became still and certainly seemed dramatically changed. The event was over and the first and second act appeared to have been performed successfully. Act 3 would probably not be seen by Tabor's eyes. The next morning's coffee walk was wanting as I wondered if I would recognize anyone this winter at the feeder. (But wait, I think I see the blue birds feeding family number two just beneath my deck, and yes, the wren has started her second batch of babes undeterred in the house in the flower bed! All is not over yet.)

Cardinal Drama -- Part I

2011-06-22T04:31:00.004-05:00

Near my front door is a four foot high and four foot wide cut leaf maple tree. These trees are expensive to buy, and theoretically, worth lots of money as they get larger and add a certain gravitas to ones yards. Gardeners sometimes view them as an investment...but, in reality, no one is going to pay more money for your house because you have a stunning cut leaf maple. These plants were a big garden fad about a decade ago, when Americans thought they could add a bit of sophisticated Asian Zen to their gardens by buying and planting them. Fortunately, for the American gardener who understands gardening as a "throw more money at it" activity, they are hardy and grow fairly well, although slowly, in almost any area of the yard. Several weeks ago a rustling activity in the feathery leaves of this tree drew my attention as I passed. I investigated and this is what I saw giving me the evil eye.

I could not help but notice that she blended perfectly with the color and shape of this tree. Had I not heard a noise, I am sure I would never have seen her. Nice and exciting to have the bird's eye view of a spring soap opera so close to my daily path. I noticed a few days later, while the female cardinal was off eating, that there was one small speckled egg resting in the nest. My husband, ever the investigative biologist, had to pick it up and examine it.

Alas, the shell had a small hole in it and was empty of any bird life. Had the female cardinal abandoned her nest in grief? The next day I went to collect the egg as a souvenir and found it was gone! A day later I saw the female cardinal again sitting on the nest, and as the days passed, I was excited to see the scene in the photo below one afternoon while mama was out hunting bugs.

I clapped my hands like the little old lady that I am and smiled in joy. Each day I watched the female cardinal sit on the nest. For several days this spring(!) weather reached into the 90's F and she still sat there panting with her mouth open in the unbearable heat. I would see the male cardinal bring her food. It did not take long before I was rewarded with this exotic scene below.

Blind baby birds. Ugly with mouths half the width of their skulls, naked pink backs like plucked poultry for dinner and wings with pencil lead protrusions where wing feathers should be. These two babes only a mother could love. Both she and dad would visit the nest several times a day and bring gutsy breakfasts, lunches and dinners. The babies would stretch their scrawny necks, open those cavernous mouths, and cheep ever so quietly, singing "My turn...My turn." while wavering on tiny legs and then releasing a pillow of white poop which mama picked up in her mouth and then dropped on the ground as she flew to the trees. When parents were not near, they slept quietly hunched down in the nest and invisible to all.

I watched this drama at my window and door carefully each day trying to keep all the dangers these young ones faced far to the back of my mind as I cheered them on in their survival. The spring varied from hot to cool from wet to dry and yet all were surviving. Part II of this soap next.

My Virgins

2011-06-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Lily: "To the ancient Egyptians, the trumpet-shaped lily was a symbol of Upper Egypt, the southern part of the country. In the ancient Near East, the lily was associated with Ishtar, also known as Astarte, who was a goddess of creation and fertility as well as a virgin. The Greeks and Romans linked the lily with the queen of the gods, called Hera by the Greeks and Juno by the Romans. The lily was also one of the symbols of the Roman goddess Venus.

In later times, Christians adopted the lily as the symbol of Mary who became the mother of Jesus while still a virgin. Painters often portrayed the angel Gabriel handing Mary a lily, which became a Christian symbol of purity. Besides being linked to Mary, the lily was also associated with virgin saints and other figures of exceptional chastity." The Myth Encyclopedia

This Asiatic lily below is the first to bloom in my garden and has a little bit of blue in the red. The petals are as smooth as a baby's bottom and the flowers open their faces up to the blue sky.

My second lily to bloom puts on a big show before opening her buds. The buds are large and full of interesting texture and almost look like an alien animal. The petals remind me of red leather.

When the flower actually blooms she is so full in your face that you must briefly look away before you move in for that longer study.

This lily is more orange and edgier, although it does not appear so in the photo above. This lily must look sideways and not up to the sun. She is more demure. Neither of these two lilies have that thick sweet smell of the stargazer lily. But they are so beautiful, I do not mind. The next to bloom is my tiger lily...which is still forming little buds.

All the Little Birdies

2011-06-14T15:44:00.025-05:00

This is a lengthy post and may require a stiff drink, a box of tissues, and an open mind.

You may remember my excitement at finding six little wrens in a nest in the kayak beneath our deck a few weeks ago. Watching them grow each day and watching the work that the wrens put forth in collecting insects was compelling. I was worried about raccoons and other predators since their nest was so close to the ground and so accessible and I did often question the intelligence of this wren as I have the intelligence of other wrens in the past.

But bird mothers are like our own homeless mothers when they are forced to select a nest site quickly as the time is impending that they must lay their eggs. We had some very heavy storms in the weeks prior to this and that is probably why this little dove was forced to abandon the nearby tree and selected this precarious window ledge in the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia to raise her two little ones. (Only one can be seen here.) It amazes me that baby birds survive at all!

Back at my stomping grounds, a recent afternoon was filled with a mystery regarding my bluebirds that are also nesting in the bird house on the opposite side of the deck. Both the male and female are bringing insects throughout the day, but without the speed and energy of the wren. The mystery was why both were sitting on an iron trellis doing nothing one afternoon. I had pushed the trellis into the lawn a few yards from their front door anticipating the danger of fledglings trying to fly to somewhere nearby to land as they took their first precarious flight. The bluebirds just sat there for the longest time staring down at the patio. There were at least two, maybe three, titmice, newly fledged, making a tremendous ruckus in the nearby pomegranate tree not far from the bluebirds, and I guessed that the bluebirds were irritated by this flying circus of crazy juveniles...behaving much like drunken teenagers so close to their nursery. Eventually and thankfully the titmice flew away but almost immediately a chickadee landed very close to the bluebird parents on the same trellis.

Very odd to see so many different birds in the same place! I did not figure out what was going on until many minutes later when I heard the wren throwing a tremendous fit on the other side of the deck perched on a nearby tree branch.

I walked down to the lower level to see what was going on. As I lifted the kayak seat my heart fell hard into my stomach. I saw the resident black snake curled ominously across the top of the nest completely covering it with only the rat's end of his tail draped across the red edge of the kayak. I called in panic to my husband (who was making an important phone call) and he quickly handed me a gaff hook to go forth and battle on my own. A gaff hook? I had neither the courage nor the will nor the skill to gaff a snake. This was not your traditional light weight aluminum gaff but a heavy duty tool that had been hand crafted by a friend many years ago with a very sharp hook end and a most solid handle. Holding the gaff high above my head, I screamed at the snake, and next banged on the side of the kayak hard with the handle. Before he gave up his larder he rattled his tail (just like a rattle snake) and hissed malevolently slithering off the nest. He slowly disappeared beneath the black kayak seat and abandoned the little ones who seemed to still be all there.

I did not know what to do and was too afraid to really battle this fellow as snakes have me snookered before the word go. In reality he was too small (3 feet) to do much damage to me. Unfortunately in my banging panic as I tapped him on the head with the handle of the gaff each time he stuck it out from beneath the seat of the kayak, I managed to do some serious damage to my waist one stroke as the hook facing my side scraped me breaking the skin painfully. This forced me to calm down, before I seriously hurt myself more than any black snake could. I turned on the hose to see if I could flush the snake out from beneath the seat with no luck.

Finally my husband joined me and I pulled back to let the snake peer his head out and he almost immediately started to curve up toward the seat once again. My husband with instant skill grasped the snake with the hook end of the gaff, but unseen by our eyes the snake actually thrust with lightning speed before being lifted away and caught one little bird in his mouth. The bird fell to the white pebble gravel below as my husband threw the snake to the ground. The blind baby bird wobbled fragilely for a second. I grabbed the warm and ever so light baby wren and put him back in the nest.

My husband looked at me with question and all I could say was get rid of the snake. Hubby banged him hard on the head several times and then threw him/her into the woods. He was not dead. We learned a hard lesson the next day. The next morning I saw the wren perched on the empty bird feeder.

The day was still and there was no breeze, yet her feathers were quite ruffled as I watched through the binoculars. She looked from side to side. I put down my morning cup of coffee and went below the deck and you can probably guess that I found an empty nest. We had not wanted to kill a snake as they are important predators in our woods, and we had adopted the wren babies as if they were our own small children and this broke my heart. What a mess when mankind gets involved! The snake had come back in the early morning or had a partner!

I have also discovered a perfectly engineered round nest at the top of my four foot high cut-leaf maple tree in the front yard a few days later just below my bay window. I watched closely from the window and saw a female cardinal sitting in it as you can barely see above her shiny little eyes and her orange bill. She is the exact color of those maple leaves. She could barely get her big breast into the nest and she was panting open billed from the high heat of the afternoon. I wondered if the nest was hers until I saw an egg in it a few days later when she was gone. My husband, ever the biologist, picked up the egg one evening to discover that it had a small hole in it and an ant crawling on it. We were very disappointed. I went out the next day thinking to collect the egg shell and instead picked up a perfectly good new egg in the nest! She had discarded the broken egg and had laid a new one and then a day later another one! These birds do not need me after all.

As a brief follow-up to this long soap opera on spring and birds and life, I was just now called to the door by my husband while writing this very post. He said he saw a four foot black snake in the back yard on the lawn below the bluebird nest. We were not going to have another tragedy if I had any say in this and I hurriedly went to my bedroom to get a pillowcase and hubby went to the basement to get that famous gaff hook. When we got back to the place where he had originally seen the snake, it was gone! Hubby looked around everywhere and I stood on the small stone wall that looked over the hill of the lawn toward the woods and could not see anything looking like a snake. I was just beginning to lose heart when, with shock, we saw this below at our eye level only 5 feet away from us. Me and my stupid trellis aid for baby birds! This persistent snake was reaching out long and carefully to see if he could reach the opening to the bird house across the space.

We got the snake onto the gaff hook and into the pillowcase and then took him on a three mile trip to the nearby park. There are lots of frogs and other edibles for him/her there. Let us hope this is the end of my spring adventures for a while. Oh, the wren couple are building a new nest in the front yard in the tiny brown bird house, an actual bird house, and unless this is just the energy of grief and shock, there is hope.

Bug Shakes Its Booty.

2011-06-05T15:53:00.002-05:00

I spent some time watching this guy shake it to the left and then shake it to the right over and over again, and it took forever to get such a close photo in focus! He would raise his right wing and then his left as he moved his body from side to side as if in some dance with only music that he heard. A mating dance? A way to beat the heat? No video but here is a still life! Aren't you glad I find all this odd stuff? (This is a post I wrote a few weeks ago as I am now taking a break from blogging for a while.)

My Bluebird is a Bitch

2011-06-01T11:53:00.000-05:00

She is. She really is. She has completed her nest beneath my deck, seems to have laid some eggs, and she and her husband seem to be tending them with sporadic care. Her duties are recessed in the early evenings when she has been freed by her mate. She spends these precious moments smearing insects either on the deck posts or against my windows. One would think this new mother would take advantage of the free time and instead watch the sunset with a nice martini! She flits from breakfast nook window to living room window to my bedroom window (all on one side of the house) determined to get my attention. When she finally sees me in the room, (I wave my arms high over my head against some light background to catch her eye--no photos) she stops and stares at me for the longest time. She looks as if she is trying to figure out how to communicate or if indeed I can be that large and odd looking and be allowed to live.

In the early mornings, immediately after the sun is up, her mate gives her another reprieve from nest sitting, and she flies out to collect a bug or two and then returns to the deck eating part of her repast and painting the leftover guts on the backs of my deck chairs after which she promptly drops last night's digested meal on the seat of one of the deck chairs.

A short time later, after she is satiated, she comes again tapping at the bedrooms windows (this all happens about 6:00 AM!), only this time she is grumbling and hissing under her breath and puffing out her chest as she talks to herself. She looks at me as I sit up in bed bleary-eyed and then mutters and shakes her head. It sounds like angry muttering and spitting, really. More guttural than the bird's lyrical song. Is she complaining about the lack of air-conditioning in her abode, the lack of a window, the fact that due to lawn mowing I moved the hammock further away from where she used to stop on her way into the birdhouse? Or is she regretting her decision to start a family after this reality has set in?

Again

2011-05-29T04:37:00.009-05:00

Once again the mountain laurel fills the woods. They do not grow in my woods or yard, but seem to spread themselves happily across the peninsula on the other side closer to the Bay. I think they may be like some orchids and need a certain fungus or mineral in the soil to make them happy. They vary from soft white with red stripes to pink to a deep reddish pink. Unfortunately the reddish pink ones are across the marsh and I did not get a photo of those. These usually grow higher in the mountains where the soil is sparse and the climate cool. But I am lucky to have a few hundred nearby.

I must have hundreds of photos as well because it seems that I am compelled to take new ones each and every spring, as if I had never seen this miracle blossom before.

Are they fragrant?...not so much to this old crone's nose. But that doesn't seem to make any difference in their elegance. They grow as high as eight feet or more and sometimes tower over my head as I stroll down the path. Like most spring flowers they last a little more than a week, so one must get moving if one wants to see them or you can just look at the photo above instead.

Busy as a Wasp

2011-05-26T05:50:00.006-05:00

The other afternoon after finishing the transplanting of the last of the potted plants, I poured myself a glass of cold white wine, grabbed a novel I was reading, A Gate at the Stairs, and headed out to my little arbor where the red roses were beginning to open over my head. I felt like the Queen on such an afternoon.

Before I even opened the book I saw a little bug out of the corner of my eye at the base of the stone edging of the flower bed beneath where I sat. It was a little black wasp who had just come out of a deep pea sized hole in the ground. Without sounding too intellectual (clearly a problem I rarely have), I think it was a Sphex pennsylvanica (!). If you surf the web for digger wasps, you will encounter sites with the words nuisance and control and pest in them. Don't read those! These digger wasps live individually, dig a hole to lay their eggs, and then proceed to add some bugs for food and then wall in the nest. They are beneficial to your garden. If I had the nature of my son-in-law I would have run screaming back into the house. Instead Tabor sticks her nose even closer to watch this miracle of life taking place beneath where she sat. These wasps are not aggressive stingers or defenders of their space and the wasp clearly had no interest in my interest.

It was fascinating to see the industrious dragging and throwing of various sizes of clumps of dirt that were dropped into the hole as the wasp scurried a few inches here and a few inches there busily sorting and accepting or discarding balls of gravel. The wasp then crawled back into the hole to move the clumps to one side or the other until they were placed perfectly.

We were having the fallen trees removed that day and I got called away to direct traffic on the other side of the lawn. When I returned, only minutes later, the hole and wasp had disappeared...I had to study the area very closely before I could see the little (very tiny) ridge of wall mud that had been carefully set against the brick on the one side. The eggs were safely tucked away, and if I am lucky, I may be sitting there on the day they emerge.

There are no photos as I did not have my camera...and yes, I did just see you sigh with relief.

Once You Are Hippy...Always a Hippie

2011-05-23T12:09:00.003-05:00

Perhaps you will remember a prior post in which I discussed the interior decoration spasms of a Carolina Wren that lives in my front yard or perhaps I should say rules in my yard. In that post I commented how surprised I was that she was using the bird house. But it appears that was all a ruse. As we cleaned under the deck yesterday and went to roll the kayak out of the way we discovered beneath the bent-over back of the kayak seat a mother wren. She almost flew into my face in panic and then into the trees. When we lifted the seat back, below is what we saw. Six speckled eggs...six(!)...boy is she going to be busy in the weeks ahead. And it looks like all kayak plans are on hold for many weeks.

Then again just a few short weeks later I carefully took this photo while she was off looking for insects.

Even though they are as naked as a ...'bird' they are still so sweet and lovely. I fyou can identify them you will see that all six have hatched! We did not linger long and I only got 3 quick photos to make sure at least one was in focus.

Rainy Days and Mondays

2011-05-19T05:14:00.002-05:00

When I was in my youth a long, long, long time ago...rainy days and Mondays always got me down...to borrow from a song of my generation. One of the nicest things about getting older is that it takes a very unusual Monday or a very unusual rainy day to get me down. Most any day is a gem for me.

This is my yard on rain.

Even if the day brings down a 50-year-old tulip poplar and compromises the bat house (which is home to wasps) it still is beautiful in its magnificence.

And just look at all the bronze coins its has unearthed!

Several Thousand Words

2011-05-15T06:33:00.022-05:00

Courage

2011-05-12T06:06:00.009-05:00

These flowers always remind me of growing up in the Rocky Mountains where in the the spring they would bloom in the most amazingly harsh places and as long as there was moist soil, they prospered. They looked like prairie maidens bobbing in the spring breezes wearing bold colored bonnets.

I planted several Aquilegia (Columbine) from seed last year and while they produced the rare flower and developed a small base of leaves, it was not until this second year that they seemed to come into their own. The flower with its spurs at the back of the flower head are what make it interesting. Sometimes the spur curls and sometime it thrusts it pointy ends upward like swords. The leaves are also a beautiful blue gray and carpet the flower bed almost like a maiden hair fern when the flowers are finished blooming. If various colors are planted near each other they will cross-pollinate and produce some surprises! They are hardy, reseed, and not difficult to grow and in my yard I just ignore the leaf miners that appear in summer and pretend the mosaic they create on the leaves is art.

Years ago Native Americans ate the flowers even though the seeds and roots are poisonous. I will not deadhead this year and see if my flowers spread gently in their space. There are over 70 species and I should give the names of the ones I planted...but I cannot remember!

My research says the name came from the Latin columba which means dove and it is because they are said to look like a gathering of doves, not a huge stretch of imagination, although the flowers above look like ball gowns. It was also believed that lions ate them and thus resulted the myth(?) that rubbing ones hands with the plant would make one courageous. I am going to ignore the folklore that it also represents fallen love.

Martha Cleans House

2011-05-08T14:19:00.001-05:00

Since we lost two 50-year-old tulip poplars not long ago, I happened to look out my living room window to check the yard just as a major storm was approaching, and I saw something strange on the doorstep of the birdhouse that the chickadees had been visiting. Did they get a delivery that they had not noticed? I had not heard the UPS truck. (This is not a great photo as I was hurrying to miss the rain.)

I remained on the porch and decided to watch just a little longer and what did I see?

(We had a tornado warning beeping on the radio as a distraction, so you will forgive my blurry shots.) Here is a wren peaking out of the door and throwing a beak full of the stuff to the ground. This was a deranged Heloise or perhaps that nasty noisy neighbor in Bewitched. As I watched she continued to fling more grasses through the hole and threw them high into the air with a twist of her head. She did not become discouraged that the wind blew them back into her face and over the top of the roof. Was chickadee interior design so bad? Was it a feng shui issue? Did it have bed bugs? Clearly in a big re-decorating mode, this Martha Stewart wren hopped up and began to clear off the roof as well! She WAS a bird on a mission!

I am not so amazed that she has thrown out the chickadee nest that I say them create just this spring and which perhaps they had abandoned ( I do not watch my neighbors that closely because I do have a life.), but more amazed that she is ACTUALLY using a bird house. In the past, as you may recall, my resident wrens behave like hippies and have used nail buckets, canoe bows, the end of the gutters and folded down lawn cushions, but never one of my bird houses! This should be interesting!

One Never Knows What Blows in With the Breeze

2011-05-05T09:19:00.001-05:00

It was one of those wonderful early spring evenings. The sun had not yet set and the warm afternoon was slipping into cooler air as the winds picked up and made the new growth on the tops of the trees whisper and bow like monks heading off to vespers. Earlier in the day I had opened the windows throughout the house to let in this new fresh air.

As I grabbed the mail from the table I heard some crows arguing, and then, looking out the window, I thought I saw some large swooping shadows above the tree tops. When I looked closer it appeared that the male osprey was catching the winds like a kite high over the river in the late golden sunlight, but I did not see any crows.

Within minutes I heard a nasty crow caw and then saw three crows in a combat dive. At first glance I thought they were chasing the osprey I had just seen. The crow cries and the osprey whistle were carried high over the air. I grabbed my camera to see if I could document this battle when I saw the shadow of what looked like a larger osprey swoop in and land on one of the trees down by the river. As I hurried down the hill the rasping noise became louder, and at first, I thought a large crow nearby was the one screaming just to the right of me at mid-tree level. Then I realized it was the large bird itself that was cawing as if in anger or pain.

It was a most unpleasant sound and went on for some time. As I hurried closer to the dock I looked up to where the trees cleared and snapped this breath-taking shot below. How cool was that? He/she opened its beak and cried passionately out across the water several times. This bald eagle eventually flew away across the river, and had not seemed to notice me, highly unlikely, and certainly did not seem the worse for wear as it ignored the crow following close behind.

The Collective Mind

2011-05-01T06:17:00.005-05:00

Many, if not most of us, are collectors. Those of us who are fascinated with the natural world tend to collect in that direction. When I was younger and not as environmentally wise as I am today (Oh, the wisdom brought with the years!) I used to collect seashells. I lived in the South Pacific and had a huge garden of calcium carbonate designs to choose from that were a miraculous joy in artistic beauty. I was wise in that quantity was not my goal, but expanding variety in my collection. Today I still have a lovely collection of these marine homes, but do feel guilt that in some cases I created homelessness and death. (Perhaps a post on that someday.)

Later I collected turtles. Not real turtles of course, but chotskies of turtles made from ceramic, wood, coconut shell, etc. They have become memories of travels and stuff to dust!

Today with my aging eyesight and slow photographic skills I collect bird photos. Finding a new bird, or seeing a familiar bird in a new and closer light, gives me the same thrill that I had years ago when finding an exotic patterned seashell tucked into a piece of coral rock. Above and below are terrible photos of a the blue-gray gnatcatcher, but the best I could get. And I am posting them because this is the very first time I have ever seen this bird!! It is something new to add to my bird list. So, if you are not a birder, this post will have little meaning for you.

This bird is not much larger than a hummingbird and maybe only looks a little larger because of that long tail. The photos are horrible, because this bird sits still for only a mini-second or two before he is off exploring other branches for food. I am pretty sure about my ID because it did have the unibrow that makes him look a little mad. Their breeding habitat is the Western US and up to Ontario in Canada, but they have a huge range and they do migrate to and from the Caribbean and are moving into my area. I could not find much information on this bird but a good link with better pictures is here.

My Yard Is Now X-rated

2011-04-28T06:33:00.000-05:00

I honestly cannot look out the windows of my house, and certainly not with the binoculars these days, unless I want to be red-faced. My neighbors (the feathered ones) are most heavily involved in their romantic activities. The males are bringing food and putting it so delicately in the mouths of the females as if giving gentle kisses. It is a most intimate gesture and can take your breath away.

Some of the males are changing clothes into formal wear right before my eyes as they get ready for their courtship dances. Their pale yellow colors to deep golden sunlight which matches so perfectly with the spring flowers on the small tree in the photo below and this color will continue to coordinate with the tulip tree flowers in a week.

The males and females are dancing high in the air and put any TV show with professional dancers to shame. Then when landing together, the male will thrust out his chest and present a most provocative stance. (The female in the photo below is pretending she does not notice as she plays hard-to-get.)

They sing at the top of their little lungs, AND OF COURSE they are doing things that...well...are just a little too uninhibited and makes one wonder if they might not break something or fall off of a branch or hurt themselves in the process. I did not take pictures of that because I consider this a family blog.

As spring moves on, they are checking out the bird houses with frequency, peaking in and peaking out while not yet collecting nesting materials. The drama begins!

They Are Moving On Up!

2011-04-25T16:25:00.022-05:00

Seems that my osprey couple found a fancier home on the more luxurious section of the river and that meant a more expensive boat. This boat belongs to the lottery winners who are also my neighbors and since it is spring break I think my neighbors are on travel...in Rome perhaps? Their loss and their unfortunate gain! Actually this is like watching a horror film because this hawk couple (while certainly ignorant of civilization) cannot endure another eviction this late in spring. I am sure that come the beginning of the next week when my neighbors are returning for the start of their girls' school session, all hell is going to break loose. This is such a delicate situation in that it is against the law to move these guys off if they have laid eggs! Although I think if you throw enough money at something it is not a problem.

As I walk out across my dock to check the sunset and to see if the baitfish are filtering in each evening, the female osprey throws a warning call in my direction and begins her wing flapping. Clearly she looks at me as the grizzly of the waters. It is a nicer boat, guys, but sometimes your reach may exceed your grasp!

That Nesting Instinct

2011-04-21T07:12:00.000-05:00

I live with many different kinds of birds. Some of them like me and some do not. Every year the osprey couple return, this time with a juvenile, and they try to build a nest on the crane across the river. They have been unsuccessful for the past two years as the nest seems to eventually collapse due to the lack of a good support on the cranes arm even though it has an excellent view. Last year two couples fought over the crane view.

This year, instead of using our boat cabin roof as a holding area for supplies of sticks and algae muck and grasses, they began to build a nest on the boat cabin roof itself. We had been away for 5 days, and when we returned, they had added all the big sticks and were starting on the medium sticks in a circle. One cannot disturb an osprey nest once they are nesting...but this was not that close.

It was with real dismay that hubby threw the sticks off the roof and scrubbed the roof from all the bird doo-doo, and then purchased some crazy thing that looks like an umbrella without the fabric, costs six times what an umbrella would cost, and attached it to the roof. For at least two more days the osprey couple circled the boat diving down and making cries and dropping the odd stick or two until it appeared they had finally given up.

Each evening they sat on the snags across the river and called out with the sunset and I did not know where the new nest was or if they were even building a nest! Last night he had a fish in claw and was bringing it to the female. She flew away. Maybe she is mad with distress and looking for a new partner? It is not a happy place by the river these days.

Then within a few days they were back and beginning to drop all kinds of stuff on the roof. Each day, actually several times a day, I would walk down to the dock and they would fly away and I would lower the boat and begin the process of cleaning the roof. (We could move the boat, but hubby is away for a long time.)

My guilt got the better of me and I called around and did some research and found an organization that will get a permit and build an osprey nest platform, at NO SMALL cost, I might add. I guess this is where my state tax refund will go. Serves me right for loaning the government an interest free sum of money for a year! I am beginning the process of mailing the nature biologists pictures of my shoreline area. It is too late for this year as the permit process can only begin in the fall, but hopefully next year we will make amends for our sins and be osprey landlords providing free rent. ( I will admit that watching an osprey family grow is a big motivation here.)

I slowly am winning the battle as I only have to make a trip once a day and the sticks are so few that perhaps that are actually building somewhere else and just using the boat as a meeting place to discuss building materials and argue over styles, expense and quality.

Go ahead, and give me the red-eye!

2011-04-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

Spring is always exhausting for me. There are those who honor the approach of spring by sitting and listening to birds, or listening to the song of the frogs, or paddling a canoe or taking a nice long drive or a short walk. I can be found lifting heavy bags of pebble gravel or I am found buried up to my elbows in dirt and mulch in the spring. I sit surrounded by long and short-handled tools and my garden gloves cast aside so that I can better remove the little seedling from the pot. I have short, stubby, fingernails and they are most always outlined in brown earth (most always?) My wardrobe consists of faded jeans and an old torn top and no make-up. I do manage to run a brush through my hair so that I don't scare the birds.

The other day after planting out four trays of annual seeds...most of which will probably not push their green cotyledons above the surface at all...I pushed up my aching back and decided to go sit on the dock. It was the first day we had broken 70 F, and since it might be the last day this warm for some time as predicted by weather forcast and since officially spring had not arrived, I decided to take an afternoon break.

I took my camera, which really is now a permanent appendage, and was able to sit calmly before this fellow above and below appeared above the surface of the water. I sat very still and except for the click of the camera which I held against my face most of the time, it took him a while to realize I was an unnatural entity sitting on the old log at the end of the dock.

He could be an immature horned grebe feeding in the river or maybe a female. I saw no mate and I am not sure if he is going to stay or fly north in a week or so. He looked so ruffled...like he was a college grebe after a night of partying trying to find that green grass that might mediate his headache. By pressing their feathers against their body they can adjust buoyancy and can be seen sometimes with just their head above water. Perhaps he was too young to have learned this trick yet.

That red is his eye...although I know it looks like his eye is elsewhere behind that. They are not the best of fliers but very good divers. When grooming they preen their feathers and feed them to their young; ornithologists are not sure why! Another fascinating tidbit is that they may be related to flamingos. This one appears to be the Horned Grebe or Salvonian Grebe. I have tried for a long time to get a photo this good as they are very shy. Click on the photo for a better look!

As luck would have it, I took this fuzzy photo of the male later in the week. So they are a pair!

The Return of Zorro?

2011-04-15T05:41:00.003-05:00

I was very thrilled to see three of these birds hanging out in a nearby wild cherry tree just above the bird feeders last afternoon. They had not actually visited the feeders, but since they arrived on a counting day and were very close, I counted them.

I couldn't help but wonder if one of them was the bird I had saved several winters ago. It would be so cool if he had come back just to check out the scene of rescue.

The pictures are not the best (and I apologize) as they sat high above me, but I was so happy to see these waxwings, and they rarely stay very long, that I posted these photos anyway. They look like bandits and they behave like bandits. They arrive in large groups, wear masks, hang out for a short while and then disappear to somewhere else. Other than leaving juniper berry poop all over the ground (or ones car), I just love the waxy red and yellow tips on their feathers and their soft silky look and that sexy mysterious black mask.

Cha...cha... changes

2011-04-12T07:10:00.008-05:00

Tabors' world is changing. The wood market has been raided recently by a young'in.

The apples are beginning to show promise.

Pears are on their way as well.

The sun bathers are out.

Birds have changed into spring uniforms to color-coordinate with the changing woods.

The days are ending later waiting for Tabor to finish her chores.
(Tabor is now sitting on the deck with a stupid smile on her face.)

I am THE One! Lookie Me!

2011-04-09T10:13:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it has something to do with how I live my life or sing (hum) my songs or clean my house or cook my food or grow my flowers. Living here sometimes makes me think I am in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Last year the male cardinal spent a good part of his mornings (early) trying to get into the house. Tapping at the windows and smearing green caterpillar guts all up and down my windows as a bribe...perhaps you will remember this post on my other blog? It was as if he was in fighting mode against his reflection but there was some question on my part about why he was bringing me food...?

Well this spring I am getting another regular visitor. The tapping in the mornings (and sometimes throughout the day) is gentler but quite regular on my deck windows and around the house at the front windows. There is no smeary food on the windows thus far, just bird spit! At first I thought this female bluebird was just a little twitter-pated (a Walt Disney-Bambi term) and had gotten lost behind the flower pot after flying at the window. I had watched her flitting and flirting like an aerial break-dancer with her mate high in the trees in my back yard for several afternoons prior to this.

"There has got to be an open window here somewhere!"

She was not cowering beneath this dianthus plant as if she had seen a hawk, but was looking around as if she was 'window-shopping' if you will pardon the necessary pun. I quickly got my camera and even did a video or two which I may find time to post someday.

(I hear you knocking, but you can't come in...)

She was not camera shy but landed on the door handle and then proceded to continue to knock at the window...see the bird spit? I was a little intimidated by this intense stare I was getting. But her stare toward me was nothing compared to her mate's slightly panicked look at her odd behavior. The weather was turning colder and started to rain on this day and he pretended he did not know her as he flew off to shelter in the high trees.

"I will never understand that female!"

"Hey! Open the door! It's raining out here!"

She hung in there persistently for a while longer tapping at the window as the rain started. Was she waiting patiently for me to open the door and let her in? Then why did she fly away when I did? I guess I will never really understand birds in the spring.

Are You Looking Up? Down?

2011-04-05T06:51:00.000-05:00

In the spring on the East Coast everyone goes crazy for cherry blossoms. We are close to the famous DC Cherry Blossom Festival of 1,000,s of blooming trees which we share with Japan and which this year has much more meaning to us all. Many neighborhoods are also filled with pink confetti swirling in the trees that line the streets at the end of March and beginning of April. Yes, it is breathtaking and much like the feeling you get when you see that 14-year-old gal toss her hair as she turns into a lovely young woman. Her hair has that shine and her eyes twinkle with future mystery. It is all hold-your-breath gentle beauty.

Photographers are going crazy with the fresh and very temporary loveliness. It is all clean and delicate, and oh, so ephemeral. Blink and the season is gone and street sweepers are pushing pink confetti blossoms along the street gutters with abandon at the end of this party as summer taps its impatient foot waiting in the background. Shrug your shoulders and the wind shows lime green fluttering leaves above instead of pink bouquets.
While I have only wild cherry trees with limited bloom, here are some spring photos from the other trees in 'my' woods.

I call these 'gutter stuffers.'

This looks like there was a lovely party last night. Sorry I missed it.

Wild persimmon that blooms at the river's edge. White loveliness. Remember the snow frosting on top?

Once Again

2011-04-02T09:49:00.009-05:00

Every year my amaryllis never fail to reward me with bright, exotic beauty. This year I took off on travel during the time I was supposed to retrieve them from their dark place in the basement. When I pulled them out and planted them in fresh potting soil and then tucked them close to the sunny window...this is what they looked like, huge white worms. They were not going to wait for me and had already begun to stretch their necks in those black bags where they rest in that dark prison each winter. Since their imprisonment was only temporary, I was careful not to snap their pale necks.

A few weeks later this was my reward. They always remind me of baleen whales in their shape, either that or fat opera singers that smile.

Maybe in another post I will show them in full bloom, but I actually enjoy this 'pre-pubescent' time just as much.

(In case you cannot tell...blogger is giving me fits with font styles and sizes today!)

YuJo and Sakura and Honor

2011-03-29T14:07:00.001-05:00

This festival in Washington DC originates from the Japanese tradition of picnicking under the flowering trees in the spring of the year. The bloom time is tracked (much like we track Santa'a global trip) across the islands of Japan. Folks songs, secret societies, nationalism and symbols are all woven into the fabric of the blooming cherry trees in this Asian country. The United States is not the only country that celebrates this magical time. But, in 1912, Japan gave us 3020 cherry trees (some replacing earlier trees). This gift of friendship has evolved into the week-long National Cherry Blossom Festival which takes place in Washington, D.C. While awaiting the birth of my third grandchild I was able to visit the trees one afternoon. Below are photos for you to enjoy and to thank the Japanese for such a lovely gift. The festival this year is more poignant than in years past.

Snow Happens!

2011-03-27T08:56:00.001-05:00

All you gardeners...me included...snow happens! Temp this morning was 27 F but felt wonderful as there was no wind and we got over 2 inches of the wet white crystal stuff. I cannot help but be thrilled at this late winter beauty even though all that was green is covered in white and all of my blooming bulbs are subdued under heavy wet covers and all my perennials I purchased from the catalog are in the ground hiding somewhere. But, if I go with the flow, live one day at a time, I can just smile at this loveliness.

Everything looks so fresh and new...except for the poor wild persimmon blossoms down by the river that have been forced to do some weightlifting.

My Speedy Discovery.

2011-03-25T06:50:00.001-05:00

My first post on a discovery of a hybrid of this plant is here and that was a few years ago. After I transplanted the hitchhiker from my pot of pansies it put up its beauty the next spring in photos HERE. Yes, it is a little bolder in color and size than the wild variety below, but both are invasive.

Val (who no longer blogs as much) pointed out what a weed this was in England and now that I have a really weedy version on the other side of my driveway competing with my lawn...which is not such a great lawn anyway... I am enjoying the invasion. I think I will just leave this ground cover even though the blooms will stop once the weather gets warm.

That Time of Year

2011-03-22T08:22:00.005-05:00

The birds (bluebirds and wrens mostly) are checking out the bird houses that have been distributed throughout the yard. They have a nice selection and seem to be taking their time. Saw this handsome dad-to-be outside my bedroom window looking into the Williamsburg birdhouse that we mounted beneath the deck. I hope they move in, because this will be a nice place for me to watch them raising a family.

It does appears that he is checking out absolutely every bird house and every tree hole for yards around!

In Your Face!

2011-03-19T07:48:00.001-05:00

Spring is here and not nearly as gentle and quiet as I thought she would be and certainly not in her normal pastels. I think she stopped off at St. Tropez on the way here and after a rum drink or two she brought some new colors and some rather revealing silks that drift in the cool spring breeze. I feel just a little under dressed in my gardening sweats. Maybe I should get out the fine china for some tea? Or maybe she is expecting spiced rum?

Whoops...here comes some more wind!

Purple Midgets

2011-03-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

These jolly spring-colored elves arrived in my herb bed on March 1 in a semi-circle at the bottom of our tiny cherry tree. I had to get down in the mud to take these photos...but I didn't care. It was after a long day of weeding and mulching and I was already dirty, so this was my reward.

Common

2011-03-12T10:40:00.000-05:00

This is the common mockingbird peaking at me from some palm berries on a (what now seems so very long-ago) beach in Jamaica. He looks more exotic in this environment, doesn't he...perhaps we all do...did? Why is that? Why does where we are become more intriguing than who we are? Or does it?

Is There a Doctor in the Jungle?

2011-03-09T17:19:00.000-05:00

There are over 200 species of birds in Jamaica and one of the most lovely is their national bird, a humming bird, which is called the Doctor Bird or the swallow tail bird. It can be seen many places throughout the island. The male is the one with the swallow tale.

Troychilus polytmus

The name doctor bird came either from the dark coloring and long tails which resembled the tailed-coat and hat of a doctor or from the way the bill lances the flowers for the nectar. The original Indians (Arawak), that lived before African slaves came, feared this bird as they thought it carried the soul of dead relatives. It was amazing to watch this bird fly forwards and then backwards as its feathers glistened.

An interesting fact that I learned while traveling there was that Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame) got the name for his main character from the ornithologist James Bond who authored the book "Birds of the West Indies."

Sound the Trumpets in Jamaica

2011-03-07T11:32:00.052-05:00

This is Datura which belongs to the witches weeds such as nightshade and mandrake.

Because it contains tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine,
flowers and seeds are considered a hallucinogen.
I once grew this plant but mine only got 3 feet high before that winter,
and yet, new plants emerged that spring.

This is Beaumontia grandiflora or Easter Lily vine originally from Nepal and supposed
to be fragrant although my nose was too far away to verify.

I did not see any fruit but it can be as large as a squash. Is it just me or is
the shape of the buds sexy?

This could be allamanda but I am not sure. It is supposed to smell like

fruit, but in the rain I could not tell. It is fairly common in Florida. (Better views

if you click on the photos.)

Exotic Stuff

2011-03-03T09:06:00.002-05:00

This above is named Clock Vine (Thunbergia mysorensis), native of India and found near the city of Mysor from where it gets its name. I found it blooming along a wall at the Strawberry Hill Hotel in Jamaica. It is related to my black-eyed Susan vine that I grow each year although the little flowers on my vine look nothing like this. The largest of these blossoms were at least 4 inches long. The plant is supposed to attract humming birds although I think they would fall in! (Click on photo if you want the fall-in experience.) The wall was covered in blossoms. Varieties of this vine are considered invasive in the temperate climates in Australia as they cover native plants and ruin native ecosystems. There are many varieties with many different colored flowers. It gets its common name because it twines itself clockwise around the support as it climbs, although one web site claims the name is given because its beauty stops time!

This red flower above grows on a very large shrub...maybe a short tree in Jamaica? Its scientific name is Erythema lysistemon and I think it is a native of South Africa and sometimes called coral tree.

Below is a photo of an arbor covered in what they called jade flowers. I think this plant is most fascinating because the flower color looks artificial. It reminds me of the carnations we used to get at prom when they put white blossoms in colored water...and yes I went to a small agricultural town high school. There is some co-pigmentation alkaline chemical thing going on that gives the color.

Strongylodon macrobotrys. The clue is in the name as the vines get to be 4 inches in diameter and up to 70 feet long. It is a native of the Philippines and not Jamaica and as you can see, needs a lot of its own space. It attracts some very specific wasp.

The last photo shows the shape and color of the flower buds before they open. I think it looks like dragon's teeth and that is what they should name the plant...! The contrast of purple and jade green is truly lovely.

Plants like these make me want to invest in a very large greenouse!

Jamaica in the Pink

2011-03-01T09:04:00.003-05:00

You can breathe now, spring is almost here. Enough said?

Tree Poetry

2011-02-27T08:26:00.002-05:00

My travel across the island of Jamaica put me in touch with some of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen. Some of these trees have seen more history than I can imagine. Their scars and growth patterns are breathtaking. Their determination to grow in spite of any weather challenge makes me think of the resilience of the people of Jamaica. Maybe there is something in the soil.

This tree is called the 'dreadlock' tree because of the growth pattern of the roots.

The netting on this tree is magnificent.

I am married to that tree-hugger in the blue shirt (click on the photo for a better view).

That tree is really amazing and makes me feel very safe.

Bittersweet

2011-02-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

Winter is not all gray and white.

I am hoping this is false bittersweet vine (Celastrus scendens) rather than the Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) which is considered a nasty invasive. The former is more rare. I picked this from along the country roadside where they were many. Both species are easier to identify with more berries along a larger portion of the stem and certainly with the leaves which I could not see this late in the year. While the Eastern American version is not as prolific in growing, it is just as beautiful and I hope to order one and plant it at the edge of my woods this spring! Hopefully I will have some of this next winter to look at closer to my house.

I returned just a few days ago and have several interesting bird photos to share. Already missing the sound of the ocean on the beach and the feel of tropical mist on my cheek.

Finally!

2011-02-20T10:35:00.004-05:00

Finally a decent (through the window) shot of the purple finch. They are much deeper in color than the red finch and have that sexy eye patch thing. I have decided that the red house finch is like the girl or boy next door and the purple finch is like the characters out of Twilight! (YES, I am STILL on travel...but I love my readers so much I spent time creating pre-posts..or perhaps they are post-posts?)

And below is a photo of the same bird on a page from The Birds of America by James Audubon that was given to me for long-term loan by my neighbor!

Death By Any Other Name

2011-02-16T10:07:00.008-05:00

Called 'dead leaf retention'

by those who spend their lives

naming things and processes.

But for me,

I see it as the gentle open

palm revealing the past year's

life lines and energy dances

in the summer wind.

I see it as the refusal

to leave that last curtain call

instead to hold hands bravely

in the sun's spotlight

even though the applause has ended

and the fans have long gone home.

Ever Green

2011-02-10T08:09:00.010-05:00

I am still on travel...but set this for an optimism post-post as it was something I found on a January hike. I was able to capture this just minutes before I fell on my backside and slide 10 feet down the hill in the mud and deer doo-doo. With green like this can spring be far behind?