Wet weekend

Mayapple

More flowers and more birds are making their first spring appearances around my cabin. Alas, none of the birds were warblers. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t had any good ones. A male scarlet tanager seems to be taking up residence right by the cabin’s north side. I was treated to his sweet song all weekend long and saw him a few times as well.

I frequently see scarlet tanager deeper in the forest. Down in the valley between Roundtop Mtn. and Nell’s Hill they are regular summer residents. I’ve never had one so close to the cabin before, though, so I’m quite enjoying his presence. I haven’t yet seen him with a female so I don’t know if he will end up with a nest nearby or not.

The blue jays that are nesting on the south side of the cabin must have hatched. I no longer see mom’s head or tail constantly poking up out of her stick nest. The babies, if there are any, aren’t yet big enough for their heads to appear above the edge of the nest.

The first wild geraniums have appeared and, as you can see, so have the first mayapple blossoms. Mayapples are difficult to photograph. The flowers are usually hidden under the umbrella-like leaves, which means I have to get down on the ground to get a photo. That’s not so bad, but at least at my cabin, wherever I see mayapple blooms, I also find poison ivy. You can see one of those on the left side of today’s photo. I’ve already had all the poison ivy I need for this year. A few weeks ago before the leaves of anything were out, I pulled up some stray twigs and roots and ended up with poison between my fingers. That was not fun at all. I know enough to wear gloves most of the time, but I wasn’t thinking that those bare roots might be poison. Now I know.

Busy spring doings

blue jay with nest material (nest in crook of tree above)

Spring showed up all over the place at Roundtop this weekend. Bloodroot bloomed (and the blooms are already dropping). The first of many spring beauties have appeared. The first ruby-crowned kinglets are flitting through the forest. And one of the local blue jays is building a nest just past the end of the cabin. I hope to be able to watch that progress and eventually see the little blue jays. The nest is pretty far up, though, and the nest doesn’t look as though it will be very easy to see into once the babies are born, but I will try.

Ruby-crowned kinglet



The ruby-crowned kinglets were flitting through the very highest of the trees, so my photos don’t show close views. I also took a lot of photos when I looked at them later that turned out to have no ruby-crowned kinglet in them. The birds flitted away between the time I saw them and the time the shutter clicked. That’s how fast they are. In the second photo of the kinglets, the little guy looks to be singing his heart out, beak pointed at the sky, his head thrust back, giving it all he’s worth.

The blue jay holds a twig in her beak and the nest is up in the crook of the tree above her. It’s the scroungy looking pile of twigs in the crook. I hope the bird will make that nest look a little more secure by the time the nest is done. Right now it doesn’t look as though it will hold an egg inside it. Of course, it is a work in progress, so there’s still time to fix it.


Singing ruby-crowned kinglet



Buds on the oaks and beech trees that make up most of my forest are starting to look bigger, though they are still weeks away from leafing out. For once, the first in several years, the timing of spring is at least close to normal. Likely the colder March had a lot to do with that. As a result I’m anticipating a decent spring for warblers here on Roundtop, hopeful that they won’t fly past the mountain without stopping first. So far, I don’t know if I’m right or not, but it’s certainly time to start looking for them.

A season's changes

Ah, what a difference a day makes. Even just a hint of a breeze from the north or northwest is enough to chase out the humidity that comes on the southern breezes. The temperature is still warm, but the lowered humidity makes it feel about 20 degrees cooler. And best of all, at least from my point of view, the forest may even start to dry out for a novel change.

A few hours of nicer weather, and I’m already plotting visits to hawkwatches and deeper forays into the woods. I am actually thinking about cooking dinner for a change. Perhaps my back forest will dry out enough to start some weed-whacking. Fall is in the air, so close I can smell it.

Around the cabin, the year’s crop of young birds are growing into wild teenagers. Yesterday a young blue jay sat on the door handle of my screen door and screamed at the cat inside. That’s not the kind of thing an adult blue jay would do. I didn’t think the door handle was big enough for a blue jay to perch on.

I am already seeing signs of songbird migration heading to parts south, though Roundtop’s summer residents don’t yet appear to be among them. The pewee still calls in the early morning. The woods are still overcrowded with chipping sparrows. Eastern kingbirds still float across the grassy ski slopes. Swallows and chimney swifts appear to be on the move. Crows too, perhaps, as I seem to be seeing more of them and those frequently moving to the south. Little signs of fall, another one or two each day now, are coming to the mountain.

Winter study

Winter is good for a lot outdoor activities, though the early darkness can be a limiting factor to many of them. When the day reaches the point that I can’t see anything when I am outside, I usually retreat to the cabin and enjoy another activity that seems best accomplished in winter—studying fieldguides. This year I am working on learning more about the local edible and poisonous plants.

Over the years I’ve learned the basics of my native plants, but I’ve never felt really expert about that level of knowledge. Things like birds, animals, animal tracks and even trees, ferns and fungi were always more exciting and interesting to me. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling that I need to spend some time improving my knowledge of the smaller plants around me.

In part, my interest this year is based on two things—the economy and the idea that I’ve pretty well studied most everything else already. My original hope was that I could cut down my food bill by doing some fairly serious foraging in the warmer months. I gave that idea up pretty quickly. Most of the fieldguides are kind of liberal in their take on what is edible. Edible includes many plants with medicinal uses, but far fewer that might actually end up on a dinner table for more than a garnish.

For years, I’ve gathered black raspberries and blueberries. Sometimes I’ve added fiddleheads and dandelion greens to a dinner salad. I gather hickory nuts when I can get to them before the squirrels. But if I put everything together in a box, it might, just might, be enough to feed me for perhaps a couple of days. If I added a few home-caught fish to the mix, I would add a few more days to my grand total, but the bottom line is that my home-gathered food isn’t going to last me very long.

This year I’m hoping to improve that dismal total a little bit. For the record, I’m not planning to eat any mushrooms, so don’t worry about that. I don’t trust my knowledge or lack thereof enough to try those anytime soon or maybe forever. I’m talking more about things like cattails or watercress, maybe burdock. Unfortunately, I don’t even hope to be able to go "off the grid" of the grocery store. I simply want to try the wild things that are out there and get a few free meals from the experience.