New arrivals--all kinds



Tiger swallowtail on lilac bloom



The first goose babies have arrived! The Canada goose pair closest to my cabin just fledged a clutch of six babies. I saw them the first morning they appeared and saw them take what may well have been their first swim. Two days later all are still doing well. One might be a bit smaller than the others, but even that one seems healthy enough at least for now.

I also saw the first tiger swallowtail of the new year, here perched atop a lilac bloom. I took this photo with my phone at my father’s farm. I thought it might be a tad early for the first tiger swallowtails to be appearing, but I checked NABA, the North American Butterfly Association website, which does keep track of such things. There are no sightings recorded from my immediate area, but as best I can tell from other sightings in the surrounding states, May 5 is about right for here. The lilac blooms? Perhaps a tad early. I think of them as a Mother’s Day bloom and we’re not quite there yet.


6 new goose babies about to take their first swim



I saw three yellow-rumped warblers flitting through the trees around the cabin on Saturday. Yellow-rumped warblers are pretty little things, but they are by far the most common warbler that passes through. More than one birder I know finds yet another sighting of them kind of disappointing. “Anything but another yellow-rumped” is a comment I’ve heard more than once. Roundtop is not a great warbler spot, so I’m not quite so jaded. For a while I was thinking I wouldn’t have any warblers to report this year, so even a yellow-rumped warbler is something of a relief. Still, now that I’ve seen them, I will be happy to see any other warbler than is not a yellow-rumped.

The rest of my summer birds are mostly here and singing. The wood thrush have arrived in numbers, as have the ovenbirds. The only voice missing from the usual chorus is the eastern pewee, always the last to join the crowd.

The weather was gorgeous here this week, though I feel as though I didn't make the most of it as I should have. I was about to leave for a walk when a chicken mini-crisis occurred. At the time, I thought it was a full-scale major crisis and that one of my girls had been snatched in broad daylight by something, probably a fox as I couldn't think of anything else that would snatch her without a trace and be gone in seconds.  Doodle the rooster made frantic warning sounds. The other girls rushed to the juniper bush and hid, gathering together in a pile making themselves as flat as they could.  They were scared and wouldn't come out, not even for me to put them back into their pen.  Doodle wouldn't quiet down for the longest time.  I was convinced I'd lost another chicken. And then after an hour, she strolled out from under another bush. She was hiding too, but by herself and across the way from the others. So what scared them so badly?  I have no idea.  All are safe and all of them are inside today.

Spring explosion

The mountain has reached that point in the spring where the greenery has exploded. Of course, the unseasonably warm temperatures that neared 90 degrees over the past two days had a lot to do with that.

Even early last week (or mid-week when I took this photo) the mountain was stuck in early spring, with just a little greenery here and there. Today, my view of the mountain to the west is disappearing as the greenery thickens. Many of the summer’s bird residents are also returning. On Friday evening I heard the first wood thrush song, and that was distant enough I had to listen carefully to make sure I really did hear it. By Saturday morning, the wood thrush were outside my front door, singing their lovely song throughout the woods.

I’ve also seen a few warblers—butterbutts (yellow-rumped warblers for those who insist on proper names) and black-and-white warblers. Likely, there were more species, but it’s not always easy to get binoculars on those little devils, and I have poor hearing in the range where they sing, so I can’t readily identify them that way.

So spring is now fully arrived. Only the song of the pewees, the last of the summer residents, is yet missing from the dawn chorus. The chorus itself is not yet as loud as it will be in another week or so. The summer residents are here, though not yet in their full numbers.

I am ever surprised, even after living through so many season changes, at how much a change the seasons really bring. Spring really is like living in a different place from winter or fall or even summer. Perhaps the changes are less pronounced to those who live in cities. Surrounded by the forest, as I am, the seasons are so profoundly different from each other that sometimes it feels as though I am living in an entirely different place from one to the next. It’s like I have four different living places or that I live in four different states throughout the year. It’s a bit of a variation on "take a trip, never leave the farm." In my case, I never leave the cabin, but you get the idea.

Another Yellow-Rumped Warbler

I promise this is my last photo of a yellow-rumped warbler for, well, a while at least. If I manage to photograph a warbler other than a yellow-rumped warbler, I’ll post that, but no more yellow-rumps for a while. I like this photo because it’s very much how I see warblers in the woods. The little jewels blend in with the sun-dappled leaves so well that they are difficult to see, even when they do sit still, which isn’t often. Warblers are rather leaf-shaped and leaf-sized themselves, and I usually find I can just barely see enough of one through the leaves to make an identification.

A few warbler species are quite distinctive, and I don’t need to see much of one to know what they are—redstarts are like that. They are mostly black with orange (or red) on the wings and tails. Once you see a flash of those colors, the choices for an identification are pretty limited. Other warbler species are more difficult and I have to see more or most of the bird to identify it. Some species are easily identifiable if you see a particular part of it. The colors on a bay-breasted warbler or a chestnut-sided warbler are pretty distinctive shades and a quick glimpse of that shade is all it takes.

Warbler identification is made more difficult because the little dickens spend most of their time high up amongst the leaves of trees, flitting quickly from one spot to another. "Warbler neck," caused by standing for hours with your head craned upwards is a common affliction of birders. No wonder, then, that birders prize a warbler hot spot where they are up on a hill looking down into treetops below. There aren’t many of those.

Getting your binoculars onto one of these little gems isn’t easy, either. Even the standard birders’ skill of keeping your eye on the bird while you raise your binoculars doesn’t always work. By the time the binoculars are raised, the bird is gone already.

But when you do manage to get binoculars on them and when you do get a good view, unobstructed by leaves—ah, what a thrill. These little beauties are well worth the effort.

Warbler Weekend

Warblers took over the woods this weekend. I’m sure the overcast skies and fog helped to keep the birds here for a while. Warblers find moist, unsettled weather better for eating than migrating, and they sure found plenty to keep them busy in my woods for a few days.

Yellow-rumped warblers, like the one in my photo today, were the most numerous species, as well as the most cooperative when it came to posing for photos. Yellow-rumps tend to be the most numerous everywhere, from what I’ve always heard. I also had a nice selection of other species, including black-and-white, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, American redstart (which should be named orange-starts instead), rose-breasted grosbeak, red-eyed vireo, ovenbird and the first catbirds of the year.

I spent as much time outside as I could. A chair on the front deck was a good spot, where I was armed with my binoculars, the camera and occasionally one of the dogs. I took today’s warbler photo from the front deck. This warbler was in a tree just across the driveway. The warblers, in general, seemed to find Baby Dog interesting, and they often approached fairly close to get a good look at her snuffling along in the leaves at the foot of the steps. At least the yellow-rumps did. The others were less cooperative about getting their photos taken.

This is turning out to be a decent year for warblers around the cabin. Last year was terrible; I saw only a few yellow-rumps. I’ve had years where I’ve had 20+ species but those are not the norm. I was also glad to see the catbirds. They are usually a common species here, but last year I only saw a very few. This year I’ve already seen more than I saw in all of 2007. Ovenbirds have arrived, now, but so far are in fewer number than I’m used to.

May 3-4 is slightly early for the big push of warblers in this area. I usually think of the second week of May as the prime time, especially May 8-12. Perhaps I’ll get a nice push then, too, but with climate change making springs earlier than usual, perhaps not. Now that the weather has cleared and the skies are bright blue again, I expect most of the warblers from this little wavelet will continue on north today.

Bloodroot: Here Yesterday, Gone Today

Bloodroot sends up a lovely flower, but it’s really just a one-day wonder. More than 20 flowers bloomed on the mountain in one small spot on Friday and Saturday. This Monday morning they are gone already, the pretty white petals littering the ground below the stems. The plants are blooming a few days earlier this year than last year, when I noted them on April 25.

Bloodroot was used by native Americans to make red dye. I’ve never dug one up or tried to make dye from them. I’m always impressed when I read about various plants and their uses, medicinal or otherwise. The trial and error that must have gone into discovering how plants can be used is mindboggling.

The first yellow-rumped warblers have arrived. Saturday morning I was up early and diligently went in search of them—to no avail. It seemed like the perfect weather for warblers to arrive, too—grey and overcast with a moist air and lots of bugs. After an hour or so I gave up and went inside. An hour or so later I stepped outside, immediately heard a familiar little buzzy song and there they were. Who knows how many there were, perhaps 8-12, tiny flits of color 75 feet up in the top of the oak trees. Even with 10-power binoculars they don’t fill the field of view.

Roundtop isn’t the best spot for warblers, though sometimes it is quite good. From what I can tell, the warblers first come to ground on the top of the mountain and then work their way down the sides, eating as they go. I’ve never seen them working their way up the mountain. Perhaps that’s why I don’t see them in the early mornings. In the early morning, perhaps they are still resting and eating on the top and it isn’t until mid-morning that they move downhill where I see them.