Summer storm

Beaver Creek before the kids arrived

For a few days at least, the nasty, goopy weather that has characterized summer 2015 is gone.  The weather was still goopy during adventure camp down at Beaver Creek yesterday, but the kids all finished their critter-catching sessions and got back up the mountain before the storm hit.

The severe summer storm brought down trees, took out power and littered the yards and roads with various-sized limbs and branches.  A tornado took out an elementary school near Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and though the principal was in the school at the time, she wasn’t hurt.  It’s possibly a mark of how odd this summer is that it took a storm like that to bring about some normal summer weather.  So I will enjoy the weather for a few days before the goop returns.  Perhaps I’ll even have time to put together a new chicken run for the girls, a project hampered by the last three rainy weekends.

I have a broody hen, something of a rarity in Rhode Island Reds, who are notoriously poor mothers.  She is, naturally, brooding where I don’t want her to brood. I tried moving her and the eggs, which didn’t sit well with her at all. She returned to her original spot within an hour, so I gave in and returned the eggs to her.  They were still warm, so I hope all is well there.  If I’m going to have a broody hen, I hope to get some chicks out of it.  And if she’s going to have chicks, then I really need to get that new run built.  Of course, Miss Broody may well decide that motherhood is not for her and give up before the 21-day hatch time is over. I’m also not sure she’s turning her eggs, as she should be, but she sure has plunked herself solidly in that one spot. There’s a long way to go before any hatching might occur.  And even then some hens kill the chicks that hatch, which is not only should I not count the chicks before they hatch, but I’d better not count them afterwards, either.

Made it!

 

Whew! I hope I don’t have any more storms like that for a while. 85 mph straight line winds cause as much damage as an F1 tornado. Trees are down all over the place, as are garages and sheds and a few barns, too.

I escaped damage at the cabin, but have been cleaning up at my family’s farm, where dozens of trees are down. For some of the biggest ones that are still hanging over the barn we will need to get professional tree trimmers to remove them, though those people are now booked solid for a few weeks. Fortunately, no more severe weather is on the horizon for a while.

In better news, I have finally seen a fawn! This was no wobbly spring fawn, but a good-sized fawn of summer, well able to follow its mother across the mountain road in front of me.

A wild ride

Yellow Breeches Creek near Lisburn, Pennsylvania

Wild weather ripped across Roundtop mountain yesterday and early this morning. I awoke to a few flashes of lightning at 4 a.m., and more than a few strong gusts of wind. Those always make me hold my breath until they pass.

Yesterday and overnight a hard, cold rain fell, creating streams where none existed the day before. The lane up the mountain was washed out pretty bad, and leaves clogged the washed out areas. This morning the Yellow Breeches Creek ran full, if not over its banks. The wind still gusts and so far shows no sign of waning. The temperature has dropped 20 degrees so far. It is not a day for lounging outdoors.

Still, I think I’ve missed the some of the more extreme weather I’ve heard about in other parts of the country that was caused by this storm. For now, the roller coaster that is this season has rolled back into winter. Last night I went outside in my flip flops. This morning I’m wearing my winter jacket. I have no idea whether this latest big dip is the last one or just one more on the ride. Last year winter never arrived. This year it comes and goes from one day to the next.  And slams the door in both directions.

Storms

along Beaver Creek

Last evening produced a thunderstorm of the kind I only see once or twice a year. The lightning was right on top of me, the strikes came fast and furious. All the animals, even the ones who are normally oblivious to storms, were scared, wincing or cowering every time the lightning flashed and again when the thunder rattled the cabin.

Fortunately, nothing struck at the cabin itself, though at least two of the strikes were within 100 yards of me, which is too close for my comfort. Storms of one kind of another are a way of life at the cabin, and I more or less have gotten used to them. When you live in the woods and storms come through regularly, you have to learn to live with them. Storms are a lot different and considerably more intense in the woods than when you’re in a city or a town. Trees sway overhead, leaves fall, rain pelts the windows like hail, branches fall onto the roof. I can tell by the sounds outside if the storm is intensifying or diminishing. Sometimes I can’t tell if the sound itself is from rain hitting the leaves or wind tossing the leaves and limbs around. They both sound much the same—loud.

I’m glad I have radar on my phone. I can watch the storm cells march across the mountain and figure out how much longer it will be until the worst of the storm is past me. I find it a lot easier to get through the worst storms when I can calculate that it’s going to be over in 5 or 10 or 15 minutes. Not knowing how long the storm would last, as in those pre-radar-on-the-phone days, was a lot worse.

I have other ways of calculating storm difficulties, too. For rainstorms, my basement is usually dry for the first 3-4 inches. More than that, unless the ground has been dry for a while, I’d better start checking the basement and getting the pumps ready.

Winter storms can be particularly tricky, though lately those have been few and far between. Ice is a big worry, as limbs and trees can crack under that weight, and often electricity goes out too. It’s scary being outside during an ice storm, and those storms can go on for long enough that sooner or later I have to take the dogs out. It’s no fun listening to and seeing trees crack and crash to the ground every few seconds while a dog is sniffing around trying to find the perfect place to pee.

I’ve been through a few honest-to-gosh blizzards at the cabin, though none of those too recently either. With those, worrying about the electricity going out is always in the forefront of my mind. That happens a lot because the electric line comes up the mountain through the forest, traveling for at least a mile before reaching a road. Trees are always falling on that line.

I do what I can to ready myself for such storms. I have water on hand. I have a propane fireplace for heat in the winter. I have pumps and back-up pumps for severe rain. I keep the phone charged so I can watch the radar. And mostly I just wait for the storms to be over.

A stormy night

A no-name creek

Last evening produced quite the gullywasher, though nothing worse at my cabin. No trees down, no power outage, no hail. I was luckier than some areas not far away. The thunder and lightning was still bad enough to scare the chicks, the kittens and the dogs. That makes for a rocky evening, one where little is accomplished and a walk is out of the question.

After the downpours, the remnants of the storm hung around, producing rain off and on for much of the night. The morning is muddy and the local creeks and washes are all running full. I’m just happy the storm is over and cooler, less humid weather is ahead. I turn into a slug during hot and humid weather. Even reading seems like too much effort, let alone cooking or washing dishes or wandering the woods.

At this point in the season the woods are as lush as they are going to get, and the rain makes the forest look even more lush. Trying to walk through woods this thick is a bit like trying to walk through a jungle, and it’s not enormously fun. Brambles, deer ticks, wet leaves don’t make for an easy time of it.

I pulled a deer tick off my wrist yesterday after my morning walk with Dog, and we stayed on dirt roads for our walk. Those ticks are so tiny they are no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. I thought I had a piece of dirt on me, went to brush it off and only after it wouldn’t brush off did I realize that it was a tick.

In summer I tend to stick to existing trails where the underbrush is chopped back. Bushwhacking is better left to the winter months or at least the fall when the remaining underbrush is dry and easier to navigate. The ticks are fewer then too.

Goslings on parade

Although Memorial Day is only the unofficial start of summer, the local goslings are the size of chickens already. One of the three local families was on parade yesterday afternoon, and I couldn’t resist snapping a shot of them. All told 27 geese and goslings spend most of their days on this little pond. The total breaks down to 6 parents, 2 “helpers” that are probably last year’s babies and 19 goslings.

This group are the biggest and are likely a week or so older than the other two groups, which appear to me to be identical in size. Even this group doesn’t have any feathers yet, though.
This holiday weekend here was a hot one, and I hope it doesn’t mean the rest of the summer will be as hot. Worse than the heat was the oppressive humidity. Sunday was the worst day for that. Monday was likely even a degree or so warmer than Sunday but felt better as the humidity was slightly lower. Today, severe storms are predicted to clear out this unseasonably warm weather and return the mountain to normal temperatures again. I’m ready for the normal temperatures, but I’m not a fan of severe weather in any form.

After living in the woods as long as I have, you might guess I’d be used to severe weather, but I’m not. Wind is my most common bane. Surrounded by trees as I am, wind is an almost ever-present danger that can wreak havoc in any season. Lightning ranks #2 on my list of scary weather. I’ve had some lightning strike so close to the cabin that the flash momentarily blinded me. And the strike was still a good 100 feet away. Secondarily, even not-terribly-close strikes knock out electricity and can cause other damage. My neighbor’s well pump was once knocked out by a nearby strike—though mine was fine that time around. So extreme weather of one kind or another is always a concern. I don’t let the threat or even the reality of bad weather keep me from living in the woods, but I’m always glad when it’s over, too.

Tornado or straight line winds?

I am okay.  The dogs, cats and chickens are okay. The cabin is okay.  Even the trees around my cabin are okay, but just a few hundred yards away from my front door, things are not okay.

At 6 a.m. this morning either a tornado or straight-line winds blew across the mountain, at a speed of 80 mph, which was clocked at a weather station on Roundtop that a local TV station installed and which spits out weather info every 10 minutes.

I'd been awake since 4 a.m. by bad thunderstorms and heavy rain. I got up at my usual 5:30 a.m. and checked the weather radar.  A storm was coming my way, and the lightning and thunder started getting bad, so I turned the TV off.  At 5:45 my sister called to report we were under a tornado warning and that Roundtop was right in the path.

I grabbed the dogs, two cats and headed for the bathroom, the basement already getting some water in it, and besides, I didn't really want to go outside to get there, anyway.  Within a few minutes, the storm intensitified, and then the wind started to rise.  The wind and the noise started getting very loud and just kept building. I started hearing little things falling on my roof--just leaves and acorns, probably.  Then for 5 seconds it got very, very loud.  I won't say I heard the "freight train" but it was only a few steps below that. It sounded as though it was overhead but not actually on the cabin.  And just about when I was thinking this wasn't going to be good at all, it was gone.

So I gave it a few minutes, said "Whew" a few times and proceeded to take Dog for a walk, and when I got close to the lodge, that's when I saw the first of the damage.

The tree in the photo above is twisted, so until someone tells me different, I'm calling it a tornado.

As far as I could see, the lodge itself and surrounding buildings are okay. I saw some small pieces of building debris--flashing, mostly, or other small loose stuff and not a lot of that.

Across the road from the resort, over by that small building (a pump house), you can see trees in the forest just flattened by the wind.  The road itself is still blocked to traffic. I was finally able to get out by driving on a dirt road and then leaving by a normally-closed access road and avoiding this area. I don't know how far down the road the damage continues. I haven't been out that way yet and won't be able to get there until that part of the road is cleared.

Right now the sky is clearing, and the weather is improving. A few schools are closed.  There's lots of localized flooding but the main part of the storm is now over, and now the clean-up is underway.

Not so much fun and games

Didn’t I just say that my busy life appeared to be returning to a normal pace? Boy, when I’m wrong I am really wrong.

First, let me apologize. Every 15-hour day that passed, I thought was the last one and that “tomorrow” would bring a let-up. I’ve pretty much been wrong about that all week.

Then this weekend, Baby Dog needed to make an unplanned vet trip (she’ll be fine but is on antibiotics). And yesterday, well, where to I start about that?

First, it rained. It rained for inches, and the 5 or so inches of snow from that pretty little snow earlier in the week turned first to slush and then mud and then simply puddles. Sometime yesterday afternoon the cabin basement started to flood. So it was time to drag out the pumps. I would pump out the basement and so turn off the pumps and then within an hour or so, the basement was filling up again. I played that round of fun and games several times.

Then sometime after midnight, the rain turned to sleet and then snow. So now, I had a flooded basement with a falling temperature and snow. At some point the water hose taking the water out of the basement froze, and I was left to use the baby, battery-operated pump. Fortunately, by this time, the basement was no longer filling up with water quite so fast.

And now? Well, once the basement gets down to about .25 inch of water, none of the pumps will work, and that’s the situation now. And fortunately, the day is now above freezing, so the spectre of a frozen basement is past, at least until after sunset. Hopefully by then that last remaining quart inch of water will have drained away, if for no other reason than I need a good night’s sleep.

So you see, life in a cabin isn’t all sweetness and light, beauty and interesting birds or animals. It can be long nights of work too.

But this morning, the weather has cleared and the sky is beautiful. Of course, it’s windy and there’s ice underneath the snow (and atop the trees), but let’s pretend there’s nothing but beauty there, too.

Feeding like there's no tomorrow

That dreaded phrase, a “wintry mix,” is now part of the local forecast for Thanksgiving. It’s the “mix” part of that phrase that’s the really, ugly part. Mix usually means sleet and rain, sometimes ice. It’s never a pretty picture, that’s for sure.

The sky over the cabin has only a few clouds this morning, but the birds are already acting as though something is going to happen. Even my chickens are behaving as though they haven’t eaten in a week, judging by the way they rushed me when I was brought their food out this morning. The wild birds that come to my feeders are probably the regulars who appear every day, so they really don’t have much of an excuse either, given how quickly my feeders empty each day. But excuse or not, this morning the birds are feeding as though there will be no food tomorrow, and we all know that won’t be the case.

I enjoy winter quite a bit, but to me that assumes winter brings snow. November and early December are more likely to produce a “wintry mix,” and that I can do without.

At the cabin, I thought I was pretty well prepared for winter—until the door knob fell off yesterday morning. So that’s one more things that needs taken care of. Ah, the joys of cabin ownership. It’s always something.

Here in the U.S. tomorrow is Thanksgiving, or “Turkey Day” as it is euphemistically described. Everyone always eats too much on Thanksgiving. That’s a requirement of the holiday, and I won’t be an exception to the rule. The birds around my cabin, both the tame ones and the wild ones, will have plenty to fill their tummies, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

After the storm comes chores

The remnants of tropical storm Nicole pounded Roundtop Mtn. with several inches of rain yesterday. Fortunately, much of the worst of the storm missed the mountain. I did lose power for a while, but I lose power all the time here, so that’s not very unusual.

The rain fell so fast and hard for a while that it literally hurt to be outside in that downpour. The worst of the storm was over by late yesterday afternoon, though rain showers still fell on and off through the night. Pretty much all the rain I should have gotten throughout the summer fell yesterday.

This morning the sky was already beginning to clear, as you can see from today’s photo. The sky suddenly has that October look to it. At the cabin this morning, Dog surprised a small family of wandering raccoons, no doubt making their first appearance after holing up during the storm. We weren’t very close to them, but we were close enough for him to see them, which was more excitement than I needed at 5:45 in the morning.

With the clearing weather comes some very fall-like temperatures, which means one of my chores for this weekend will entail bringing in most of the houseplants that spent the summer outside. Another chore will be at least a start to clearing off the front and back decks, now littered with twigs and clumps of downed leaves that fell during the storm.

It’s not just birds and plants that are different during the seasons. My chores vary with the seasons, as well. And it’s time to get to work on at least some of my fall chores.

Some days are sweeter than others

Last evening a real doozy of a storm ripped across Roundtop Mtn. Pea-sized hail, lightning, 2” of rain in about 20 minutes, and just 150 yards or so from the cabin several trees fell and blocked the road for a while. A sign was ripped off its wood frame and pieces scattered up the road.

My neighbor said he “heard the freight train” that is the usual indicator of a tornado. But this morning, we didn’t see any signs of twisting, so I’m now thinking it was just a strong burst of straight line winds. In any event, I didn’t have any such wind at the cabin just a few yards away. Even my potted tree remained standing, and it usually blows over in even a moderate wind.

Electricity was out for a few minutes, and apparently lightning struck something related to the phones, as they were out somewhat longer. In any event, it was a wild and wooly evening, much belied by this morning’s photo of the blooming wild honeysuckle.

Have you ever sucked the honey out of a honeysuckle? It’s a tiny drop of sweet nectar and it’s how the plant got its name. I always show the kids at Adventure Camp how to sip this honey. Most them have never heard of such a thing and think it’s a wondrous trick. Simply pull the tiny flower off the vine at the base of the flower, and a tiny drop of nectar will appear at the end.

The aroma of the flower is enough to make you dizzy with delight, and humans are hardly the only species to find it so. Bees, hummingbirds, butterflies—all flock to the flowers.

Sometimes I think nature is all about high drama. Grant opera has nothing on Grandmother Nature. She’s a real diva—raging one moment and then calm and gentle the next. The sweet smell of the honeysuckle follows the angriest storm.

Well, that wasn't a lot of fun...

As far as the weather goes, this past weekend was as nasty as it gets without being an ice storm, a tornado or a flood. Most nor’easters move up the coast quickly and don’t affect the local weather for 3.5 days. This time a cold, hard, wind-driven rain fell continuously, and the temperature ranged between 35-38.

As soon as the rain lessened to a drizzle on Sunday morning, I was out with my camera. The forecast was for more wind, and I was afraid the fall colors would disappear before I could see them. The rain finally let up for good in the mid-morning, and within 5-10 minutes the sky was alive with birds. The turkey vultures were even aloft before the rain completely stopped. The poor things were probably starving and seemed to spend the entire storm sitting in dead trees and looking miserable.

Within moments after the rain stopped, the sky filled with south-bound Canada geese. I don’t know where they were sheltering from the storm, perhaps along the Susquehanna River, but in any event many big flocks were moving south throughout the morning and into the afternoon. They wasted no time getting aloft, probably figuring they had waited too long as it was.

During the storm my bird feeders were largely empty. It was as though the cabin birds didn’t want to come out of wherever they were hiding. I now suspect they simply weren’t eating much at all. I noticed that even my chickens didn’t eat or drink their usual amount during the storm, and they were largely sheltered from the weather and had food and water readily available.

But once the storm cleared, the feeder was soon full of birds who soon emptied it. The chickens were the same. And it’s not just birds that are suddenly out and about. This morning a fox crossed the road in front of me as I drove off Roundtop, and it was carrying something large, I think a rabbit, as it did so. It seems that humans and beasts and fowl are all taking advantage of the clearing weather.

I took today's photo at Gifford Pinchot State Park, just a few miles from the cabin. Even though the weather has now cleared, you can expect more fall rain photos this week. It's once again gotten too dark to take photos during the week, so I have to take a week's worth on the weekends.

Warning: Photo not from today

The fall colors were shaping up nicely along the lane up to the cabin. Then this long nor’easter moved in, and it already feels as though the storm has been hanging around here forever. And it will be another two days before it probably clears out. The weather feels as raw as an open wound. About the only thing that would be less pleasant, I think, is an ice storm.

It’s dark and cold and rainy and windy. I could barely entice the dogs to leave the cabin this morning. The cats hadn’t left the bed by the time I headed for work, not even when I put food in their dishes. It’s 35 degrees, though I haven’t seen a single snowflake, which is a bit surprising. I’ve often seen it snow hard at 35 degrees. I guess it’s too wet for snow here, though just a bit further north there’s plenty of it.

Not even the feeder birds were making an appearance this morning. Everyone and everything is still hunkered down. I hope some good fall color will be left when the storm finally clears at the end of the weekend, but I’m not counting on it.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Nearly every day, I find another little sign that spring is here. A little sign today, a little one tomorrow, and after a week or two, that all adds up to a lot of indications that the season is changing. This morning I saw a male eastern goldfinch that was about half-changed into his bright yellow and black breeding plumage.

On Sunday I saw the usual group of goldfinch among the pine siskins at my feeders. Not one of those had started to molt. So, is this a "new" goldfinch? Has the molt started since then and already progressed that quickly? Did I simply miss seeing this particular goldfinch this weekend? I have no idea. I only know that Mr. Goldfinch and his lady-love appeared at the feeders this morning, and he is already starting to look rather dashing.

Both this early morning and last evening I saw lots of migrating turkey vultures. The birds are flying both earlier and later in the day than is usual for them. I am blaming the weather for that. After several days of overcast and misty weather, yesterday was clear but windy, today will be sunny and less windy. Tomorrow brings the first of three days of rain. So the birds have only a limited opening for a little northward migration.

Birds have a heightened sense of weather systems moving in, weather moving out and when they’d better make hay and just move. They easily sense high and low pressure systems—you would too if you could fly. But their ability to see or sense systems that aren’t here yet, is to my mind, even more impressive. That ability seems extra-fine-tuned, some mechanism that allows them to know far more than just what weather is here today and extends that to also knowing what will be tomorrow and beyond.

It’s one thing for me to look at the radar and see that storm system over in Indiana, but when you see 10,000 raptors move earlier in the season than is their typical pattern ahead of a group of systems that is going to shut down migration for at least a week, you know they are seeing or sensing it, too. That’s amazing.

Hail or sleet?...and drama in the morning woods

Yesterday afternoon, I suddenly heard a racket on the roof like I’ve never heard here before. I first thought it was the mother of all sudden rainstorms, but when I looked out the door I saw large icy things bouncing to the ground. I first thought "huge sleet" and then, "no, hail." So which is it? I had to check my weather definitions to be sure, and even after doing that I still think I had both. I think the first few seconds of the bouncing, large icy things was hail. Then after a minute or two, the large icy things were not longer quite as large, and they might have been sleet.

Sleet forms after it falls from a cloud. Hail is formed inside a cloud when water is forced upward, usually by a thunderstorm cloud. Typically, hail comes in warmer weather and sleet in winter. We did have a clap or two of thunder when this brief but intense storm first came through. I think we went from hail to sleet to rain, all in the space of less than five minutes. Yesterday was one of those wild weather events.

Does Dog look guilty to you? He should. And even if he does, he doesn’t look nearly guilty enough. As I reported yesterday, rifle deer season opened in Pennsylvania Monday morning, bringing hunters up my private lane and past the cabin. So, the dogs are not being walked beyond the driveway to the cabin for a bit. As a result, I am now the unproud owner of two wild, exercise-deprived dogs. This morning Dog showed me just how bad a thing this can be.

So it’s just after 5:30 a.m. and the two of us are walking along the driveway when one of the hunters, in a big red pickup slowly starts to inch his way up the lane. In the first place, Dog hates vehicles, and more than that, he hates vehicles other than mine coming up the lane and worst of all, he hates pickups. A pickup coming up the lane towards the driveway to the cabin is the worst of all possible evils to him. So Dog goes wild. He lunges against the leash and won’t stop. Before I know it, he has pulled the leash out of my hands and goes running up the lane after the pickup.

There I am in the complete darkness of early morning, hurrying up the mountain on the second day of buck season, chasing a dog who’s chasing a big red pickup. I yell for Dog to stop. That does no good. I try to call him to me. That does no good. I keep heading up the road, yelling for Dog, hoping the pickup guy, who at this point probably doesn’t even know Dog is chasing him, isn’t planning to hunt over in the next county. Near the top of the mountain, as I am running out of breath, the road reaches an abandoned ski slope, and along this grassy area I see the pickup guy stuck inside his truck because Dog won’t let him out.

I grab Dog, who still needs to be dragged away. In his mind, he’s caught the pickup, it's now his, and he isn’t going to give it up. I apologize profusely to the guy who was hoping to sneak into the mountain to go deer hunting, and pull Dog back down towards the cabin. And all this before 6 a.m. in the morning. Drama like this I don’t need.

I probably ruined that poor guy’s day of hunting. The deer around the cabin are used to humans, though, so perhaps to them it was no big deal. Life in the big woods—there’s never a dull moment.

Rainy Friday

The time of the year has come when it is now too dark for me to take a photo in the morning before I leave for work. I will miss that. For a few weeks yet I'll still be able to take an evening photo, so the photos I post will only be 12 hours old or so. But in another month even that will be gone, and then it will be time to try and take a week's worth of photos on the weekends. I've never been able to perfect that routine.

This morning I have a nor'easter blowing rain from the east. The weather people say I can't call this a hurricane as the storm doesn't have "tropical characteristics." But on the mountain where I sit, this storm doesn't look any different than Hannah or Gustav or Ike. One storm or another is supposed to keep my weekend a rainy one. The area can use the rain, so I'm not complaining, though I am looking forward to seeing what comes after the storm.

I expect that a storm like this will push the weather, the migrants and the animals even deeper into fall, and that's what will be interesting to see. So until the weather clears, I will busy myself with the never-ending indoor chores that I don't enjoy nearly as much as playing in the outdoors. The dogs will curl around my feet, and the cats will cuddle close, prentending to be cold. I'll have a cup of tea in the afternoon and later, perhaps a glass of wine. It won't be so bad.

Passings

Another storm has passed, and fall now feels ever more settled in on the mountain. The early morning had a nip to the air that wasn’t there just 24 hours ago. I am starting to think about closing the cabin windows and wondering if tonight is the night I should bring in the plants that summered happily outside on the deck.

Perhaps not. Perhaps not just yet. Another day, perhaps a week, and then it will be time. For now, I will let them enjoy a few more days of sunshine and let them feel the night’s nip another time or two so they know I did not deprive them of days they might better have enjoyed outside. For them, winter is long enough. The days inside must seem endless and the summers short. In the spring they will look peaked, and I always hope it will warm up fast enough to set them out again before they die. By the time summer ends, they look fantastic and lush, and I want them to hold onto that as long as they can. Another day.

Storm coming, fall coming

Storms are moving through Roundtop again. It was brighter at 6:30 this morning than it was at 7:30 a.m. The approaching storm made it too dark to take a photo amongst the trees in my little corner of the forest. By the time I left the cabin this morning, it was nearly as dark as midnight. Beyond the cover of the forest, the morning looked only a little less dark, but it was bright enough to grab a shot before the sky opened up and the thunder rattled the hills.

I don’t like being away from the cabin when a strong storm of any kind is overhead. I think it is simply because I feel I will be able to do something if a tree falls on it or the basement fills up. I don’t like being at work with the worry in my head that something might have happened and that I won’t be able to see it or deal with it until I get home. Now, the odds are that nothing has happened, but until I know nothing has happened I won’t be able to relax.

Indeed, the leading edge of this storm has already passed, and autumn will blow in behind it. In the space of 3 days, the season has turned. Summer humidity is gone and the forecast shows no indication it will return. The nights now call for a blanket on the bed (albeit a light one), and the cats suddenly want to cuddle.

Hurricane Hanna’s breeze brought down most of the drought-withered leaves. They now litter my lane like a harbinger of the fall to come. The other result of that is that the forest suddenly looks green again, instead of green and yellow, but the shade is now that deep, dull green that is the last green before the leaves turn bright and then fall.

Fall is a favorite time of year for me. I like the weather. I like the coolness. I love the glorious shades around me. I like the changes I can see each day. Summer seems too static to me, too unchanging (though on some level I know summer is not as static as I feel it to be). Fall has drama but it's an ongoing drama, not the lightning bolts of summer. Fall suits me more and gives me nearly 2 months in which to enjoy it. I will revel in it. Happy fall!

Hanna is Gone! Fall is Here!

Hurricane Hanna turned Saturday into a very wet and rather windy day here on Roundtop, but arrived and disappeared so quickly it now feels as though she was never here at all. Friday was a lovely day, if warmer than I like. Saturday morning brought Hanna and with it heavy rainfall totaling about 3 inches through late afternoon. The wind picked up in the mid-afternoon but was never severe. The rain stopped suddenly around 5 p.m. and by 9 p.m. the stars were out. Sunday was a picture perfect and cool day. Hanna was already long gone.

So Sunday, I needed to get out and walk around, after being cooped up inside all day on Saturday. I’d like to report that I discovered a new species of something or saw the extremely rare something else, but that’s not the case. Sunday was simply a beautiful and cooler day with perfectly blue skies.

Now that Hanna has passed, it’s probably likely that the turn towards fall will grow ever more pronounced. It’s not likely that I will have any more 90+ degree days—not that this summer brought very many of those. I may not even have many, if any, more 85+ degree days. And it’s entirely possible that days in the 80-85 degree range could also be in short supply. And for at least the next week the weather will be in the 75-80 degree range—typical for this time of year.

With the passing of Hanna, migration should also really begin to pick up this week, and not just for my beloved raptors, either. I am already seeing some of that. Yesterday I heard and briefly saw an olive-sided flycatcher. I didn’t have my binoculars with me, so all I really saw was a tiny flycatcher sitting on the top of a dead snag, some 50 feet up. But I heard that distinctive "quick, three beers" call. Olive-sided flycatchers have a particular propensity for dead snags to perch on, preferably, I think if they are on the top of a tree. For many years a dead snag on North Lookout at Hawk Mountain was a favorite spot for them. I suspect hundreds, if not thousands, of birders got their first looks at this flycatcher, myself included, when one stopped and stayed for a bit on that particular snag.

So now is the time to dust off those binoculars and get out the field guides. Migration season is on its way!

Dark and Stormy

It was a dark and stormy night....and morning....and well, much of the weekend, actually. Saturday was nice, but a tornado warning on Thursday evening just added to the stormy pattern I'm seeing right now.

The upside is that the weather has been much cooler than is typical for August, which is fine with me, except that over the years I've learned that a cool August usually means a hot September, and I can do without that during hawkwatching season. It's not just because I sunburn easily, either. Hot or warmer than average Sepember weather means this area doesn't get the northwest winds that brings fall hawks. They end up flying elsewhere or fly in a broad front so no one sees many hawks. Been there, done that, was hoping this year wouldn't be a repeat.

And speaking of hawkwatches, the first hawkwatches are already starting their fall seasons. Hawk Mountain, Waggoner's Gap, Second Mountain, Raccoon Ridge, Johnson City and Corpus Christi are already counting a few hawks. August hawkwatching can have its own rewards. It's a good time to get the eyes "dialed in" and ready for those fast and furious days of September. If you go to a popular hawkwatch, not many tourists will show up yet, so the hours spent on the hawkwatch are quiet and enjoyable. August is also a good time to catch up on the lives of the few fellow hawkwatchers who will be on the mountain with you, so you won't be chatting about Johnny's graduation and miss something good flying by. All that will done with by the time September rolls around.

Waggoner's Gap had a good early season day on Saturday, with 33 Broad-winged Hawks and 3 Bald Eagles among the 51 birds seen that day. Many sites won't start until August 15 and the rest won't start until September 1.

Broad-winged Hawks will peak in this area around September 17-18, most likely. During a good flight, sites will see thousands of these birds. If you live near a Great Lakes site, you may well see tens of thousands of these small hawks. The third week of October is a good time to see the biggest variety of species, with 14 species of hawks possible. In this area I usually figure on October 20-21 as being a great time for that. It's not too early to plan a trip to your nearest hawkwatch. Before the season gets going full bore, I'll give you a few tips on what to take with your for a day at your local hawkwatch.