Wishing and Hoping

So why is she posting a photo of a wasp's nest? I can just about hear people asking that and scratching their heads. Well, that's a good question. I would really love to have that wasp's nest sitting decoratively somewhere in my cabin, perhaps on the top shelf of a bookcase, displayed artfully with a bit of the branch it's on.

I pass this wasp nest every morning and evening, and every time I pass it I look at it longingly, willing it to fall down so I can retrieve it. It really doesn't look as though it's going to come down any time soon, but I can dream, can't I?

As you can see from the photo, today is clear and calm ahead of more freezing rain predicted for tomrrow. Oh, joy! Just what I don't need. So far the feeder birds are unworried--no feeding frenzys yet--so I'll try and forget about that for now and just enjoy the pretty day.

Tomorrow I'll post my January walking bird list--26 species here at the cabin. By the number of species, the month was entirely ordinary. But the species I saw were way better than usual

No Calm

Even the little bit of snow that coverd the forest yesterday afternoon when I took this photo is gone this morning. A bit of rain, fog and warmer temperatures combined to make it disappear. All that is left this morning are a few fist-sized patches of it scattered here and there.

Nature doesn't seem to like calm very much, though the saying says she abhors a vacuum. A day of calm weather is almost certainly to be followed by something more extreme or at least more active. Yesterday it was freezing rain. Today it is wind. Tomorrow? Well, the temperature will drop from the spring-like temperatures that greeted me this morning to a wintry 15 degrees by tonight.

The rain had a bit of good effect at the cabin, at least from my point of view. The driveway is largely clear of ice this morning and for the first time in weeks, navigating along it wasn't slippery. Although, in some ways, mud isn't much of an improvement, either.

This morning, for the first time since the December ice storm, I saw a red-breasted nuthatch at the feeders. Is it the same one, I wonder? It is certainly a female. It was only there a moment and then flitted away. Has it finally gone through its stash of seeds? Quite literally, it came to the feeders about 50 times a day from the moment it arrived to when it disappeared. I soon realized it was storing its seed somewhere and couldn't possibly be eating that much. The one little bird was nearly single-handedly responsible for my high bird seed bill in November and early December. Then the ice storm hit, and until this morning I'd not seen one again and feared it was a victim of the storm. Perhaps it was just living off the stored seed that it must have kept in a hole the size of a small silo. In any event, I am glad to see its return, if only briefly.

When the Weather was Sunny...

It's a good thing I took photos this weekend when the weather was nice. This morning's freezing rain didn't offer much opportunity for a new photo. Gray and gloomy doesn't begin to cover it. Dismal is the word that comes to my mind.

The freezing rain is light, though it doesn't take much to make walking and driving treacherous. But perhaps because it is light, the birds that frequent my feeders aren't acting desperate, which is how I describe how their feeding frenzy before a big storm.

So this morning I am posting a photo that's three days old, back when the day was a sunny one. I took a walk in the forest behind the cabin (just visible in the background). It's a rocky section of forest, though it's not still too bad in this photo. Once past this easier section, the going is slower, which suited my mood that day. I can walk for an hour and not get too far, as I pick my way over or around the rocks and boulders. Because it is rocky, I usually try not to go too far uphill or downhill, as that only adds to the difficulty, especially when even this little bit of snow hides the smaller rocks enough to make balancing precarious. The boulders are easily visible, but it's still slow going as I pick my way around and between them.

Deeper into the woods I found the downed tree that you see in my second photo. It's covered with shelf fungus to an unusual degree. It's not uncommon to find fungus on a downed tree. It is uncommon to find as much fungus on the tree as you see here--and even that is just a part of it.

In spring and summer, it's easy for me not to notice things like fungus. Leaves and color both combine to obscure the view of smaller things, sometimes. The bareness of winter helps me notice things obscured in the lusher seasons. That's part of the reason I like winter walks. It's a little bit like traveling in different territory, even when I am not far from home.

Quiet on the Mountain

It was a quiet weekend on the mountain for me--no flash of redpolls to get the adrenaline rushing, no extremes of temperature or precipitation to deal with. In fact, I think it was the quietest weekend of the winter so far, and that suited me well enough.

On Saturday, Dog and I took a short walk through the woods to reach an open area behind the cabin a ways. This used to be, or was planned to be, a ski run, but as it faces the west, it got a lot of sun and the snow never lasted. Today, Roundtop mows it once a year and uses it as a quick way to get down to the bottom of the mountain where they have one of their snow-making ponds.

Dog and I explored around the edges, and I soon found a spot where the deer have been "yarding up" for the winter. It was a small rounded area, perhaps 15 feet across, devoid of snow and filled with deer poop. So this is where the deer have been hiding! Dog had to smell everything, of course.

We walk back to the cabin, through the woods and I now realize that our frequent jaunts out here have created a trail. It's barely visible, and perhaps no one else would call it a trail or even notice it, but we know. We skirt the worst of the rocks, jump over a fallen tree and follow the flatest area back up to the cabin. Dog knows the way and is eager to prove it to me. Back in the cabin I can see our tracks heading into the woods. Even without intending it, I have left footprints on this earth, though I expect spring growth will soon hide what winter cannot.

Dawn in Blues and Pink

This morning the day has dawned clear and cold, though the bitter wind of last night is fading (for which I am grateful). As the sun is rising, the snow looks bluish and is about the same color as the eastern sky above it.

The low-angled sun of winter creates a light that is much different than the harsher glare of warmer days. I find this especially noticeable during dawn and twilight, when the bluish light seems most mysterious and a bit off-kilter, somehow.

I tend to be drawn toward extremes of things, so the light at the far edges of the sun's yearly route is the light I find the most intresting of the year. Daylight takes a long time to arrive during these winter days, moving through the colors that take night into day much more slowly than in summer. In winter, the night cedes way to day less willingly, or perhaps the day is simply more patient now.

I have to be patient too, and wait for the right moment to try and capture the encroaching dawn. I stamp my feet on this cold morning and wait. In summer, the morning's sky colors arrive and change quickly, and then I must hurry. Grandmother Nature always has a lesson. Sometimes the lesson is patience. Sometimes the lesson is "move quickly!" Today the lesson is patience, and I try to be. And then, I think, the moment is finally here. Or at least the moment I choose is here, and I take the morning photograph.

Another Winter Morning

Snow still covers the mountain this morning, but it's not longer quite as pretty as it was on the day when it fell, which is when I took today's photo. The little storm brought about 3 inches of snow, and this morning I have 1-2 inches of it left, along with long patches of ice where the snow was compacted by the car or my footprints. The temperature has flirted with 32 degrees for the past two days but hasn't quite gotten there. Still, bright sunshine on both days has added to the temperature, at least enough to briefly melt the top layer of snowflakes. Then, as soon as the sun sets, that layer refreezes and the result is that it's slipperier now around the cabin than it was during the little storm itself.

I wear yak-trax on my boots--sort of like tire chains for people--and they work pretty well. The dogs are a different story. Even with their longer toenails, they slip and slide all over the place. Baby Dog enjoys this enormously and even seems to deliberately find ways and places to slip in ever more amusing style. Dog seems to be surprised that he slips, as though he doesn't understand how such a thing could be happening.

The slippery conditions limit our morning walks. We no longer walk for a mile or two, as we do when the footing is good. Now, we inch our way down the lane at a speed that's too slow for the dogs and too fast for me. They pull at the leash, anxious to go faster. I hold on. In non-icy weather, both dogs walk well, at least most of the time, on a loose leash, but when we are moving this slowly, their eagerness to go faster overcomes their training. We must look ridiculous, though at the hour of our walks there is no one to see us, for which I am grateful.

When it is time to head back to the cabin, they look ahead, along the trail we usually take, wondering why we are turning back so soon. We spend the same amount of time outside that we always do. We just don't travel as far as usual. They don't like that. To them, the distance is the thing, and apparently feel our walks should be the same, even if we would spend hours traveling the same distance. The concept of time isn't something I can teach the dogs. I ignore their disappointed looks and we inch our way back up to the cabin, slipping and sliding on the ice.

Porchlight and Moonlight

The wind that roared through here the past few days has shivered my bones and rattled the still-clinging birch leaves against the branches. The sound of dried leaves against branches sounds like scratching, a sound I expect to hear in November, not January. But this year the birch leaves have refused to drop, and in a snowy, winter forest the sound seems especially eerie. The wind has finally calmed now, and though the weather it still cool, it now feels balmy in comparison.

Last evening, it was overcast and I stepped outside without a jacket, though protected by hat, gloves and a warm sweater. For a few minutes that was even comfortable. I searched the sky for the full moon, but all I found was a large, slightly glowing area iverhead that was about the width of 10 full moons. Try as I might, I couldn't locate the spot where the glow was brightest, though I knew the moon was in there someplace.

By this morning, the clouds have disappeared, leaving clear skies and dropping temperatures. The moon was perfectly visible as it slid towards moonset in the west. I was struck by the cold blueness of the moon and the warm yellow of the porch light. And yet both looked inviting to me, though I can only reach the one.

Winter at the Cabin

After the excitement of having redpolls at my feeders on Saturday, it's a safe bet that nothing is going to top that one for a while. The redpolls came the day before the temperature dropped into a very wintry range. I had 4 degrees at the cabin on Sunday morning, and with an 18 mph wind chill, it felt very cold.

The wind has since calmed, and my feeders are probably now reaching their peak of activity. So many birds are in the feeder at once, it's difficult to count them all. This is especially true with the juncos. I try to count the most I can see at any one time, but they flit in and out so quickly that I never feel confident I've come up with an accurate one-time number. In this colder weather, the feeders are soon empty. When I'm home, I simply refill them as soon as I notice. During the work week, I fill them up as full as I can make them before I leave for work, but they are always empty by the time I get home. Based on how much the birds ate this weekend, I suspect the feeders are largely empty by noontime.

This is the time of year when I sometimes feel as though I should be hibernating, too. On the sunny days, I am happy to be outside whatever the temperature, but when that wind blows, I will retreat to the warmest room in the cabin, where I want to do little but drink tea or read. Usually, the dogs and cats soon will join me and before you know it, we are all napping, huddled together as though we must to keep warm. Naturally, I prefer the sunny, calm days when I can explore the quiet of a wintry forest. But even my temporary hibernation has its pleasures, in its quiet and slow pace. It's only then that I can reflect a bit and think, a rare pleasure in any season.

O, Happy Day! Redpolls in Southern PA!

O, happy day!


O, happy, happy day!


O, happy happy, happy day!


(Can you tell I'm happy yet?)


I have redpolls at my feeders!

I have redpolls at my feeders!


I have suspected (hoped) for a week or so that redpolls have been visiting my feeders. About 10 days or so ago the niger seed in the tube feeder began to be eaten at a much faster rate than has been typical. I knew something was eating it, and the two siskins and two goldfinch that are occasional visitors didn't seem capable of working on it that much alone.



But with working during the day, and darkness already settled in by the time I get home in the evenings, I haven't been able to see what was making the seed in that tube feeder go down so fast. Naturally, I have been hoping for redpolls.



I've seen redpolls at my cabin feeders exactly once before today, and I didn't have a camera in my hand for those few, brief moments.

So this morning I'm sitting in the cabin with one eye on my book and one eye on the feeders, just sitting there reading, and you know, hoping. And then a sudden flurry of several species of birds bounces into the feeders and there they were. Three redpolls!


So I look at them happily for a few seconds, and then I wonder, do I dare get up off the sofa, walk over to the kitchen table where the camera is and try to get a few photos? Yes, I think, I've seen them now, I know they were here. It's time to try for a photo. So I roll off the sofa to the floor and crawl over to the kitchen, where I retrieve the camera. Then I turn the camera on and get it ready, figuring that when I appear up at the window the birds will likely fly away. I move slowly, rise up in front of the window, and the birds are still there. I take one shot right away, hoping to get something if the birds scatter. But they don't. I manage to get several shots of them at the feeders before they wander off into the woods.


The one in the second photo looks a bit suspicious, doesn't he? But he's actually looking at something down on the ground.


Hooray! I've seen redpolls at the cabin! And gotten photos!

Snow!

I had a little bit of snow last night, about three inches. That's enough to be pretty and bring the birds to my feeders, but not enough to shovel. This morning the weather is clearing, and my feeders are filled with birds. Juncos sit all around the feeders, looking like plump little snowballs on the snow-covered branches. At a distance, they blend in so well that they are difficult to see on a snowy branch.

The cats are ecstatic, and now that the birds have eaten, they are teasing the cats even more. One of the blue jays lands on the sill of the large window in the living area and peers inside at a cat. Another scolds the cat in the upstairs window and watches while the cat runs its feet over the glass in frustration.

Dog and Baby Dog greeted the snow with even more enthusiasm than usual. Dog came inside looking like a glazed doughnut, frosted all over with snow. Baby Dog just runs. She runs back and forth and seems to enjoy herself all the more when she slips and falls headfirst. So it's been that kind of morning.

Now the sun is getting higher and the clouds are clearing. It should be a pretty day, our little gift from Grandmother Nature before the weather turns very cold and windy later tonight. I'm going to go outside and enjoy it!

It Looks Like Snow

This morning is again dark and gloomy, though it's a more interesting kind of gloom. A bit of snow is forecast for later today, and its likelihood seems to be confirmed by the numbers and amount of bird activity at my feeders this morning. The squirrels were also out in force, and Dog startled up a deer, though neither of us saw it. We only heard it rustling away through a dense area of thicket.

The possibility of snow that will bring an end to this run of gloomy days is enough to raise my spirits on a morning that still looks gloomy. The only bit of color I could find came from the reflection of the sky in one of Roundtop's snow-making ponds. And I'm sure you'll agree that as far as color goes, it's not much.

After the snow, the weather will turn colder than normal for at least several days, so it will really feel like winter again. It's not much, but I'm still looking forward to it.

Dark and Gloomy

I'm starting to panic a bit. The mornings are so dark and gloomy that I haven't been able to take any photos before I leave for work for several days now. I took this photo earlier in the week when the morning was slightly less gloomy than today. If the lighting doesn't improve for tomorrow, I'll don't know what I'll post. Perhaps I'll have to resort to a photo of Dog or Baby Dog.

In any event the temperature is at least fairly winter-like and the wind makes it feel very cold. Since I don't have any snow cover, the local feeder birds are able to find some food on their own, so activity at my feeders is somewhat diminished over other, snowier winters.

The quiet around the cabin continues. Even the squirrels have been absent, though I can't say I mind that. I'm okay with squirrels using my feeders, despite how quickly they go through bird seed and corn, but I must say I prefer it when they aren't around. They eat so much that sometimes I think I spend more on food for critters than I do on food for me.

The finch feeder seems to be quite popular this week, and I'm imagining that all sorts of wonderful winter finches that I never get to see are emptying it. I did see two pine siskins in it last weekend but redpolls have been reported in my area, and it's been years since I've seen any of those little darlin's in my feeders. I just hope whatever it is puts in an appearance sometime when I am home to see them. I can only hope.

Winter Sunrise

My grandparents were from upstate New York, and my mother lived there until she graduated from high school. I can remember her telling me that when the family moved down here to southern Pennsyvania how much they preferred the winters. It wasn't the cold of New York that they minded, but the seemingly never-ending gloomy winter days. She said they never had bright, sunny winter days where they lived, and that was what they really liked about Pennsylvania's winters.

Not this year.

This winter hasn't yet been overly cold. Certainly, I haven't had long stretches of cold or normal winter weather. But I have had long stretches of overcast, gloomy days. This is only made worse by the shortened hours of daylight. My only chance to be outside during daylight is on Saturday, and when Saturday is gloomy, it's another full week before I have another chance to see the sun. Perhaps that's why I've been overly focused on looking at the sunrises lately. Even in this gloomy weather--and today shows every sign of being overcast again--the sunrises have been quite lovely for a minute or two before the sun slips behind the cloud cover yet again.

Quiet

The weekend around the cabin was a quiet one, both in terms of weather and in terms of the animals and birds I saw (or didn’t see). The promised snowstorm never materialized. Instead, I have fog. Animal sightings are especially low right now, and I don’t really know why. I haven’t seen a deer all week and only a single squirrel. Even bird numbers, especially for sparrows, are lackluster.

Perhaps all this isn’t really as unusual as it feels to me right now. In a normal January, much of my focus and energy is spent dealing with snow or ice and deciding if I should attempt to drive up the mountain to the cabin or to just park the car and walk up. If I decide that walking is needed, then I might have multiple trips to lug groceries, dog food or bird seed up the hill. But this year, it’s been warm and quite lacking in snow, so my normal wintertime focus is altered. I don’t really think that’s the answer, but I’ve been wrong on at least a few occasions in the past, so I’m leaving open that option as a possibility.

This morning the fog made the morning dark and only added to the quiet around the cabin. I'm starting to miss sunnier weather. Perhaps the animals do too.

Oddities

Thunderstorms in January are not the norm here. This morning around 4:30 a.m., a flash of lightning wok me up. It was a sufficiently strange experience that for a while I wondered if I’d dreamed it, as no rumble followed that first flash. Then, just as I was falling asleep again, I saw another flash. The storm rumbled around for a while, not particularly severe, and even disappeared for 45 minutes or so, but naturally it made a reappearance when I was about .25 mile from the cabin walking Dog.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a thunderstorm before when in was 34 degrees outside. Now 34 degrees counts as a warm January morning, but it’s not so warm that I would expect a thunderstorm. The list of weather oddities these past few years just keeps getting longer and longer (and odder and odder).

This morning was too gloomy and foggy to try for a photo as I was leaving the cabin. So I'll leave you for the weekend with a photo I took last weekend, also on a gloomy day, though not as gloomy as today.

Picture of Global Warming

The record-breaking warm weather of the past few days has forced Ski Roundtop to close for today and tomorrow. With temperatures into the mid-60’s, the resort has lost a lot of snow this week. You can see in this photo, even one taken as early as I took this one, that not much snow covers the slopes. This is what global warming looks like at the local level.

The rain that’s predicted for this evening is also likely a factor in closing the slopes now. So far this season, we’ve had about 7 days of actual winter temperatures—2 days here, followed by a week of warmth, another 3 days of normal temperatures, then more warmth. I might as well be living in, say, Virginia.

Up at my cabin, this cloudy and damp morning brought me more birds than has been usual at this time of day—or perhaps it was simply today’s extra minute of daylight. I heard a great horned owl the moment I first stepped outside. It wasn’t very close, calling from somewhere down deep in the valley. Their call is one of those haunting sounds, like the call of a loon or the scream of a red-tailed hawk, that always draws me out of myself and makes me pay attention to the natural world around me. The Carolina wren trilled loudly just a moment later and was much closer. My feeders were soon full of the usual suspects.

Other than the ubiquitous squirrels, I haven’t seen many animals around the cabin for a while. Perhaps they are still wary from the hunting seasons. Even so, it has been longer than usual since I’ve seen deer, raccoons, opossums, fox. The lack of raccoons isn’t a real surprise, perhaps not even the ‘possums, but the deer and fox have also been strangely absent. Of course, with the weather as it has been, what used to be normal isn’t normal anymore. Perhaps the animals are as confused as I am.

Morning Light with Crows

The days are slowly lengthening here, just a minute a day right now. Even so it is now light enough when I leave for work in the mornings that it is no longer dead dark or even so dark that the landscape is entirely in chiaroscuro. On clear mornings, like this morning, I can see some colors, though they are still muted. And this morning I even saw some birds.

A family of crows were up, haunting the upper parking lot at Roundtop. Seeing any bird again during the work week after what feels like months where it is too dark before and after work to see anything is cause enough for me to celebrate. This family of 7 were scavenging for bits of food dropped by skiers—the odd French fry, a piece of hot dog bun. They were also outraged by my presence, perhaps already used to having the parking lot to themselves in the mornings. I was almost mobbed by them when I got out of my car to snap today's photo. When I finally retreated, a few still followed the car, one or two on each side of me, as though they wanted to make certain that I was leaving them to their goodies without taking any for myself.

Aspiration (Resolution) Update

Regular readers know that my aspiration (I hate to call it a resolution) for 2008 is to reduce my consumption and lighten my footprint on the earth. I expect 2008 will be a year of journey for me as I move in that direction and look for ways I can do that. So much of what I read about what people can do as individuals isn’t something we can pull off right away. Except for changing over to those new-fangled light bulbs, the suggestions are often about buying smaller cars, using public transportation and eating locally. Well, whatever kind of car you may or may not have, few people can afford to run out and switch to a different one right away. Public transportation isn’t available everywhere. Eating locally is something I try to do during the growing season, but that doesn’t work as well in winter.

So what else can I do? At the moment, I’m focusing on water and reducing how much of it I use. I have a well, so my water usage isn’t monitored by anyone except me. My water use impacts the area’s water table, which in some years has fallen dangerously low.

To reduce my own water consumption, I am currently rethinking the daily shower. No, I am not giving up keeping clean, so don’t let your minds wander there even for an instant.

So who decreed that we have to run a shower in order to clean up and stay socially acceptable? Since when are gallons of water needed to wash one human body? What’s wrong with the old bowl bath or basin bath or the old basin and pitcher combination? That uses no more than a gallon or two of water. Fill with hot water, use soap and wash cloth. Rinse. It’s fast, it’s easy.

Let’s do some math: The average bath uses 30-50 gallons of water, according to statistics I found. If your home was built before 1992, the water coming out of your spigot is likely to run at about 5 gallons a minute. If you take a 4-minute shower, you’ve just used 20 gallons of water. If your house was built after 1992, you might have a water-restricting showerhead, and your 4 minute daily shower just used 10 gallons of water. Even conscientious folks often take longer than 4 minutes in the shower. That’s still, in my opinion, an awfully lot of water, and over time it really adds up.

You may not want to forgo showers forever, but what if you mixed the bowl bath with an every other day shower? By doing just that you will save a lot of water. Assuming you have a water-restricting shower head, by changing to 3 showers a week at 10 gallons each (assuming you are one of those 4-minute shower people) and 4 one-gallon bowl baths, you will use 34 gallons of water per week to keep clean versus 70 gallons, a savings of 36 gallons of water. Over a year, this amounts to 1,872 gallons of water saved.

If you have the 5-gallon per minute shower head and use 20 gallons of water per 4-minute shower (or if you are an 8 minute shower person), your water use will drop from 140 gallons per week to 64 gallons, a savings of 66 gallons of water in just one week. For a year, this savings jumps to 3432 gallons.

For a 50 gallon daily bath, you will use 350 gallons of water per week. Just by dropping to 3 baths per week and four bowl baths, your water usage will drop by nearly 200 gallons of water in just one week and will save 8008 gallons per year.

And let’s say you suddenly decide you want to go from a 50 gallon daily bath to a 4 minute shower/bowl bath combination. Your water savings will be 16,432 gallons per year. Imagine if just 1000 people in the U.S. did that. The water savings from that would be the size of a small reservoir.

If you don’t think any of this is a big savings in water use, try to imagine how you’d feel if you had to go down to the local pond, stream or well to haul water back to your house every day, as so many people still do. Suddenly, those 36 gallons or 66 gallons or the 100+ gallons of water for the bath people saved per week look huge. And though most of us don’t have to do that, over a year or over a lifetime, a little conservation that doesn’t substantially change how we live can have a huge impact.

Winter's Gone Away

Have you noticed how frantically birds feed before a storm? I noticed that at my feeders on Saturday. The storm that eventually arrived wasn’t much, but the barometric pressure dropped quite a bit, and I think that’s what the birds respond to. At one point, I had so many chickadees and titmice flitting in and out of the feeders that I couldn’t count how many I really had.

The bitter cold of earlier in the week has been replaced with an atypically (or can we even call it that in these days of global warming?) warm spell. All that’s left of the natural snow are a few patches here and there where the sun doesn’t reach. The storm that came through on Saturday was only a few rain showers, but the barometric pressure dropped quite a bit after the clear, windy high pressure system that covered the area just two days before. It has now gone from 10 degrees to 60 degrees, and I am scrounging in my closet trying to find my least warm winter clothing to wear so I don’t have to dig out my put-away warmer weather clothing.

I think the birds felt that air pressure dropping, and instinct told them that meant a storm. In most winters, that kind of pressure drop would mean an imminent snowstorm, not a warm-up with rain. The birds fed as though they didn’t expect to get another meal too quickly, which would also be true in other years. Their feeding frenzy brought a new species to my feeder—pine siskin--and that was a nice bonus.

This week may turn out to be a bit thin for photographs. The weekend was dark and gloomy. I kept waiting for the light to improve to take a few photos—and it never did. Today’s photo was taken earlier last week. It shows one of the beech trees in front of the cabin and its neighbor, an oak tree—red oak, if I remember correctly.

Frosty Mountain Morning

My winter morning dawned cold and bright today with 11 degrees. This morning actually feels warmer than yesterday when the temperature was a few degrees warmer but the wind was brutal. I’m much happier with a colder temperature and no wind, thanks very much.

My bird feeders are emptying almost as fast I can fill them or at least that’s how it seems to me. Today’s little titmouse had just visited my feeder and was pausing, with his sunflower seed prize still in beak, before heading back into the woods. I think he saw one of my cats at the window and figured it was best to sit still for a few moments. Soon enough, he realized that a cat on the other side of a window was no threat and flew off.

Here’s my 2008 Roundtop bird list so far. The feeder birds have (f) behind their names:
Canada Goose
Mallard
Downy Woodpecker (f)
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay (f)
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee (f)
Black-capped Chickadee (f)
Tufted Titmouse (f)
White-breasted Nuthatch (f)
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
White-throated Sparrow (f)
Dark-eyed Junco (f)
Northern Cardinal (f)
House Finch
American Goldfinch (f)

January is a month where the total number of bird species I see at Roundtop typically range between 25-26, so with the 18 I’ve already seen, I can only really expect to find 7-8 more species. Turkey Vulture is still "missing" from my list so far, but I expect to see that this weekend. I did see several last weekend but not "quite" within the confines of Roundtop and my cabin so I didn’t count them.

Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Carolina Wren should also be "gimmee" birds as soon as I’m home in daylight to see them.

Red-tailed Hawk, Great-horned Owl, Northern Mockingbird, Hairy Woodpecker and Pileated Woodpecker are other January birds I normally have on my bird list. These can sometimes be slightly harder to find. Mockingbirds seem to head off the mountain and down to more protected areas in the coldest days, so I’ve occasionally gone throughout January without seeing one. Of the other four, the Pileated Woodpecker is the most likely to be the least likely sighting. They are always around but sometimes don’t make an appearance when I’m around. Black Vulture, Brown Creeper, and Song Sparrow are other possibilities.

January’s few hours of daylight are my biggest barrier to nudging the list much higher. Bird viewing is limited to the weekend, mostly even to Saturdays as I work a full day on Roundtop on Sundays.

The Garden in Winter

Nature’s garden surrounds my little cabin. Tiny spring beauties, wild violets, dogtooth violets and wood sorrel line my driveway in spring. These little gems are really small, so even those with intense shades of color can be easily overlooked. And sometimes, I just want something large and splashy.

Over the years I’ve found that large and splashy blooms combined with little sunlight isn’t an easy combination to come by. And, even if it was, I don’t want planted non-native flowers to overpower the little native jewels. So, I have designated an area near a beech tree that gets a decent amount sunlight in the front of my cabin as my garden. I like geraniums, usually the deepest reds, but I also always buy at least one native plant that I don't normally see in my forest and then plant it somewhere on the property. Sometimes they take hold, sometimes they don't. My "garden" is really just various natural-looking containers gathered in this one spot. When I drive in to the cabin from being away, the colors greet me as I enter my little domain, and satisfy my desire for big and splashy blooms.

Now that winter is here (and with a vengeance this morning), the little garden area looks forlorn. But yesterday for a few moments, the sun hit the wooden chair that holds my spring plants, and it looked pretty again, albeit in a kind of anticipatory way. The beech leaves haven’t yet fallen; they are about the only leaves that haven’t yet. The leaves looked as though they were still sheltering my little garden even in winter.

A Footprint in the Melting Snow

New Year's resolutions are not my thing. But this year I've thought of one I like and can aspire to: I will strive to make my imprint upon this earth as light and as fleeting as a footprint in the melting snow.

I want to step on the earth with as little impact as a chickadee. I wish to be little more than the fog that twines between the trees of the forest. I want to be like a leaf that buds in spring, revels in the summer wind, explodes with color in autumn and then falls to the ground, only to be covered by winter's snow, dissolving gradually into the earth from which the next generation of trees will spring.

Practically, this means I will be searching for ways to have less impact on the earth, though I am not planning to go completely feral and live under a stump. So there will be compromises.

January 1 also marked the beginning of my new year's birding list, and that turned into a good day. I counted 18 species of birds, the total no doubt helped by a balmy morning. My most interesting sighting was not a bird but a bat that I found holed up in a corner of Roundtop's lodge.

Good new year to all of you!

Sunset on 2007

Perhaps I should designate 2007 as the year of the power outage. Certainly the end of the year has been that way. This morning after the alarm went off but before I had my slippers on, the power went off again.


Overnight, I had less than an inch of snow, so downed trees or limbs are not the issue. Perhaps, this time it was the standard car-into-a-pole scenario. In any event, the mountain is dark this morning. Again.


For me, starting a new year means starting a new bird list. It's a time of hope and optimism, when I plan to spend more time birding, when I resolve to look harder for my local birds, when I hope April and May will bring waves of warblers to the mountain.


But December 31? If it means anything to me, it means getting the spreadsheets and bird lists ready for the new year. As a day in and of itself, I don't pay all that much attention to it. Certainly my feeder birds don't know that tomorrow I will be counting them (again) in earnest. To the natural world outside my door, tomorrow is simply another sunrise, another sunset. Some days I wonder if I should be more like that. Other days, I'm happy to observe the human-created holidays and rituals that are separate from the goings on in the natural world. Call it inter-species tension, if you like, as for all I know, trees have their own holidays and rituals that humans aren't privy to and don't celebrate.


So I am preparing for a human holiday tomorrow, a human-labeled arrival of the new year, though as a species we can't even agree on the date for its start. I can find references to 20+ different dates for the start of the new year. We do, however, seem to agree that a new year is cause for celebration, so I guess that's something. For now, it will have to do.

Happy New Year! However and whenever you celebrate it.

Big Green Birding Year

I'm going to be joining the ranks of the BIGBY birders in 2008. For those who haven't yet heard this term, it means Big Green Birding Year. The idea is that you can only count birds that you see while birding around your own house and on foot. They do also have a second category called "self-propelled," which allows you to use a bike or other self-propelled conveyance to reach your birding destinations.

I figure I'm a natural for this one since it's the kind of birding I've been doing for some time.

As of this morning, some 75 birders had signed up. If this interests you, here's the Web address where you can sign up: http://www.sparroworks.ca/bigby.html

Light is already returning to the mountain, now that the shortest day has passed. On clear mornings, as this one is, the sun is just barely above the mountain to the east when I leave the cabin for work. In celebration, I took an early morning photo. The light I see during the hours I'm on the mountain is not yet good, but it is light.

Going Feral

It's probably just as well that the holidays are over, and my life is getting back to its "normal" routine. When I am alone and at the cabin, I find myself turning feral all too quickly.

It's so easy to quickly ignore society's rules of good grooming and good behavior. I end up wearing stripes and plaids (but they are my favorite flannel shirt and sweater). So what if they don't match at all? Both feel wonderful, so it's only natural to want to wear them together.

It's easy to let the hair go unwashed an extra day or to pad around in the same comfortable socks for longer than is proper. After all, the dogs, who are slobs at heart, don't mind. The cats are fussier but not about these kinds of things.

I find myself admitting, albeit reluctantly, that society's rules keep me from going too far "out there" down the path to being a feral human. The rules force me to leave the cabin, dressed and coiffed appropriately. If I had, say, a month on my own, I might forget how to do even that, and I'm fairly sure I would care even less than I do now, which is a bit frightening.

I am eccentric enough, I suspect, at least by the standards of normal modern life. For one thing, I can't abide pointy heeled shoes--they look like elf shoes to me. And even if I liked them, which I don't, they simply wouldn't work in the mud around the cabin, even on the short walk from the car to the front door. So I wear flat shoes with treaded soles, the only flats in an office with a sea of heels.

I don't scream when I see a mouse or a bat--both of which have mysteriously found their way into our office at one time or another. And naturally, I was the one who ended up catching these visitors and releasing them outside.

The differences run deeper, too, but the tamed and civilized humans around me are already suspicious enough. Sometimes I feel as though I spend my days in the costume of normal life, but I am wild and feral underneath.

Christmas Moon

The ice from last week's ice storm has melted, leaving scarred trees in its wake. Wherever I go, I see broken trees and their pale, exposed centers, often the lightest shade in this winter landscape. However, the weather since then has been calm. The skies have been most clear, the wind non-existent.

I am still cleaning up the limbs and branches that fell during the ice storm. At first, I only tossed them out of the way to clear the driveway. Now, I am creating several large piles deeper in the woods to get rid of them. So I lug what I can on each trip, dragging them out of the way. It is slow work, and unless I soon get snow, I will likely be working on it for another week or two.

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. I was up before dawn and caught this photo of the setting moon when I first wentoutside. It has been a long time since the full moon set on Christmas morning. I don't even remember how long it's been. Perhaps even the last time it was cloudy or snowy, so I might have missed it whenever it did occur. But on this morning, there it was, heavy and pale on a clear, Christmas morning.

Grandmother Nature Rules (and a few of my own)

In the aftermath of the weekend’s ice storm, it occurs to me that life has few lessons to be learned that can’t be taught by Grandmother Nature.

1. Humility – Grandmother can very quickly knock out any idea you may have had of your own importance or abilities. She teaches that she is in charge and nothing in your day to day life will stand in her way. Sometimes we forget that, lulled as we are by seemingly endless beautiful days and busy lives. Then Grandmother reminds us.

2. Beauty—This hardly needs much more description. Everything I know about beauty I learned from Grandmother Nature.

3. Respect—This goes along with #1.

4. Enjoy life while you can—Tomorrow may bring an ice storm. Or worse.

5. Find ways to enjoy more of your life—See rule #4. There will always be work, errands, chores and nasty times. The trick is to teach yourself to enjoy more about these things, so you can spend more time being in the "zone" of #4.

6. Change happens, learn to deal with it—No tree is forever, no animal is forever. We are not forever. Even the forest isn’t forever. Holding on to what used to be isn’t something that Grandmother Nature worries about. New trees take hold, mountains rise, mountains fall.

7. Don’t focus on what you’ve lost when things change—This one is really hard, especially at first. We all tend to focus on what is lost when things around us change. It might be a job or a loved one or our youth. But with every loss comes something new, eventually. Spring flowers don’t lament the winter. New lives know only today and the hope of tomorrow. To them, life always begins with them. For those of us who are older, life should begin with today.

8. Life and Grandmother Nature always moves on—We have to learn, or at least try, to do the same.

9. To everything there is a season—Happy solstice. The wheel of the year turns again, and Saturday will bring more light.

Re: "Grandmother" Nature—Mothers I can deal with, but the cumulative weight of the ancestors is a force of a different Nature. So from now on, in my mind, Mother Nature has become Grandmother Nature, to help me remember that she's no pushover and to remind me of the lessons she teaches every day.

Victims of the Ice Storm

During the weekend’s ice storm, as many as 80,000 people were out of power in this region for at least a day. That’s down to about 2,000 now and those poor folks are supposed to have it back today. Some roads are still not cleared. Homeowners are assessing the damage and checking their insurance policies for what is and is not covered.

Humans are not the only victims of this storm. Tree damage is extensive. Last December I took a pretty photo of several white pine trees with a delicate and pretty glazing of ice and snow. All of those trees are now broken. One might survive but I’m even doubtful of that one. Ice still grips the mountain, if slightly less so than the day before. Temperatures only rose above freezing for an hour or two yesterday. It was enough to start the process of thawing but that still has a ways to go.

In front of my cabin, I have three conifers that are in danger. Yesterday, I thought for sure I would lose two but thought one might make it. Today, one of those in danger has improved, though it’s not safe yet.

I’ve also seen two flocks of Canada geese, both at migration altitude, heading south. These sluggards were likely "gambling" that they were already as far south as they needed to be for the winter, and then the ice storm came. Now, they are getting out of Dodge, better late than never.

The little red-breasted nuthatch that visited my feeders 50 times a day since the moment it arrived is also among the missing. I still have a small glimmer of hope that it has survived, but only a small one. During the week, I don’t have much daylight time to see what’s going on at the feeders so perhaps it is there and I am only not seeing it. This is possible but unlikely, as before the storm I could rarely look outside and not see it. Perhaps it is holed up somewhere with its stash of seeds—not even the world’s hungriest nuthatch could consume as many seeds each day as this one took from the feeders. Perhaps it has left the area, figuring that it wasn’t nearly as far south as it thought it was. This is also, I think, unlikely. In any event, I haven’t seen it since Sunday afternoon. Godpseed, girlfriend, wherever you are.

Grandmother Ice Storm

Several days ago I said I had the mother of all ice storms. Boy, was I wrong. That storm was just a toddler. Two days after that storm I had the ancestor of all ice storms. I have only now gotten power back, and I’m one of the lucky ones. Tens of thousands are still without power in this area and likely won’t have power for as long as two more days. I was out of power for two days and that was bad enough.

My first photo today was taken yesterday, after the road up to Roundtop was cleared. Today, ice still hangs on many of the trees, and trees are still breaking from the weight of the ice that covers them. The trees worst hit were the ones that still had some of their leaves hanging on. And conifer trees (more about that tomorrow, I think). I am still about half-expecting to lose power again, either from more breaking trees or from the ice falling off the trees.

My driveway looks like a battle zone—if the war was fought with ice. The ice looks like inches of shattered glass covering the mountain. It sounds like glass shattering too when a tree breaks and the ice hits the ground. I have been fortunate, as I had no damage at the cabin, though I had at least one close call.

A tree fell no more than a foot from the front of the car, covering the hood with leaves and small twigs (looked like a bad haircut) but not damaging the car or the cabin. Larry, my neighbor and manager of Roundtop’s paintball, brought up the backhoe to pull the downed tree out of my driveway and clear our lane of branches. I had many branches and limbs fall on the roof of the cabin and roll off its slope. If I never hear that sound again, it will be fine with me. Often, I heard a tree crack before I heard the sound of the branch falling on my roof. Now I cringe at the sound of a tree cracking, waiting for what is to follow and wondering how bad it will be, until the branch lands somewhere. The driveway almost looks like a hedgerow, lined as it is now with branches and limbs that I have tossed out of the driveway and off to the side.

Living without power for two days in early winter isn’t something I’d recommend. I did have enough water, food, warm sleeping bag, etc. in my emergency kit. I have a hand-cranked emergency radio, but found I couldn’t get the kind of emergency information I wanted to have. Too many stations carried on business as usual and if they listed locations of emergency shelters or reports on when areas might get power back, I never heard it. The local ABC station was off the air for 2.5 days and has only just come back on the air this morning. The road in and out of Roundtop was blocked for a while by all the downed trees covering the road. Once I did get power back, the information on the local TV stations was better and more robust than what the radio stations carried, but even that isn’t helpful unless you have access to TV, and referring people to Web sites isn’t very useful unless you have an internet connection.

All in all, it was a mess but everything seems to be improving for now. Once I got power back, I saw an interview with a 104 year old lady (she looked like she was in her ‘80’s) who was in a local shelter. She said she’d never had to leave her home before and had never seen anything like this ice storm in her entire life. I hope that means I'll never see another one like it.

Mother Nature's Wrath

Mother Nature’s wrath was in evidence yesterday. The ice storm that pelted Roundtop was a big one—not the worst I’ve ever seen but certainly in the top five. I lost power in the late afternoon and despite promises from the electric company that it would be back up in 2 hours, I didn’t get it back for nearly 12 hours. I’ve come to the conclusion that their projected times for power to return have no basis in fact. I think they just give you a time that’s 2-3 hours from whenever you call.

The cabin stayed warm-ish as I closed the heavy curtains and didn’t open the door again except for a moment to take the dogs out. And when we were outside, I didn’t stay outside very long. I could hear limbs and branches falling with a crystalline shatter all around.

Just before I got up this morning, I heard what sounded like a heavy rain outside. Oh, great, I thought, more freezing rain. I got up to take the dogs out and dressed for rain. It was coming down hard. But then I looked up at the lightening sky and saw a star. That’s funny, I thought, a star out during a rainstorm. Then I saw more stars and realized the sky was nearly clear. That’s when I realized the "heavy rain" was the melting ice falling off the trees. That’s how much ice there is on the trees.

And Saturday, I will do it all over again—maybe. I was hoping for a snowstorm, but instead it may be a repeat of the ice storm. And in other news—forecasters locally report that the long range forecast for the winter is that after this blast of wintry weather, the long range forecast for January and February is for much warmer than usual weather. I’m reporting that now simply to see if they are right or wrong about that. Last year, December and January were warm but February brought a return to more normal weather. There’s nothing to do but wait and see. The last photo of my driveway was taken after I'd cleared all the limbs from it.

Ice!

The mother of all ice storms is coating Roundtop Mtn. this morning. I didn’t try to drive to work. So I am at home fighting with the dial-up connection and working from the kitchen table—at least for now. With the ice storm only 90 minutes old and still going strong, I’ll be surprised as all get out if I don’t lose power before it ends.

I have already had “lunch,” figuring that if I don’t eat something hot now, I might not be able to later. The dogs are surprised to have me at home but as long as I don’t interfere with their sleeping, it’s fine with them.

I feel sorry for the birds that come to my feeders. I put out lots of fresh seed for them just as the storm was starting, so they will have plenty. But now they are as wet and icy as a plane you don’t want to be flying on. I notice it the most on the jays. Perhaps it’s simply more visible on a bird that size. Or perhaps the jays can’t find shelter as easily as the smaller birds. And suddenly shelter may be more difficult to find too.

I noticed last night for the first time, that the leaves are finally mostly down. For the first time, I can look out my bedroom window and see open sky and only a few leaves, even on the oak trees. At least the leaves picked a good time to fall. Leaves and ice would definitely not go well together, and I can imagine that whatever damage I will get from this storm would have been much greater had the weight of icy leaves been added.

So for now I am warm and dry. I expect to stay put, whatever the rest of the day brings.

A Little Brightness

Last night the fog was as thick as I’d ever seen it. It swirled around my knees like a hungry cat, and though I could still see my toes, they seemed far away and pale. This morning, thankfully, the worst of that dissipated overnight. If it hadn’t, driving would have been impossible.

The front that has iced in the Midwest is now toying with Roundtop. It rises and falls across the southern tier of the state like a flag blowing in the breeze. One day, the mountain is north of the front and the weather is cold. The next day the mountain is south of the front and the temperature rises. This morning the mountain is south of the front and it feels like early April. The Carolina wren joined the cardinal in song this morning before dawn or what passed for dawn.

Clouds still cover the mountain and the sky, but as the sun rose this morning, it produced one brief moment of glory. For a few seconds the drab and overcast weather that has kept even the days in a kind of twilight lifted in a glory of reds and yellows. Seconds after I snapped this shot, the sun rose into the clouds and was obscured by them. Moments after that the rain started again.
Sometimes we only have brief moments of brightness in our days. I can get lost in the gloom or scurry of my day to day life, especially in these hectic days before a holiday. Sometimes I feel as though I am lost in a fog. But even a tiny bit of brightness can raise my spirits and get me through a gloomy day. Today, my little bit of brightness is the memory of this morning’s brief and glorious sunrise. Take the time each day to find your own little bit of brightness.

Respite

The fog and drizzle of the past few days have combined to melt 99.9% of the snow that fell last week. After the snow came the freezing rain, which made walking and driving treacherous. Now that I can safely walk around again, I find I'm enjoying what will likely be a brief respite from shuffling across the ice. I can walk on snow as well as anyone, but I can do without the ice.

The dogs appreciate the longer walks we are taking too. In fact, I can't even claim that they got much of anything that resembled a walk this past weekend. So now they have more energy than they can contain and are finding all kinds of mischief to get into to work off some of that energy.

The respite has affected the cardinals, too. I heard one singing this morning. This is not a sound I expect to hear in December. Cardinals do sing earlier than other birds, but they usually wait until a sunny day in February to start their chorus.

The ponds that were iced over are now open again in spots that get at least a little of the afternoon sun. The ground that was freezing is soft again. The air smells like winter but feels a bit like late November, as though winter has not yet settled in and decided to stay.

The respite will be a short one, if years past are any indication. I welcome this short respite. I already had the season's first taste of winter, just enough to remind me what it is like. The first taste helps me prepare my mind and the cabin for it. When it comes to stay, next week or the week after that, I will be ready.

Foggy Weekend and 2007 Bird Sightings

Fog covered the mountain most of the weekend. Freezing drizzle further obscured the view. Even at midday it looked and felt like dusk. The mountain was quiet too, as though the fog deadened the sounds around me. The bird feeders were busy all weekend. The icy conditions likely made it difficult for the local feeder birds to find much natural food.
I didn’t spend much time outside this weekend. Between holiday preparations and the ice that made walking treacherous, I was mostly inside. So perhaps that explains why I am already starting to compare my 2007 Roundtop bird list with the one from 2006.

Every year list has its own interesting differences, and 2007 is proving to be no exception. I’m currently at 83 species for the year at Roundtop, up from 77 in 2006. The number is likely to stay where it currently is until the end of the year. December is not typically the month when I find many new bird species. If I get very lucky a sapsucker might show up or perhaps one of this season’s irruptive northern species, but I’m not counting on that.

In the course of a year, I don’t see many differences in the total number of species found each month. May brings the most species of the year, and that remains a constant. February 2007 was an exception. It was quite cold compared with 2006 and I saw significantly fewer species as a result. In 2007 only four months (March, May, August, October) produced higher totals than 2006, and these totals were only 1-2 species higher than in 2006. So why is my yearly species total 5 birds higher than last years? The answer is that the variety of species in 2007 was good, but the number of sightings for the more common birds was somewhat lower.

When I look at my species by families, I find I had a decent year for waterfowl and raptors, a well above average year for shorebirds (that new pond has helped these totals a lot). Both the number of swallow species and the number of swallow sightings were much lower than normal. Warbler and vireo sightings on the mountain were abysmal in 2007—only 5 species when I can usually find 12-15 species of them.

2007 brought several species that are new to my Roundtop list. Double-crested cormorants were seen flying over the mountain not once but twice. Coot was a new species. The bobwhite family was a new species, as were the solitary sandpipers.

And the news is not all good. For the first 10-12 years I lived here Scarlet tanager was a regular summer resident. I heard that song regularly and often saw a pair or two of them. Since the woods were cleared and the new pond was built near the area where they nested, I haven’t heard them at all. Perhaps they’ve only gone deeper into the forest, but I miss that lovely song in early summer. Another missing species is field sparrow, which used to be common in the scrubby areas over by the tubing runs.

Overall, the results for 2007 were mostly pretty good, though I’m a bit concerned that the sightings of resident species is lower. Is that a trend or just a 2007 anomaly? Perhaps 2008 will bring some clarity.

The Unexpected Cougar

The morning here at Roundtop is dark and overcast, in anticipation of what the forecasters are describing as a "wintry mix." That pretty much means something is going to fall from the sky, but they don’t know what. As it is too dark to take a morning photo, even a morning photo on a day when snow is on the ground to brighten things up, I’m posting a shot of one of the sibling cougars at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center.

The two cougars like to play tricks on humans. They are in a strongly fenced area that the public can’t reach. However, the front of their naturalistic enclosure is glass where people view them. People walk up to the glass on a slightly raised boardwalk. The bottom of the glass hits the average human just above knee-level. Below that is a wood wall.

As there are two cougars, it’s not uncommon for one cougar to be up on the rocks, pretty much ignoring the people oohing and aahing at it. What people don’t see because they’re looking at cougar #1 is the cougar directly below them along the wall—until the cougar leaps up in the air and suddenly appears at your knees. They are particularly prone to do this, so we were told, when small children are present. The sudden appearance of cougar #2 terrifies parents, who quite understandably have a strong visceral reaction to a cougar that seems to be right in their child’s face. The cougars love this game.

While we were there, cougar #2’s face suddenly appeared once or twice right at the bottom of the glass for just a second—though he didn’t actually pounce. I think he saw that we were adults and so the game wasn’t quite as much fun. He did this sudden appearance so quickly, though, that I couldn’t get a photo of that. He’s quite the beauty. Both he and his sister were very calm and not at all shy about being seen.

I think the reason the reason the animal enclosures here are so nice is that they have few animals and so can provide excellent care and top-notch situations for them. The bears were hibernating, but of the rest I saw no more than 20 animals, of which 4 were raptors.

Snowy Morning

Winter has arrived in the form of about 3-4" of very light and fluffy snow. The light and fluffy part is unusual here this early in the season. It’s more common for the early snows to be wet and heavy. Light and fluffy is more typical of my mid-winter snows.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the snow this morning, though the sun wasn’t yet fully above the horizon when I took it. I tried taking a photo up at the cabin too, but the forest blocked what little there was of even the early morning light, so I had to wait until I got down to where the sky was open.

What is it about snow that makes dogs wild? Mine are like kids with a snow day off school. They act as though snow means they no longer have to behave or listen to anything I say. They forget everything they have ever learned. Baby Dog was as bad on the leash this morning as she was on her first day of leash-training. Dog is hardly better, though at least he seems to know he won’t get away with it.

At Roundtop, the ski season will open tomorrow, which for me means I will have no more weekends off until probably sometime in late March. Last year a warm-up in late December closed the resort until mid-January. That warm-up was blamed on the jetstream being further north than normal. This year the mountain is on the cold side of the jetstream but only just, so it remains to be seen if that continues or not.

November turned out to be 1.65 degrees colder than average this year, which was kind of a nice change after October, which was nearly 7.5 degrees warmer than usual. November can’t begin to make up for October’s heat wave but in this era of global warming, I appreciate anything that doesn’t further deepen the heat.

Squam Lakes Science Center

This past Saturday I spent all day in a HMANA Board meeting that was held at Squam Lakes Science Center, near Holderness, N.H. HMANA’s Chair is also the executive director of the science center. The highlight of the day was not the Board meeting (which was okay as such things go) but the tour afterwards.

The science center has a variety of exhibits, including hiking trails and boat tours of the lake in the summer. They also have some animals that are native to N.H. in very high quality exhibits. The center is closed to the public now until spring. Some of the animals, like the bears, were already hibernating, but some are still in their areas. All are quite at ease with people around and were out in the open and easily seen.

The bobcat enclosure had two bobcats. We also saw sibling cougars, a fisher, a pair of red fox, bald eagles and red-tailed hawk.

This great horned owl was a lot of fun. This bird is now 39 years old, unreleasable as it is blind in one eye. Although the second photo isn’t very good—it was getting dark in N.H. around 3:30 p.m.—I couldn’t resist. Who would expect to find a great horned owl sitting on the sign that bears its name? Obviously, this bird didn’t want anyone to miss just who it was. Iain told us that the bird was meaner than any of the other animals and over the years was responsible for more staff injuries than any of the large mammals with fiercer reputations. The bird sat there and hooted at us while we stood just a few feet away on the other side of the glass.

Although we’d hoped to hang around Plymouth for a few hours on Sunday morning and search out the nearby pine grosbeaks, instead we left at 6 a.m. in order to beat the storm that swept across the east coast on Sunday. We did pretty well with that. New Jersey had a some sleet and freezing rain, but while we were on the road it was only bad for a mile or two. Snow nipped our heels the entire trip south but the roads were mostly good. Trip time from Plymouth N.H. to Hawk Mountain Pa. was just under 8 hours, with stops only for gas and drive-through food. Of course, having four drivers helps a lot.

Back at Roundtop winter is settling in (even those many of those oaks still have dead leaves on them). I had to clear an inch of snow off my car before I left Hawk Mountain to head home on Sunday. The forecast is calling for a few inches of snow today. Roundtop is busy making snow, and I expect they will be open this weekend, though I haven’t gotten the official word on that yet.

Tomorrow, a new report from Roundtop Mountain! It was a fun trip, if brief, but it’s good to be back on my mountain with all the critters.

Bohemian Waxwings!

First, let me apologize in advance for foisting upon my readers the world’s worst photographs of Bohemian Waxwings. I took the photographs in very early morning non-light at Plymouth State University in Plymouth N.H. on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the HMANA board meeting required that I spend the day at that, so my only chance to see this life bird was before the sun was high enough to allow a good photo. But, as this will likely be the only time I ever see or photograph bohemian waxwings, for my purposes a bad photo is still cause for celebration.

And what a way to see a life bird! This wasn’t a single bo’wing or even a small group of them. The flock has been counted at around 300 individuals. So my first view of this irruptive migrants was in a huge flock that’s virtually impossible to miss. As of Saturday, the birds were spending a lot of time in an area around the arts center, where there are a lot of bushes and small trees with red berries.

Seeing a flock like this, it’s hard to keep in mind that what is a birding bonanza is actually a bad thing for the birds themselves. In a normal year, bohemian waxwings stay up north, happily chomping away on local food. When they come south, it means there’s not enough food up north to sustain them. So they are forced to migrate, with all the inherent dangers associated with that. And then in the spring they will head north again, braving those dangers a second time. I have to wonder if breeding success the season after these irruptions is poorer than it is in years when the birds can overwinter in their home turf. I try not to let the excitement of seeing a new bird for the first time override my sense of what that means for the birds themselves. But that is really hard when you’re surrounded by 300 of them.

So, now I’m back at Roundtop safe and sound. I’ll post more on my trip to New Hampshire tomorrow and possibly on Thursday before getting back to the news at Roundtop again.