No title

I seem to be wordless today, so I'll leave you with a near sunset photo looking over the valley.  Happy weekend to all.

A little color amidst the browns

Shelf fungus

I found this really cool shelf fungus on one of my wanderings this week. I imagine someone else removed it from its host tree and then left it. I suppose it’s possible it fell off on its own, as a couple of nearby trees could have served as a host, though I suspect not. Fungi tend to hold on pretty tight and can damage a living tree. It’s even possible the fungus was deliberately removed it to try and save the host tree from further damage. Or, it might have been on a tree cut for firewood. It’s impossible to say.


I think fungi are always fun to look at. They are easier to see in winter because they aren’t hidden by greenery and summer growth. And in a dull brown winter like this one, something that is bright orange is always a treat. This one was a good 7-8 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. It looked fresh, too. Shelf fungus are common here (and probably elsewhere, too) but this one was larger than most.

The forest is quiet, as quiet, I think, as if the trees were blanketed in snow. I took a walk on a familiar trail during the early morning just to see what I could see. Even the sound of the ubiquitous blue jays was distant. The wind wasn’t stirring, and the forest felt as though it was dozing.

I tried not to make any sound as I walked along the old path. Sometimes, despite my best efforts, my boot found a twig and cracked it. Even that sound didn’t alarm the residents. If they heard me, they gave no sign. The woods might as well have been deserted.

After a while, I went off the path and walked through the woods. I can’t do that in summer when the underbrush and annual plants are growing. So winter is the time when I walk where there is no trail.

After a while, I came across an old stone fence. It means that at one time these woods, where trees are now 120-150 years old, was once a field. Stone fences were created when the original farmers cut down the trees and cleared the land. This area of Pennsylvania is very rocky, and those farmers had to put the rocks somewhere. Usually, they didn’t want to put them very far from the cleared land. That was too much work. So they built stone fences along their property lines or to mark off a field or a pasture.

I know of two nearby ruins that were once foundations of either barn or house. This fence is far enough away from both that I’m guessing it marked the far end of a field. The fence is built on sloping land. It’s hard to imagine this spot was ever good for crops. It’s nearly as hard to picture these forested hills as cleared land.

But cleared they were and now the forest has reclaimed its own, taken back what was once taken away. But for how long? I always wonder how long any of the forests around me will remain. Construction and building, houses and developments move ever closer, grow ever larger, year by year.

We are too greedy, we humans. We always want more and bigger. We grow ever more populous. The next time these forests are taken, they may never be able to take back their own again.  Nothing that humans build is as beautiful as a forest, not even one that is dozing through a snowless winter. 

Where field meets the forest

The winterless winter continues, with no sign of actual winter anywhere in my forecast. It’s as though November moved in and never plans to leave. At least a month like, say, August, hasn’t yet tried the same trick. I’ve long since put my down parka in the closet. Last year I lived in that thing.

I’ll bet some, if not all, of the forest animals are thrilled, if that’s something they can be. I see deer everywhere in the fields in both mornings and evenings. This morning I saw 14 in 2 groups. Last night I saw 7 in another group on the mountain.

Winter is hard on the deer, normally. This year that is certainly not the case. The grazing is still probably not the best, as the grasses are all sleeping through winter. But the deer don’t have to paw through snow and ice to reach it. Some winters deer huddle in their “yards” and can’t or don’t move beyond its confines. In really severe winters they can die in there when they run out of food. This year even the ponds and puddles have open water, at least by around noon or so.
I think an easy winter is likely to make for a strong breeding season for them. Certainly there isn’t any winter-caused hardship.

Other animals and the birds are likely seeing the same kind of benefit. Birds will survive the winter fat and happy, ready for a new breeding season, too. The winter residents will be in good shape to start their trips back north.

This kind of winter may not be my cup of tea, but I’ll bet it’s theirs.

The non-winter here on Roundtop Mountain continues, with only momentary blips of winter to report. Mostly, January was like a very long November. The snow lasted but a few days and has now retreated to a few tiny patches that are hidden from the sun.

The daytime temperatures are well above freezing, and most nights the temperature does get below freezing, if not always by very much or for very long. By morning, ice in puddles is hardly more than skim ice that is long gone by noon time.

The patterns created by the slowly freezing water caught my eye this weekend. They remind me a bit of tree rings, though I suppose freezing rings would be more accurate. You can see how the freezing starts out with just a little ring and then as the night gets colder, the rings get wider and the water is apparently freezing faster. In a normally cold winter, I don’t see freezing rings. The puddles freeze too fast and are pretty much ringless, with a solid sheet of ice. Not this year.

The warm winter has gotten me to thinking about what the spring might be like. Will winter bother to make an appearance in February? If the winter continues as it has so far, will birds return north much earlier than usual? Will the snow goose and tundra swan migration come long before the end of February? This will be an interesting spring to observe, I think. I’m just not quite ready to start looking for it just yet.

Soggy

Winters should not be soggy but today is just that. Soggy and foggy and mushy underfoot. Although it is warm enough to be a spring rain or a spring day, it doesn’t smell like spring. Nor do the woods smell like winter. To my nose, the air doesn’t smell like much of anything at all.

At this point in the season, daylight remains into the evenings quite a bit longer than just a week or so ago. The mornings are lighter earlier, too. This morning I saw crows, the first time I’ve seen any bird in the mornings before work for many weeks. In winter, they are the first bird I usually see in the mornings. Sometimes cardinals come early to my feeders but they are skulkers and wary. Crows are obvious and seem to think they have to inspect their territories first thing in the morning to make sure nothing awful, or even anything at all, happened while they were sleeping.

This small group of them was plying the stone parking lot at Roundtop, no doubt scavenging for lost French fries or other edible goodies dropped by skiers last evening after dark. The crows aren’t picky and will try to eat anything dropped by humans. To them the parking lots are just fast food joints—no work, no waiting—just food appearing on the ground, free for the taking. They want to be sure they get first pick of whatever is available. It’s good to see them again, good to have something to look at so early in the morning. I watch them for a few moments and then leave them to continue their scavenging.

Tempted

One warm day with fog was all it took for the snow to disappear literally overnight. Oh, a few patches of it remained this morning, but with rain in the forecast for tonight, whatever may remain will certainly be gone. The feeder birds have already disappeared, gone back to their natural food supply and ignoring my offerings. I’m sure they will return whenever the next blast of winter reappears.

The warm winter evenings have tempted me outside my cabin on more than one occasion lately. When the wind is calm, walking in the woods at night is a rare pleasure. Two nights ago I could smell the snow, all crisp and cold. I didn’t take a headlamp, as white snow underfoot is just as good or even better. A thin slice of moon curled just above the horizon, a deep orange.

By summer, underbrush impedes such off-trail meanderings, which accounts for the rarity of such an adventure. I try to look at everything, to memorize the sky, the moon. I draw the winter scents deeply into my lungs, somehow hoping they won’t disappear as soon as I’m inside again. I never know how long it might be before another chance to wander at night comes my way. Better to take advantage while I can.

Foggy morning

View from the backyard of dad's farm (west), taken on Saturday

Fog still obscures Roundtop mountain this morning. Trees are just shadows of their clear-day selves. The distance is entirely invisible, lost in the grayish white of snow and fog. Sounds are amplified or distorted, seemingly disembodied from any one place.

It’s as though nothing exists beyond a middle distance. My cabin, the trees that surround it may as well be the only thing in this world that’s closer to a dreamscape than a landscape.

Dog and I penetrate the shadows carefully, slowly, avoiding the ice. Dog is elderly now and more cautious than he used to be. He slips once but recovers. I move haltingly, afraid to slip. The headlamp does me no good. We move slowly, going half the distance, or less, than we usually do. He is glad, I think, when we turn around and head back. I know I am.

The fog is pretty, in the way that things that are different are pretty or at least interesting. After a day or so the novelty wears off, long before the fog does.

Snow! (and ice and fog and ice fog)

Odd, how a few inches of snow has changed my mood, softening my anxious mind. Winter looks like winter for the first time this year. The season is as it should be, for at least the next little while.

Winters should not feel and look like November, or like a winter in Georgia, when I live on a mountain in Pennsylvania. Now that I have snow, winter feels like itself again. I only hope it’s not a momentary aberration.

The dreaded ice storm did not materialize, though this morning produced a bit of freezing drizzle. I even have an ice fog, as you can tell from this morning’s photo. That is an uncommon occurrence here. Fog usually comes with warmer temperatures.

The feeder birds suddenly remember where my feeders are and have arrived hungry and demanding. So far, no unusual or even uncommon species are in evidence, just the usual suspects—titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, a wary blue jay, the odd starling and the like.

In this era of warming trends, it’s comforting to know that winter is not yet dead. Doom and gloom can wait for another day. Or year. Or decade.

Snow! (I hope)

This may turn out to be the last non-snowy photo you see on Roundtop Ruminations for a while. If the forecast holds true, I will see 3-5 inches of snow tonight.  If the forecast is not true, I will end up with ice.  I'm trying to ignore that as a possibility.

I enjoy a fine, snowy winter.  To me that also means birds at my feeders, a warm fire, dogs and cats at my feet, a good book, warm sweaters and a mug of something hot and steaming or compfortably alcoholic, depending on the time of day.  I can do most of those things when there's no snow, but snow completes the picture for me.  A non-snowy winter is simply less fun and a lot less pretty, despite the clouds in this photo.  A pink sunrise is glorious whatever the season. But sunrises soon fade, replaced by lots of brown during the rest of the day.  Snow on the ground is something I can enjoy all day long.

This time of year, 3-5 inches of snow would normally not be something to crow about.  This year it's the best we can manage so far.  Therefore, I will.crow in anticipation.  And continue to ignore the possibility of ice.

Woodland surprise

I must confess that when I first saw what you see in today's photo, I didn't think it was what it turned out to be. 

I'm finding this brown winter difficult, sometimes, to photograph. Landscapes, particularly, aren't satisfying me at all, so I decided to wander across my little patch of forest and look for small things that came my way.  And that's how I found this.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a curled up catepillar.  Readers from this region certain know about wooly bear catepillars that local legends say predicts the weather by the size of their red and black bands.  That legend aside, when you pick up one of those, they curl up into a defensive little fuzzy ball. And when I first found this, I thought it was some catepillar, though obviously not the red and black wooly bear, that was doing the same defensive move.

But then I touched it and turned it over and discovered it was the underside of a piece of fungus or mushroom, species unknown to me. I still can't tell you what kind it is. Only this piece of it was left.  Somehow it hadn't rotted or turned black in the winter.  I just liked how it looked, a little not-caterpillar curled up among the leaves.

Is it real or is it...?

Can you tell by looking that this isn’t natural snow? I hesitate to call it fake snow, which in my mind implies plastic or some other non-snow material. This is manmade snow from the ski resort that blew over to the bottom of my lane during fierce winds yesterday.

During this snow-less and mostly warm-ish winter, the neighboring ski resort has been forced to make snow when they can, which hasn’t been all that often. They make snow by shooting aerated water over the ski slopes when the temperature is below freezing. Voila! Snow results.

I can’t tell you the number of times people have asked me in October when the ski resort was going to make snow. It’s the kind of question for which guest service people like to make up snarky answers that of course are never delivered to the callers. The second question in a similar vein that we often get is “It’s 31 degrees (at my house at 6 a.m.), why aren’t you making snow?” The answer to that one is a tad more complicated, but usually boils down to the fact that the ski resort isn’t at their house, and it doesn’t do the resort much good if the temperature isn’t below freezing throughout the majority of the night (as opposed to just at 6 a.m.). The ski resort is at the mercy of Mother Nature like everyone else.

When you look at this manufactured snow up close, the flakes look a lot like naturally falling snowflakes, but there are some differences. Typically, the natural snowflakes are more complex, with more points and more variety to their shapes. At least most of the time. Even natural snowflakes have several general types that are shaped by temperature, ice and wind. There’s the dendrite snowflake, the plate snowflake, the plate-dendritic snowflake that starts as a plate-shaped and ends as a dendric type. There’s simple prisms, stellar plates, sectored plates, stellar dendrites, and at least a dozen more types of more and less complexity. Manmade snow always has fewer points and less definition but sometimes natural snowflakes are just as lacking in complexity and diversity.

This morning, after I took this photo, I had the natural kind of snow, too. Typical of this winter, it didn’t last long.

Nature's Ice Sculpture (Weird)

Who am I to call Grandmother Nature’s ice sculptures weird? Perhaps I’m just not able to appreciate her handiwork in all its complexity. Interesting? Of course, but the artistry needs a bit of work, in my opinion.

Winter made a brief visit to the mountain this weekend, with temperatures dipping below the ‘teens overnight and that made even worse both by a substantial wind and the rapid drop from above normal temperatures. Our bodies just aren’t made to get used to quick changes in temperatures.

Never fear! Winter wasn’t moving in after all, just checking out the accommodations (and apparently finding them not to her liking) because today the weather is warmer again.

The warm winter is having an adverse effect on my sleeping. Not because I toss and turn. Oh, no. It’s because the raccoons are still around and attempting to forage in my bird feeders at night. Last night Pig the raccoon (or its latest incarnation) attempted the raid five different times. That means Baby Dog’s wild barking woke me up five different times, and both meant I had to go to the door, turn on the light and save the day by shooing Pig off the deck and away from the feeders.

Pig is not the dumbest raccoon on the block as each attempt was slightly different. The first time was the straight on approach across the deck railing. The second was the most inventive, mounting the assault from a nearby tree. Pig was balanced precariously on a branch that was much too small for his girth. That attack never would have worked, even had I not shushed him away. The branch would have broken or Pig would have fallen or simply been forced to retreat.

The next time, the assault came from up the stairs, as though tiptoeing across the deck was the answer. That didn’t work either. The next time was an assault up the railing of my raised deck. Truthfully, I’ve forgotten what happened the last time. By then I was a bit punchy from the constant awakenings.

Tonight? The birds will have to do without their crack-of-dawn feeding tomorrow morning, because that feeder will not be outside overnight.

Dark and stormy

 The morning the sky is dark and angry. Snow blew sideways, like scores of white ribbons waving in the wind. Large white flakes didn’t so much sting as bite. I turned my back to avoid those bites. Dog was soon dusted, like a canine sugar doughnut, though his thick and long fur protected him from the biting snow.

As quickly as it started, the snow was over, leaving only the angry clouds and a momentary covering of snow on the ground. And the wind. And the much colder temperatures. Winter has returned to the mountains.

Last night, before winter arrived, I took a late evening walk in the warm rain, only partially protected from the wet. I don’t mind the rain or the cold that came today, but I don’t do wind very well. I’ve tried to learn to enjoy the experience of it, to take some enjoyment in its fierce wildness, but I’m not doing very well with that. When the wind arrives, my favored response is to retreat to the warmth of the cabin and wait for it to grow calm again.

I have tried to analyze this aversion, in some hope that I can find a way through or around it. To no avail. When I’m in the woods, I use all my senses, sight and smell and hearing. When the wind roars, that is disrupted. Watering eyes limit seeing, and even when I can avoid that, I find the birds and animals I look for are hunkered down, away from the wind and not very interested in being out and about or seen. The only sound I can hear is the wind itself. Bird calls, the stamp of a deer are all covered by the wind.

The wind tears at uncovered skin, reddening it, making it numb. My hands are covered, my face is covered, my eyes hide behind goggles. I may as well be a deep sea diver, so covered and so protected, so distant from the experience am I. And yet even with all that, the wind finds tiny openings, a pinhole perhaps, to force its way past my armor.

Wind reigns supreme and I retreat. The warm, calm cabin awaits.

Foggy morning

Fog has ruled the mornings here on Roundtop the past few mornings. It’s the kind of fog that might make for a good photo at 10 a.m., but certainly not at 7:30 a.m. when I am out and about. So today’s photo is not current. I took it earlier in the week when the fog wasn’t so soupy.

The spate of mild January weather is soon to end with a bit of snow and a lot of wind. It will come as a shock to all, from me to the wintering animals. I miss having a snowy winter and I worry about how this might signal yet more climate change. Still, the balmy temperatures are easier on my heating bill and make the outside chores a lot easier. And that’s all about to come to a screeching halt. I am trying to prepare myself for the sudden change, but winters are much easier to grow accustomed to when the temperature changes little by little.

At least I know the change is coming and can prepare for it in some ways. How much can the deer do? The summer fawns know little of winter’s harshness, and the old does are likely not looking forward to it. The squirrels should be fine. Those fat little rats with bushy tails eat more birdseed than the birds do. The winter birds have largely ignored my feeders for much of the winter so far. Now, they will have to push the squirrels away to get anything. I’m confident the local birds at least know where my feeders are, even if they haven’t partaken of it much.

So, though it’s long overdue, winter appears poised to make an appearance. Whether it will take up residence just for a few days or for the duration is anyone’s guess.

Listening

Yellow Breeches Creek - Bowmansdale, Pennsylvania

Winter is a good time for listening. Last night fog reflected light from the full moon and made the winter woods nearly as bright as dusk. I could see as far into the forest as hills would allow. The air was damp, ahead of more rain (!) tomorrow, but the wind was calm. Standing outside, I listened to the call of a very distant great horned owl somewhere far down in the valley.

Somewhere nearby, I’m certain, other people must have been around. Perhaps an employee of the ski area, locking the lodge door after closing for the night, though I didn’t hear a sound or see a sign of anyone. For all I could sense, I was alone on the mountain, with only the owl or the occasional snap or crunch to break the stillness. The deer, likely were feeding just out of sight.

I have long loved the quiet of a calm winter night. Summer’s nights are never so still or so quiet. The leaves whisper too much, like the town gossip. Perhaps they have much news to spread in the half year of their existence. In winter, covering the ground, they are quiet, unless an unwary deer awakens one with a misstep.

In winter, the silent woods makes my senses seem stronger. I hear only distant sounds, a train whistle, the pounding of the train on the rails, a dog on the other side of the mountain. In warmer months, those all are too faint to compete with the rustle of millions of leaves. But not in winter.

I am surprised, often, by just how quiet the night can be. I don’t hear shouts or calls from people, even those that live within a mile. Surely those would be as loud as a dog’s bark. I don’t hear doors slam either, not car doors or house doors. In fact, I rarely hear the sound of a car at all. Are those quieter than a tree falling or a train whistle?

And so I stand outside, listening not for breaks in the silence so much as to the silence itself. I find the quiet comforting. The quiet tells me all around my little corner of the territory is well. Winter is a good time for listening.

Bad boy!

Sharp-shinned hawk - likely a male

This bad boy was likely the reason I was foiled this weekend in my quest to add a few new sparrow species to my 2012 bird list.  Mr. sharp-shinned hawk was plying the air around my cabin on both Saturday and Sunday.  I was hard-pressed to find even one unwary junco out and about, let alone anything else.

The local crows spent the weekend alarming the forest, screeching at the sharpie and adding to the cacophany that was also augmented by pileated woodpeckers and blue jays alike.  The little birds hid.  The larger birds were outraged and were not above letting everyone know about their outrage. Even the squirrels got into the act, though their constant chattering did not stop them from foraging at my bird feeders.

Life in the forest is not always quiet and serene.  Sometimes it's as noisy as a chain saw.  This was one of those weekends.

Darkened times

Pinchot Lakte, drained

Sometimes I wonder what the point is of looking forward to the weekend. They are over in the blink of an eye. That seems especially true in winter when the days are so short.

One of the reasons I like to rise early, whatever the day, is so that I don’t waste what is already precious little time. I confess that rising before dawn’s light can be more difficult in winter. Climbing out of a warm bed is never easy and is only made worse by darkness. In winter, I try to time it so that by the time I’m dressed, the animals fed and me with coffee in hand, light is already beginning to seep through the darkened woods.

This time of year, the only time I get to see the birds that come to my feeders is on the weekends. It is starting to be light enough in the mornings that it won’t be long before I can enjoy breakfast and the birds at the same time. Maybe even next week if it’s not cloudy in the mornings. At least I hope it will be next week.

Weeks will pass before the evenings are light enough for me to enjoy them. These days, I couldn’t live without my headlamp, and I run through batteries like water. Every now and again I remind myself that if I’d lived 100 years ago, I’d be doing the same things I do today but it would take twice as long to accomplish them since one hand would be carrying a lantern. That’s cold comfort.

The lack of daylight is winter’s cruelest twist, I feel. Cold weather has never bothered me. I prefer the cold to the heat. It’s the short days that rub, that make time slip away even faster than it usually does.

Not looking very much like winter

January has only just started, but I’m already wondering how much winter I’m going to see this year. So far the season is not impressive. Open water? Got that. No snow cover? Got that. One day of winter temperatures sandwiched between 50 degree weather? Got that.

Even looking out a full week, nothing is on the horizon or further west that signals an approaching storm or spate of winter-normal temperatures. It’s mid-November all over again. Even the winter birding feeding has slowed, as though the feeder birds are still finding natural food.

Winter could still arrive with a vengeance, but even if it does, winter is unlikely to last much past late March. So instead of winter weather beginning by Thanksgiving and lasting until late March, a span of some 16 weeks, a winter that begins in mid-January is one that will last only about 9-10 weeks. And even that assumes actual winter weather will begin by the middle of next week. It seems as though the weird weather of 2011 is stretching over into 2012, too. I just hope 2012 doesn’t bring another tornado, earthquake, the hurricanes or another 6ft. of rain to Roundtop Mtn.

Hooded merganser (male)

After the horse roundup I wrote about in yesterday’s post, I proceeded on to the Susquehanna River to do my planned new year’s birding. Overall, I had a successful, if not an outstanding day. I ended up with 33 species of birds, well short of the 40 I believe is possible in York County in early January. High winds kept the count of little birds less than I’d hoped; high water kept me from reaching one area where I’d planned to bird heavily, and a variety of duck species were also nowhere to be found.



2nd year Bald Eagle



That said, the day was certainly not without some great sightings (if not great photos). My first not great photo today is of a male hooded merganser. Many people think the male wood duck is the prettiest North American duck, but the male hooded merganser can’t be far behind. These little diving ducks are pretty shy, too, so I was glad to get any photo at all, especially since I was shooting from inside the car and from across a road. After a few shots I tried to get closer, and all that accomplished was that the duck slipped out of sight and hid in the underbrush.



My second photo today is of a young bald eagle, likely a second year bird. It was high and soaring in less than optimal light, so the markings are not as distinct as I’d like. Bald eagles can virtually be counted as common these days, a fact I still find amazing. Back in the bad old days after DDT, bald eagles were rare in the east. Seeing one was a cause for a major celebration. Now, in migration I’ve had days when I’ve seen more than 20 in a single day. And on this trip I saw 2, both younger birds.



So my 2012 York County bird list is started, if not yet firing on all cylinders. Next, I need to concentrate on finding some of those missing ducks and sparrows!

I don't see this every day

Fireworks from the deck of my cabin

As readers of Roundtop Ruminations might remember, my plan for the New Year’s weekend included some birding to start the new year off properly. I birded a bit on January 1, after watching a midnight fireworks display put up by the ski resort from the front door of my cabin.

I’d also planned to go birding a bit more extensively on January 2, as I wouldn’t have my family’s traditional pork and sauerkraut dinner to attend in the middle of the day.

True to the plan I set off in the morning, heading towards the Susquehanna River, about 10 miles from the cabin. While on the way, I was driving past this farm that raises alpacas. The farm is run by what some would call a gentleman farmer. That simply means someone whose main livelihood does not come from farming. For a while the folks raised horses and then the horses gave way to sheep and a few years ago the alpacas arrived.

Anyway, as I was driving past, I looked up their long, long driveway (close to .25 mile) and saw two horses walking down the driveway along the fence. Both horses had expensive blankets on. It was only half a second after I’d passed the driveway that I realized the horses weren’t inside the fence but actually walking down the driveway all by themselves. So I stopped the car and backed up. By this time, the horses had reached the end of the driveway to appear on the public road.

So I got out and walked up to the grey horse (the other was black with a lot of white markings) and caught it by the halter. I tried to catch the second horse but he tossed his head a bit so I figured I’d better just take one at a time. I started to walk the one horse up the driveway and saw a gate to the big pasture where the alpacas were. Rather than walk the whole way up the driveway and then go back for the second horse, I figured I’d put the first one in the pasture and then go back and see if I could catch the second horse. By this time, the second horse had crossed the road, and a car came by (filled with teenaged skiers who avoided the horse but kept on going).

Then the second horse showed up next to me, following his friend, though I wasn’t leading him. So I opened the gate (the alpacas are on the other side of the pasture, which must be 5-6 acres). I lead the grey horse in and the second horse follows. Then I release them and go out, closing the gate behind me. The horses start running across the pasture, having a wonderful time. They reach the alpacas and they run a bit, too.

So now, I figure I’d better let someone know that I put these horses in the pasture with the alpacas. I was going to call the police, but out at the road, I saw a sign for the farm and it had a phone number on it. So I called. After 5-6 rings a man answered and I told him his horses were loose and that I caught them and put them in the pasture with the alpacas. And the man said, “They’re not my horses.”

Now would be a good time to report that this was not my first livestock roundup. In fact, in this rural area, they happen rather frequently. I’d say once a year is about right. Usually, it’s cows or sheep that escape, though these were not even my first horse adventurers. This past spring I encountered a tiny calf that had wandered out onto a road by easily walking underneath an electric fence that kept mamma on the other side. That little one was herded back in without further incident. The strangest roundup happened years ago near Hawk Mountain Sanctuary when friends and I were returning from an evening dinner only to find a bison calmly lying in the middle of the road. That one had broken out of its pasture and was enjoying the warmth of the macadam on a chilly November evening. In those pre-cellphone days we were lucky to find the owners at home and left them to manage the animal.

But on this day, I discovered I’d just put two horses in a pasture where they didn’t belong with a herd of alpacas. Half-panicked, I apologized profusely to the man and told I’d seen the horses walking down his driveway from up by the barn somewhere and I just assumed they were his. “No,” he said. “I think they belong up the road. I’ve been trying to call but I’m not getting an answer.” I apologized again, and said I was afraid they’d get hit out on the road. To my great relief, the man didn’t seem upset that I’d just put two strange horses in the pasture with his alpacas. When I eventually rang off, the man was going to try and find the horses’ owners, and the two escapees were still in pasture with the alpacas. So I got back in my car and went birding. Isn’t that something? What a way to start the new year!

A winter's morning

December is a good time for sunrise and sunset photos. You need interesting cloud cover to make a good sunrise or sunset photo, and I guess Roundtop gets a lot of that in December. Last night I had a dusting of snow up on the mountain, and at dawn the clouds were still pretty thick, if already beginning to clear.

The landscape is starting to look more like winter now. It is cold, too, but not the bone-chilling mid-winter kind of cold. Still, it's got me thinking I should soon dig out my down parka, which is somewhere in the back of the closet.

The ski resort opened this morning, though only with a few slopes. People were already lining up when I left the mountain. The night time temperatures here just haven’t been cold enough yet to make a lot of snow. That will change after New Year’s, if the forecast is at all correct. The temperature will drop and the wind will rise. Well, what do I expect? It will be January.

What will be different this year for me is that the ski resort is planning fireworks on New Year’s Eve. I will have a ringside seat for that, which should be fun. Usually, I don’t stay up to midnight, though I’m not infrequently awakened by the sound of fireworks from elsewhere, or even homegrown fireworks or gunshots. The dogs are quick to bark at any noise and their noise is more likely to awaken me than the shooting or fireworks themselves. I wonder what they will think of fireworks? It won’t be long before I find out the answer to that one.

Wishing and hoping

Along Mt. Airy Rd. -   gorgeous sunrise light

Now that Christmas is over, with no more presents to be bought or opened, no more food to be cooked or eaten, my mind automatically turns to what comes next. For me, this means the start of a new year and with that, the start of a new bird list.

For many years I’ve been atop the Ebird listings in my home county. My county is where I have always done the bulk of my birding. I haven’t the means or the time to travel any further than that to maintain a sighting list. Even so, for the last few years, family and work obligations have kept me from doing much birding. EBird, that Cornell database of bird sightings from literally everywhere, has also become more popular and more used. Those two facts combined to drop me further down the leaderboard than I am used to finding myself.

Now truth be told, I am not much of a lister when it comes to my bird sightings. But I am rather competitive, so finding my name further down than the top of the list simply does not sit well with me. As a result, I am planning to start 2012 with some serious birding, in hopes that during the new year I will have again have the time to put into keeping my name atop the county list.

This week I am planning my assault to regain my top slot. That means figuring out where I will bird over January 1 and 2, planning the route and configuring the GPS to get me from here to there in the fastest time possible. It means having the camera ready to record anything exotic or so unusual that no one will believe that I saw it without documentation. It means studying and re-studying my bird books to make sure I can quickly ID every distant and fast-moving speck of a bird in an instant (ha!).

Now I have no idea if work, family and better birders will keep me from seriously working my list in 2012, but I’m determined to get a good start on the year. York County is not a birder’s paradise, either, so those of us crazed enough to seriously bird here (likely for the same reasons I have—lack of means and time) will never be at the same level of competition as those souls from, say, Cape May County in New Jersey.

None of that is the point. The point is I can start a new list with the new year and maybe, just maybe, in 2012 I will get to see oodles of really good birds. And see my name back at the top of the county list again. Hope—that’s what the new year always brings.

It's only time



Christmas fern

Is it my imagination or is it already possible to tell that the days are longer? Here in my corner of Pennsylvania, the days only lengthen at this time of year by a minute each day.

In fact the sunrise is now actually later than it was on the solstice, when it rose at 7:26 a.m. Sunrise is now at 7:29 a.m., on its way to a sunrise of 7:30 a.m., where it will remain until January 9, when it will inch back one minute. It’s the sunsets that are arriving later now. Still the earliest sunset was not on the solstice but from December 4-11, when the sun set each day at 4:42 p.m.

Today the sun sets at 4:50 p.m., and it’s only when you add up the daylight hours between the sunrises and the sunsets that you can find the shortest day on December 22. I am nearly always up before sunrise in all seasons of the year, but I can already tell when I return to the cabin in the evenings that it’s not as dark as it was during that long, dark week after Thanksgiving. So the day feels longer to me, though the actual length of the daylight hours is hardly different. Somehow, those few minutes seem to make a big difference.

My photo today is of the common Christmas fern, which is lovely even in winter. The fern retains its bright green color, even though the fronds no longer stand up and are nearly hidden by the fallen leaves.

Not a white Christmas

Old bridge and steers - near Bowmansdale, Pennsylvania

It didn’t snow on Roundtop for Christmas this year. In fact, the ski area on the mountain was not even able to make enough snow over the past few weeks to open for the season yet. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is normally their biggest week of the year, so when they lose Christmas week, much of the season goes with it. I’ve lived on Roundtop Mtn. nearly 20 years now, and I believe this is only the second time the ski area hasn’t been open for Christmas week (though they’ve had some close calls).

As I am typing, it is raining again. The rain today will certainly push 2011’s rain total above 60 inches, which is nearly twice what this area normally sees. Given the weird weather this year, I’m about half afraid 2012 will bring no rain at all.

Snow or no snow, Christmas on Roundtop is both fun and hectic. Without skiers, the holiday was much quieter than is typical—unless you count the nightly raccoon attacks on the bird feeders, which has shortened my sleep every night this week. I’d be happily content to let the raccoon eat all the bird seed and even the feeders themselves, if only Baby Dog wouldn’t wake me up with her barking to announce their arrival.

I did take advantage of the quiet to wander through the brown forests of the mountain. Not much is going on. The woods are still and quiet and brown, and I’m starting to find the snowless winter difficult to photograph in any way that I find interesting. Better lighting would help or at least clearer skies, though I find it hard to get very excited about winter without snow.

Odds and ends

This is the last of my Sunday snow photos, a view from my back deck. I’ve always had a soft spot for that big rock. Boulders of all sizes are common in this area of Pennsylvania, but they appear where they choose, sometimes a forest is dense with them, while nearby there are none. That rock is “mine,” the largest on my property. I have a few other almost-boulders, too, but none are larger than this one.

Don’t expect any sun photos tomorrow, neither setting nor rising, to mark the solstice. I am socked in with rain and fog. Solstice means the days will again grow longer, but I won’t be able to see evidence of the return of the light until the sky clears.

It always seems a bit odd to me that the days begin to lengthen just as winter begins. To me it would feel more appropriate if longer days began midway through winter—to mark the beginning of the ending of that season. I understand the science behind how the seasons operate. I just feel, emotionally, that they should operate differently.

The fog on the mountain makes sounds travel further than usual, but I think that distance distorts the sounds I hear, too. Last night I’d almost convinced myself I heard wood frogs in the distance. It’s warmer than average for late December, but it’s not warm enough for that. Those little frogs are buried in some nice deep mud by now. They may deign to reappear in very late February if there’s a warm spate of days. Late March is more likely.

Sun or no sun, frogs or no frogs, autumn will end today, and by the time I wake in the morning, a new season, a new day, a longer day will be here. Let the season begin. Winter is here.

A little light at night

Snow on marcescent American beech leaf

The snow of Sunday morning is gone, leaving in its wake weather warmer than normal for late December. The ski resort will likely not be able to open for at least part of the Christmas week, traditionally its biggest week of the entire ski season.

Crews make snow for 2-3 nights, then it rains and ruins it all. They make snow again for 2-3 nights and then it warms up and the newly-made snow melts. My weather forecast predicts rain and above freezing nights over the next few days. The crew needs temperatures below freezing by at least a few degrees for most of the night in order to make snow.

When crews make snow, the lights along the slopes are lit, and when they aren’t, all the lights are off. You would think I would see a big difference whether the lights are on or off, but most of the time I don’t. Over by my cabin, I get a fair amount of winter light from the night sky. It’s actually lighter at night in the winter without Roundtop’s lights than it is in the summer when all the leaves are on the trees.

Of course, a few leaves remain on the trees most of the winter. The American beech tree retains many of its leaves right up until the dead ones are pushed off the twigs by the new growth in spring. A few years ago I learned this is called marcescence, which means the leaves wither but don’t fall off.

Theories abound about the purpose of marcescence, but from what I’ve read nobody really knows why some leaves don’t fall off. Certain species, like beech, are more prone to it than other species. Younger trees and the lower branches also seem more likely to display marcescence.

Still, the vast majority of the trees have lost all their leaves, and that lets the light of the wintry night shine all the way down by my cabin.

Snowy surprise

I woke up to a bit of snow on Sunday morning, which was something of a surprise. On Saturday afternoon, snow showers were the order of the day, but the snow was so fine I could only see it against a background of dark green spruces. By late evening, the snow showers seemed over, and I even saw a few stars when I ran the dogs outside for the last time.

So I was not expecting to wake up to a pretty little dusting of snow the next morning. Fearing the snow would not last through the morning, I took this photo before the day was well lit, and the snow still threatened to obscure the western mountain. The dogs were just as excited as I was, more so actually.

My dogs forget everything they have ever learned when they see snow. They forget their names, let alone any of those tedious commands I spend so much time trying to teach them. The term “domesticated” does not apply to them when snow is on the ground. They turn wild as quickly as I turn off a light switch, wolfishly dipping their noses into the white stuff and racing along a trail. They are shocked, dumbfounded even, when they reach the end of the long lead and are forced to a neck-rattling stop, leaving me with a sore arm. Truly, snow makes them feral.

I, myself, am too domesticated to turn feral so quickly. I need a couple of days, at least.

Perhaps some would disagree.

Unexpected weirdness

I can’t really give you a good reason why I like this photo of vines twisted around a couple of saplings. I just do. Perhaps it’s the way the morning light warms the background, perhaps it’s the twists themselves. No matter.

Last night I was watching a TV show on DVD on my computer. The show took place in a rural setting, and in the background of one of the scenes I could hear a red fox barking. Now, this sound was probably added in some studio, simply as a way to add more “atmosphere” to the scene. I probably wasn’t even supposed to notice the sound, but being the kind of person I am, I did. And so did my dogs.

Dog and Baby Dog went nuts. They are attuned to the sound of a fox barking as much as I am. We have suffered many fox attacks on my poor chickens in the middle of the night. A pair of local foxes lives near the cabin and frequently bark to tell each other where the other is. I’ve had them gallop under the cabin, under one side and out the other. I’ve had them race down my driveway.

Well, those two dogs thought I had a red fox in the bedroom. They started barking, which soon turned into howling and later degenerated into lunging, utter chaos and full-scale destruction. The cats scattered and hid under the nearest piece of furniture. I had to the turn the DVD off to get them to calm down.

That’s the first thing they’ve ever paid attention to on the TV or computer. They totally ignore dogs barking on TV. They ignore wolves howling. Nothing else on TV has ever made me think they even heard the sound. But they sure heard that fox.

Frosted moss

After several mornings with a heavy frost, today the forest at Roundtop is somewhat warmer ahead of a showery afternoon. As is to be expected on such a day, the sky is grey and heavy with clouds. Though warmer, the day is still not so very warm. With a bit of a breeze and the dampness in the air, the day is verging on raw.

Even though the sun is now well above the horizon, I wouldn’t want to bet I could get a decent photo in this light. So today I am posting a photo from yesterday, a lovely moss, dusted with frost. I must confess that although I love mosses, I am virtually incompetent at identifying them. Partly the fault is in the available guides, partly it’s the mosses themselves, which often require a microscope or at least an excellent hand lens to be reasonably sure of them. I look at the super close-up moss photos and find I don’t have a glass that lets me see them in that fine a detail. Photos in field guides taken from further away all look the same to me. A good moss class is probably what I need, but there’s not much hope of finding one of those that’s free, within a reasonable driving distance and at a time that’s convenient for me to attend. So I remain incompetent at identifying them. Instead I will have to be content merely to admire their delicate beauty.

A fern in frost

Christmas fern (frosted)

In my winter landscape, not much has a color other than some shade of brown. So when I’m out in the woods, anything that is non-brown is quick to catch my eye. One thing I always know to look for is the Christmas fern.

Christmas ferns stay green all winter, though they flatten out and don’t stand up the way they do during the growing season. Because they stay green, they were favored as household Christmas decorations at least as late as the 19th Century, particularly in those pre-electricity, pre-Christmas lights days that seem unimaginable today.

And really, those days were not that long ago. Even my father claims (though my mother always denied) that he did his schoolwork by a kerosene lantern because rural electrification did not arrive until he was in high school. Going into the forest to cut the fronds of the fern that soon came to be called a Christmas fern was a family tradition, as much as going to a farm to get a tree is today.

I’ve always tried to picture, and usually my imagination fails me, those Victorian ladies in their corsets and long skirts out in a forest delicately snipping Christmas ferns with their sewing scissors to decorate their living rooms and hallways. I just can’t make that whole picture work. But so they did, or so I’m told.

Today’s Christmas fern captured my eye because of the frost on the fronds, but I would have been just as glad to see it for its greenery alone on this grey day in an otherwise brown landscape.

Sunrise snowmaking

As the season is now in that time where little is green or growing, I set off this morning looking for tiny things to photograph. I looked at the designs made by frost. I looked at brown and dried things, some of which were unrecognizable in their current state (though I’m sure I knew what they were when they were green). I looked at twisted vines, frost-stunted mosses, and Christmas ferns laying flat on the forest floor.

And then I turned around and saw the sunrise and decided the little things can wait another day, perhaps for a grey day when winter’s poor morning light foils any attempts at photography. But had I not spent those minutes looking for those little gifts of the forest, I wouldn’t have seen the sun rise in all its glory over the eastern mountains.

Winter mountains, winter fields

South Mountains

Clear and cold, a perfect almost-winter weekend at my cabin, at least as far as the weather goes. After the surprise snowstorm in late October, I spent time on Sunday getting the chickens ready for winter. The early snowstorm gave little notice and the work I did to get them through it was just a stopgap measure. This time I did the job properly, so now they are protected and ready for winter.

I didn’t do this work any too soon. This morning the chicken water was frozen solid. Fortunately, in winter I have a second waterer so I can switch them back and forth between frozen and not-frozen. I bring the frozen one into the house, set it in a sink or bathtub and let it thaw. Twelve hours later, I repeat the process.

Sunday, the weather never got above freezing at my cabin. Roundtop made snow all weekend except for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. When they turned the guns off, I checked my thermometer, thinking the temperature had finally reached 32. Maybe over on the sunny ski slopes the temperature got too warm to make snow, but at my cabin it never got there.

The mountain and the area around my cabin look like early winter now, lacking only a cover of snow to complete the picture. In my mind, the brown November landscape starts to take shape once the harvests are over.  The harvest was finished in October, and the the brown November landscape is just showing up in mid-December this year.

Snowmaking!

Snowmaking for the new ski season has started at Roundtop!

I first heard the sound of the snowmaking guns shortly before 9 p.m.  last night, and it took a few minutes for the sound to register.  It's a bit like remembering what a robin's song is the first time you hear it in the spring after months of not hearing it at all.  Finally, it occured to me that I'd been hearing the sound for a few minutes. Snowmaking!

My cabin is on the west side of the mountain, and over there the sound isn't all that loud.  If you've ever heard grain being milled, that's a similar sound, just a constant hum.  It's only when I walk down around the slopes that the noise can get pretty loud. It's not so loud that I can't deal with it, but it is too loud for the dogs. It hurts their very sensitive ears. 

This morning I discovered that I'd forgotten another aspect of the dogs and the snowmaking guns. They can't hear me over the guns even when we're not close enough for the sound to hurt their ears.  For a few minutes I just thought they were being exceptionally bad, and then I remembered.  Some days I'm not sure which of us needs more training--them or me.

If the weather holds, Roundtop will probably open for skiing sometime next week. When the weather stays cold, it doesn't take the snowmaking crew very long to cover the mountain well enough to open for business.  Even after the mountain is open, they will continue to make snow to build up the base.  Later in the season they will make snow to cover up any melting spots. 

In the first photo, you can just barely see what looks like windblown snow at the top of the mountain. That's from the snowmaking.  Natural snow still covered the top of the mountain but melted off the lower section during the day on Thursday.  The snow you see in the foreground of the second photo is the remains of the natural snow I had on Wednesday night.You can also see one of the snowmaking guns on the right side of the second photo.

It won't be long before the skiers arrive!

Snow!

Snow arrived with a bang and a flourish last night. The temperature dropped some 20 degrees in a matter of 90 minutes. The bang was provided by thunder. At the time I heard the thunder, it was still raining torrents, and though the snow started within minutes after the thunder, I’m not sure I can accurately call it a thundersnow. Close, but no cigar.

It was a vicious storm, thankfully gone this morning. It’s a rare day when I’m under both a winter storm warning and a flood warning. I ended up with less snow than was predicted. What did fall is now pasted to the sides of the trees and makes them, at least to my eyes, look almost like white birch trees instead of the oaks that make up the bulk of the forest at Roundtop.

The extreme change in weather brought another kind of flood to my doorstep. The wintering birds arrived at my feeders before dawn, first demanding food and then announcing its presence. The birds even arrived before the squirrels, for once. The unseasonably warm weather let the birds find natural food later into the season than is typical. Obviously, judging by their instantaneous arrive, the birds knew the feeders were armed and loaded even if they didn’t partake of them. Add a dollop of snow to the landscape and suddenly dozens of them appear.

The calendar won’t proclaim winter for another few weeks, yet, but at least for the moment, that season has arrived on Roundtop.

Grey

It’s gray today. Or perhaps grey.  I'm never sure.  And foggy, when it’s not raining. In other words, the day is about as gloomy as a day can be. Sound travels better in the thick air, making distant sounds audible and nearer sounds louder and jarring. Baby Dog skittered and barked when something over by the paintball fields clattered to the ground, not even making a loud sound. Even her barks sounded louder to me.

Early this morning a pileated woodpecker, loud on any day of the year, announced its presence as it flew from tree to tree, landing for just a moment or two before taking off for the next tree. It was, apparently, on some kind of woodpecker mission about something, but its goal was not clear to either human or canines.

A great blue heron stalked the edge of the pond, eyeing me warily but not flying off. Most of them have migrated, though a few always hang around. I’ve even seen them in snow, standing in a cold, rushing stream and looking miserable. The warm weather so far this December has likely kept this one from rushing further south and gives it no reason to look miserable, at least not at the moment.

Over by another pond, I hear the rattle of a belted kingfisher, another bird that can be seen more or less all year when open water remains. They disappear in an instant when everything freezes shut but somehow manage to reappear just as quickly on the first warm day when the water is flowing again, even temporarily.

I saw turkey vultures last evening, 6 or 7 of them. They rarely disappear over the winter entirely. Even after a heavy snow, I can often find them on the first sunny day after a storm. Where they go during the storms is anyone’s guess and something I’ve always wondered about. It can’t be far, but it’s not here.

For the moment, Roundtop is a stopping point for these birds. Most will stay as long as the weather holds. The woodpecker will stay regardless of the weather. The heron and the vultures are likely from further north, as the local birds of those species moved out several weeks ago. The presence of these birds here today tells me winter is approaching, even if it gives no immediate sign of arriving.

December ain't what it used to be

Early December sunset from the cabin

Though December is barely started, already I can say that my warmer than normal November is turning into a warmer than normal December. The forecast for the next week or so continues that trend, though several upcoming days appear to be headed more towards normal than above normal. The result of the temperature and the rain forest-like precipitation experienced at Roundtop this year is that the forest around my cabin doesn’t look much like December. If I was being especially curmudgeonly today, I’d say it barely looks like late October.

Of course, that would be the late October of 20-30 years ago, not the late October of the past 5-10 years. Taking more recent history into consideration, I’d say the forest looks like almost mid-November. Still, I finally have back my full view out the western windows to gaze on all winter. Sometime in May, the woods will grow so thick that I won’t see a sunset again until roughly this point of the year. I actually have more sunlight in winter than in summer, despite the fewer hours of daylight now.

With one week of deer season gone and the second just starting, so far the semi-tame doe and her two fawns have survived. I saw all three of them this morning, safe at the bottom of my lane for the night. The problem is that they don’t stay where they are safe. They wander out on the abandoned ski slope to graze, but so far the hunters have ventured deeper into the woods and the trio has been safe.

Hunters seeking venison for the winter tend to get less picky about the deer they will take as the season progresses. At first, they want that good-sized buck, by which they normally mean a big deer with a big rack of antlers. If, after several days of hunting, such a creature does not materialize, they downsize their expectations to any sized buck with a legal rack. If that one doesn’t play out, by the end of the season they have doe season for several days, where just about anything goes. So this white-tailed family has a ways to go before the toughest thing they will have to deal with is the upcoming winter.

What worries me is that their tameness could be their undoing. Deer are curious, and these are no exception. It’s their curiosity that has caused them to become half-tame. I wouldn’t be surprised if they would walk right up to a hunter or a tree stand, just to check it out and see what it was. Normally, I don’t pay much attention to deer, mostly because it’s hard to tell one from another. I have watched this doe and her fawns all summer, from when the fawns were tiny, spotted things, just testing their feet for the first time on a dirt road and watching me walk by with the dogs. I think of them as neighbors now and hope they remain so.

A frosty morning

The temperature dropped low enough for a decent frost last night, as you can see from today’s photos. November was unseasonably warm and frosts this season have been few and far between. Usually by this point in the year I’ve lost count of the number of frosts I’ve had.

The warmer weather has lulled me into poor thinking. In a normal year, the temperature slowly but steadily declines, week by week, after the fall equinox. Each little drop in temperature is a signal to me that winter is coming, and certain household projects should be accomplished in preparation. With the weather staying warmer than usual, it was easy to put off some of those jobs for (yet) another week. And now, suddenly, it is December.

The temperature is now just a bit warmer than is normal for here, which still feels a bit like a rude awakening. I’m rather far behind my winter readiness schedule, and I have no one to blame for my own procrastination. What is likely to happen—and likely to happen very shortly—is that winter will arrive with a bang. In other words, if I don’t get moving and quickly, I’m going to find myself hip-deep in snow, with the chickens still in their late fall quarters and stuff outside that should be inside.

So this weekend, I am resolved to ignore the warmer temperatures and get to it. No wandering around the woods this weekend, no hours of birdwatching or looking for things to photograph, just a weekend of work around the cabin (and with a few minutes of birdwatching and photographing, I hope). Just because the cold and snow is arriving late this year doesn’t mean it will wait for me.